Chapter 3: ‘Ijtihad’ in the Shi’ah Tradition

Until the fourth/tenth and the fifth/eleventh centuries we observe that whenever the word is used by a scholar it carries the sense of qiyas and ra’y. For instance, Shaykh Abu Ja’far al-Tusi (d. 460/1067), in his ‘Uddat al-‘usul, devotes a chapter to qiyas. He devotes another chapter to Ijtihad where he discusses one of the issues related to ijtihad, i.e. the problem of taswib and takhti’ah. The book has another chapter entitled “Did the Prophet practise ijtihad, and whether it was legitimate for him to practise it? Was it legitimate for the Companions of the Prophet to practise ijtihad when they were away from him or were in his presence?” Later, in the course of his discussion, he says: “This controversy is basically uncalled for according to our doctrines, because, as we have proved earlier, qiyas and ijtihad are absolutely impermissible in the Shari’ah. ” 

This remark of al-Shaykh al-Tusi shows that until his age the word Ijtihad was still used in the sense of ra’y and qiyas. 

‘Ijtihad’ lexically means ‘putting in utmost effort’ in doing something. In the earliest days, the term in accordance with the traditions ascribed to the Prophet (S) and the Companions, was taken to mean ijtihad bi al-ra’y, or putting in utmost effort in the exercise of ra’y and qiyas. However, gradually it took a wider meaning and came to mean putting in utmost effort in discovering the laws of the Shari’ah from its reliable sources. Thus we see that al-Ghazali (d. 505/1 111) in his al-Mustasfa – although he uses the word recurringly in its earlier sense of qiyas, for instance, when he says: 

“They have differed as to the permissibility of practising qiyas and ijtihad during the days of the Prophet …” (vol. 2, p. 354) 

He also uses it in the general sense of scholarly effort on the part of a faqih

 “It (ijtihad) means putting in of the utmost effort in doing something. But the term has come to be used in the terminology of scholars specifically for the mujtahids putting in of the utmost effort in acquiring the knowledge of the laws of the Shariah.” (vol. 2, p. 350) 

From this time onwards we see that the term is used less frequently in the special sense of ra’y and qiyas and takes on the sense of scholarly effort in discovering the laws of the Shari’ah. With this change, the term found way into the Shi’ite fiqh also, for earlier the Shi’ah had opposed it on account of their opposition to Ijtihad bi al-ra’y, not because they were opposed to scholarly diligence. In any case, they did not resist its use after it changed its meaning. Probably the first to use this term among the Shi’ah Imamiyyah scholars was al-‘Allamah al-Hilli (d. 726/1326), who accepting it used it in its second sense in his work Tahdhib al-‘usul. In that work he devotes a chapter to Ijtihad and uses it in the sense current today. It seems that it was from this time that the Shi’ah accepted the word or the word embraced Shi’ism.

We said earlier that the opposition to qiyas was not limited to the Shi’ah and there were schools among Sunnis who either altogether rejected it and regarded it as a heresy or avoided it as much as possible. The Mu’tazilah, who advanced the doctrine of al-husn wa al-qubh al’aqliyyan, backed qiyas and ra’y in their fight against the Ahl al-Hadith who rejected it. The Ahl al-Hadith, who later came to be called Asha’irah due to their approach in kalam, rejected the doctrine of al-husn wa al-qubh al-‘aqliyyan, claiming that the desirability or undesirability of things is derived from the commands and prohibitions of the lawgiver and not vice versa. As a result, they denied reason any role in legislation of Divine laws. The controversies between the Mu’tazilah and supporters of qiyas and ra’y on one side and the Asha’irah and the Ahl al-Hadith on the other side revolve around the role of reason and its share in legislation. 

It must not be concluded from the above discussion that the Shi’ah opposition to ra’y and qiyas was also based on the same reasons as those of the Asha’irah and the Ahl al-Hadith, which was outright opposition to the role of reason in deduction of the laws of the Shari’ah. The Shi’i opposition to qiyas and ra’y had two reasons. The first was that the claim of the supporters of qiyas that the Book and the Sunnah are not adequate sources of legislation was not acceptable to the Imams of the Ahl al-Bayt (A). In the sermons of the Nahj al-balaghah and other Shi’i compilations of hadith the idea that the Book and the Sunnah are not adequate has been vehemently rejected. In the Usul al-Kafi, the chapter followed by another entitled: 

The second reason advanced by the Shi’ah against qiyas was that it was based on conjecture and led very frequently to error. These two reasons clearly stand out in the books of early Shi’ah scholars, and we shall abstain from further details for brevity’s sake. 

The best evidence of the fact that the Shi’ah opposition to qiyas and ra’y was not based on a hostility to the role of reason in canonical matters is that, from the very beginning that the Shiah jurisprudence was committed to writing, reason was considered one of the sources (adillah) of law. The Shi’ah jurisprudents stated that the sources of the Shari’ah are four: the Book, the Sunnah, ijma’ and ‘aql (reason), whereas the Zahiris and the Ahl al-Hadith confined the adillah to the Book, the Sunnah and ijma’, and the support’ers of ra’y and qiyas regarded them as four: the Book, the Sunnah, ijma’ and qiyas. 

The Shi’ah jurisprudents, while opposing qiyas and ra’y, accepted the Mu’tazilah viewpoint about the rational basis of ethico-legal judgements, defended it and did not oppose it like the Asha’irah and the Ahl al-Hadith. The concurrence of views between the Shi’ah and the Mu’tazilah regarding this doctrine and its corollaries – such as the doctrine of Divine justice – led the Shi’ah among the Mu’tazilah to be known as ‘Adliyyah and the Shi’ah left behind the Mu’tazilah in their support of the doctrine of Divine justice. As a result, it came to be said in scholarly circles that: “justice and tawhid are ‘Alawid and fatalism and anthropomorphism are Umayyad.” 

The reason for calling justice ‘Alawid was that the supporters of the Ahl al-Bayt (A) were also defenders of the doctrine of al-husn wa al-qubh al-‘aqliyyan and the doctrine of justice was a corollary to it. As to tawhid being ‘Alawid, it was on account of the belief in the unity of Divine Essence and Attributes. The Umayyads supported jabr (fatalism) and tashbih (anthropomorphism) due to political exigencies. The issue of the independent capacity of reason to perceive the good and evil of things, and the subsidiary doctrine of justice, became so much a characteristic of the Shi’ah that justice came to be recognized as one of the principal tenets of the Shi’ite creed. 

That the Shi’ite opposition to ra’y and qiyas is not to be taken to have been an opposition to the role of reason in ijtihad becomes completely obvious when we examine the extant documentary evidence. At the present the Shi’ah state the principle of the interrelation of Divine laws and actual benefits and harms and the principle of harmony between reason and religious law in these words: 

“Whatever is the judgement of reason, is also the judgement of the Shari’ah.”

This is an incontrovertible axiom of Shi’ite jurisprudence. The above discussion makes it clear that the Shi’ah Imamiyyah approach to ijtihad was an independent one: it was neither bound to ra’y and qiyas, nor did it impose any bounds on reason in the manner of the Ahl al-Hadith. The Imamiyyah jurists on the one hand recognized the rights of reason and regarded it as one of the sources of law, on the other hand they rejected qiyas and ijtihad bi al-ra’y in their books on jurisprudence, in chapters devoted to qiyas. However, it would have been in order if the latter scholars had followed the ancient ones in discussing qiyas and ra’y in their works. It would have helped to define the exact limits of the prohibited form of qiyas, which would have been better understood. This would have prevented some individuals from waging a battle against reason under the pretext of opposition to qiyas. In fact it would have been better for scholars to devote a separate chapter to reason and rational grounds in their works on jurisprudence, in which they could delineate more precisely the role of reason and also discuss, secondarily, the inadmissibility of qiyas. In view of this author, the absence of any discussion by the latter scholars about the inadmissible form of qiyas and the limits of the role of reason in legislation has been more or less detrimental to Shi’ah fiqh and ijtihad.

We should know that the great secret of Islam, from the viewpoint of the Imams of the Ahl al-Bayt (A), is the principle that the general laws of the Book and the Sunnah are sufficient for satisfying the religious needs of Muslims for all time, and that they have no need of ra’y and qiyas. It is characteristic of all Islamic laws that they are not only not hindersome to human progress in any era, but are conducive to it by guiding and directing it in the right direction. All that is needed to grasp this great secret is to have an enlightened and firm grasp of the vital issues. This great secret of the resourcefulness of Islam can also be called ‘the great secret of ijtihad’. To be certain, if an independent chapter were devoted to the above topic in books on jurisprudence, some of the existing contradictions and constraints in the relationship between fiqh and progress would have been eliminated. This problem requires an independent study and here we shall abstain from going into further details. 

In the course of history, those Sunni schools of fiqh which were more rigid and formalistic and allowed lesser role to reason in deduction of laws, either disappeared gradually or the number of their followers diminished. The Zahiris, who followed Dawud ibn ‘Ali, became altogether extinct. The Hanbali school, which after the Zahiri is the most rigid and formalistic of Sunni schools, gradually lost followers, and had it not been for the appearance of Ibn Taymiyyah, who provided the material on which Wahhabism was later to thrive, perhaps today the number of followers of the Hanbali school would have been very small. 

The school of Malik spread only in North Africa and Maghrib, away from the centres of Islamic culture, and, as Ibn Khaldun says, the cause of the spreading of the school of Malik in North Africa and Maghrib was that the inhabitants were Beduins who lived away from the centres of science and culture. In any case, the rigid and formalistic Sunni schools declined and lost followers with the passage of time.