Contemporary Ijtihād, Ethics and Modernity

Abstract

The practice of independent legal reasoning (ijtihād) is a core tool for achieving the moral mission of the discipline of Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh); it generates juristic rulings that help people become morally committed humans. Without ijtihād, it would be inconceivable that Islamic divine law could achieve its moral mission in every time and every place. Modern scholarship has not fully explored the link between ijtihād and ethics. Most academic studies focused on the purported "closing" of the gate of ijihād, as demonstrated in the writings of many Western scholars (Schacht 1982, 69-75; Coulson 1978, 80; Hallaq 1984, 3-41; Ali-Karamali and Dunne 1994, 238-257). Muslim scholars who wrote critical works on ijtihād were occupied with questions related to the heritage of school-based fiqh and to what extent contemporary scholars should abide by, or move beyond, this heritage, and how ijtihād could be implemented in modern times (al