Ijtihād
from 800 Classical from the ninth century; the closing of its gate is disputed
Where the sources genuinely do not settle the matter, a qualified person reasons to an answer on their own responsibility — and may be wrong without being blameworthy.
- Active
- from 800
- Where
- Baghdad, Cairo, Cordoba
- Also
- ijtihād
- Status
- In use
- Tradition
- Non-Western procedures
What it is
Ijtihād is the exertion of independent judgement to reach a ruling where the established sources do not determine one. It is bounded: it applies only where the sources are silent or ambiguous, only to those qualified, and only on the reasoner's own responsibility.
Its most striking feature is what it says about error. A qualified jurist who reasons carefully and reaches the wrong answer is not blamed — the effort itself is what was owed. That is a doctrine about the ethics of judgement under uncertainty, and it is unusual.
How it works
Establish that the sources do not settle the matter, which requires knowing them thoroughly enough to be sure. Establish that you are qualified — the tradition sets demanding conditions. Reason from the available materials, including the purposes the law is understood to serve. Reach a ruling and own it as your own. Do not present it as what the sources require.
The last step is the honest one. A ruling reached by ijtihād is not the same kind of thing as a ruling found in a source, and blurring the two is the standard abuse.
The moves, in order
- Establish that the sources do not settle the question
- Establish that the reasoner is qualified to address it
- Reason from the available materials and the purposes at stake
- Reach a ruling and take responsibility for it
- Do not present the ruling as something the sources determined
The procedure
Proposition The standard does not cover this fixing, and a decision must still be made.
- The engineer is asked to certify a bracket connection for a composite panel the standard does not address. The first task is establishing that the silence is real: the standard covers steel-to-steel and steel-to-timber, the commentary addresses neither composite, and the referenced test method has no composite specimen.
- Qualification: the engineer is registered in the relevant category and has designed in this material, which is the condition for reasoning independently rather than referring the matter on.
- Reasoning from available materials: the standard's stated purpose is to prevent connection failure before member failure, its steel provisions work by capping connection capacity below member capacity, and that purpose is achievable here by the same means with a test-derived capacity.
- The ruling: specify the connection at sixty per cent of the tested panel capacity, with two test specimens, and document the reasoning.
- And the last step, which the certificate must carry: this is the engineer's judgement, not a deemed-to-satisfy solution, and it is offered as a performance solution with the reasoning attached.
Therefore The connection is specified, and the certificate records that it rests on the engineer's own reasoning rather than on compliance with a provision, which is the only honest way to certify a case the standard does not reach.
The doctrine about error applies directly. An engineer who reasons carefully from the standard's purpose and turns out to be wrong is in a different position from one who claimed a provision covered the case when it did not.
What it is good for
Professional judgement wherever rules run out — engineering, medicine, audit, regulation. Its real contribution is the requirement to say plainly that you are exercising judgement rather than applying a rule.
Where it fails
The qualification test is controlled by the existing authorities, which makes it a mechanism for restricting who may reason as much as a licence to reason. Who counts as qualified has been contested for a thousand years and the contest has usually been about power.
And the boundary is elastic. Whether the sources are genuinely silent is itself a judgement, and a reasoner who wants to reason independently will find silence more readily than one who does not.
The traditional account that the gate of ijtihād closed around the tenth century — that all questions were settled and only imitation remained — has been substantially undermined by Hallaq's work showing it went on being practised throughout. That the closing was widely believed in anyway is a fact about the sociology of a discipline rather than about the method.
Common misconceptions
That it means anyone may interpret as they like. The conditions are severe, and the tradition's anxiety has always been about unqualified reasoning rather than about reasoning as such.
Where it came from
Classical Islamic legal theory from the ninth century, alongside qiyās as one of the instruments of the jurist.
What became of it
Widely believed to have ceased and demonstrably practised throughout, with calls for its revival a recurring theme in modern Islamic thought.
Lasting influence
The framework within which Islamic law addresses anything new, and a live topic in every modern debate about reform.
Why it still matters
High, and transferable well outside its origin.
Put another way
Signing your own name to a decision rather than citing a clause.
Texts
Wael Hallaq, Was the Gate of Ijtihad Closed?
The 1984 paper that overturned the standard account, by examining whether the practice actually stopped.
Where to start
Read Hallaq's paper. It is a model of how a received historical claim gets tested.
The surprising bit
The most widely repeated fact about ijtihād — that its gate closed in the tenth century — appears to be a later story that historians have found little evidence for.
In their own words
If the judge exerts himself and is correct he has two rewards, and if he exerts himself and errs he has one
Who held it
Wael Hallaq
Connections
- Relies on
- Qiyās
The verdict
An honest account of what to do when the rules run out, wrapped in a qualification test that has often been about authority rather than competence.