mujtihad
Noun: An Islamic scholar who is qualified and engages in ijtihad, which is the independent reasoning or effort to derive specific legal rulings and principles of Islamic law (Sharia) from its foundational sacred texts, primarily the Qur'an and the Sunnah.
The term is used specifically within Islamic jurisprudence to refer to a scholar who has attained a high level of expertise and authority to perform original legal interpretation. - The council of senior clerics included several respected mujtahids who could issue rulings on contemporary issues. - In the early centuries of Islam, there were many mujtahids who founded different schools of legal thought.
- Absolute Mujtihad (): A scholar with the authority to derive law from the primary sources and establish a new school of jurisprudence.
- Qualified Mujtihad (): A scholar who performs but within the framework of an established school of law ().
- Ijtihad (noun): The process of independent legal reasoning undertaken by a .
- Taqlid (noun): The opposite practice of following the legal rulings of a without engaging in independent reasoning.
- Jurist (in the specific Islamic context)
- Legal scholar (Islamic law)
Historically, the concept and recognition of who qualifies as a mujtihad have varied between different Islamic schools and eras. Some traditions hold that the "gate of ijtihad" closed in the medieval period, while others maintain that qualified mujtahids continue to exist.
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an Islamic scholar who engages in ijtihad, the effort to derive rules of divine law from Muslim sacred texts
