Fiqh al-Ijtihad wal-Taqlid — Independent Legal Reasoning and Following a Madhhab: The Debate About Whether Ordinary Muslims Must Follow a School, Whether Ijtihad Is Closed, and the Modern Movement to Reopen Independent Reasoning in Islamic Law

Fiqh al-Ijtihad wal-Taqlid (فِقهُ الاجتِهَادِ وَالتَّقلِيد — Jurisprudence of Independent Reasoning and Following a School; *ijtihad* from *j-h-d*: to exert maximum effort — the scholar's full intellectual effort to arrive at a legal ruling directly from the sources; *taqlid* from *q-l-d*: to follow, to put a collar on — accepting the ruling of a scholar or school without requiring its proof; the classical hierarchy of religious authority: [1] mujtahid mutlaq [absolute independent jurist]: can derive rulings directly from Quran, Sunna, ijma', and qiyas without reference to any earlier school — Abu Hanifa, Malik, al-Shafi'i, Ahmad ibn Hanbal; [2] mujtahid muntasib [affiliated jurist]: works within a school's framework but can apply its principles to new cases; [3] muqallid [follower]: accepts the school's rulings; the 'closing of the door of ijtihad' [insidad bab al-ijtihad]: the classical claim that by approximately 300 AH / 900 CE, the major legal questions had been resolved by the founding imams and later scholars could only follow and apply [taqlid], not independently derive law [ijtihad]; this claim is contested: [1] historically — many post-300 AH scholars clearly did exercise ijtihad; [2] theoretically — no classical scholar explicitly 'closed the door'; it is more a sociological shift than a formal decision; the taqlid obligation: who must do taqlid? The non-specialist Muslim [layperson] must follow a school [Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i, or Hanbali]; a qualified scholar should exercise ijtihad where they can; the talfiq issue: following different schools for different questions — e.g., Hanafi for prayer, Maliki for financial transactions — classical scholars generally criticized this as impermissible shopping for easier rulings; modern positions: Rashid Rida, Muhammad Abduh, and later scholars argued for reopening ijtihad; contemporary Islamic finance relies heavily on applied ijtihad to handle instruments the classical schools never addressed; the AAOIFI/OIC Fiqh Academy function as collective ijtihad institutions) is the central issue of Islamic legal authority.