Mujtahid

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A Mujtahid (مجتهد‎, ’muğtahid) is a Muslim jurist who is sufficiently qualified in fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) in order to interpret the Sharia (as found in the Qur'an and Hadith) such that they can generate Islamic law. The practice of a mujtahid is called ijtihad. Alternative conceptions of the nature of divine authority between the Sunni and Shi'ite sects of Islam means that the qualifications and activity (ijtihad) of mujtahids are imagined differently.

Qualifications of a mujtahid

Sunni qualifications

The qualifications for a Sunni mujtahid were set out most famously in the 11^th century by Abul Husayn al-Basri in al Mu’tamad fi Usul al-Fiqh. These were accepted by later Sunni scholars, including al-Ghazali, although al-Ghazali believed that all positive innovation had ended, as there was nobody qualified to be a Mujtahid. Such qualifications require proficiency in Shari'ah and its interpretation. This became a common perspective following the 13th and 14th centuries and resulted in what many described as the "closing of the doors of ijtihad", in favor of simply referencing the authority of highly esteemed scholars from the earlier centuries that came to be known as "the golden age of Islamic law".

The basic logic justifying the practice of ijtihad (that is, an independently produced interpretation of Islam and Islamic law in particular) is explained by some Sunni authorities as being founded in the permissibility of having an opinion based on personal reasoning, or ra'y (that is, anything beyond the explicit statements of the Islamic scriptures). While in the earliest years of Islamic history the companions of Muhammad and some of the first and even some of the second subsequent generations were deemed sufficiently qualified authorities on scripture capable of independently interpreting his message prior to the advent of formal juristic methodology and the madh'habs, the development of formalized fiqh, the development of a gigantic and growing body of hadith literature (most, Islamic scholars accept, of dubious origin), the development of the new (and largely invented) fields of Arabic grammar and logic, and the emergence of a semi-hierarchicalized clerical class all meant that decreasingly few individuals could be considered competent interpreters of Islam in general and of the unendingly complicated body of Islamic law in particular. In future centuries, the growing legacies of each of the four Sunni Madh'habs would make matters even more complicated, as potential mujtahids would have to not only be familiar with the vast array of scriptures and related subjects themselves. but also of their development over time.

Eventually, scholars began delineating specific and increasingly astronomical criteria for those who would seek to present independent and novel interpretations of Islamic law. This meant not only that fewer and fewer scholars (and eventually, one might argue, none at all) were empowered to pursue a creative engagement with Islamic scriptures, but also that the overwhelming majority of trained Islamic scholars would be restricted to practicing taqlid, or the "blind" repetition and emulation of esteemed jurists who, in most cases, had been dead for centuries. Eventually, some would argue that the only true mujtahids had been the founders of the four schools of Sunni law alone (all dead within two centuries of Muhammad's death).^[1]

Shi'a qualifications

The terms of ijtihad and mujtahid in the Shi'ite tradition refer to the practice of extrapolating the rulings of Muhammad and the subsequent Shi'ite imams into times beyond the "occultation" (alleged disappearance) of the last imam. In the late eighteenth century and with the rise of the Shi'ite court system, these two terms would come to be associated with the science of formal jurisprudence, or (Shi'ite) fiqh, as outlined by Shaykh Murtada Ansari.

As with the Sunni experience, most scholars would come to be qualified only as muqallidun (that is, practitioners of taqlid, or copying the views other more qualified scholars) and only a minority would be able to engage in ijtihad as mujtahids - however, the divide would not be nearly as drastic, and where in the Sunni tradition it could conceivably be said that at one point there were no mujtahids whatsoever (with some Sunnis arguing this is still the case today and indeed the perennial condition of the ummah henceforth), there would always be and continue to be a fair number of acknowledged mujtahids in the Shi'ite world.

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