---
title: "Ijtihad & Islamic Reform in the Modern World"
description: "Trace ijtihad, the closing of its gate, and modern reform movements from Shah Wali Allah to Iqbal and today's fiqh councils, framed for the CSS Islamic Studies"
url: "https://modeldiplomat.com/learn/lessons/css-islamic-studies-islam-and-the-modern-world-ijtihad-reform"
---

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Islam and the modern world: ijtihad & reform

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# Islam and the modern world: ijtihad & reform

CSS Islamic Studies lesson on ijtihad, the closing of its gate, and modern reform movements from Shah Wali Allah to Iqbal and contemporary fiqh councils.

## What ijtihad is, and its sources

Ijtihad (from *j-h-d*, to exert effort) is the exercise of independent juristic reasoning to derive a ruling (*hukm*) where the *Qur'an* and *Sunnah* are silent or ambiguous. Its classical instruments are *qiyas* (analogical deduction), *ijma* (consensus), *istihsan* (juristic preference, favoured by the Hanafis), *istislah* / *maslaha mursala* (unregulated public interest, developed by Imam Malik and systematised by al-Shatibi in *al-Muwafaqat*, d. 1388), and *urf* (custom). The textual warrant is the *hadith* of Mu'adh ibn Jabal, dispatched to Yemen by the Prophet, who pledged to judge by the *Qur'an*, then the *Sunnah*, then *ajtahidu ra'yi* (I will exert my own reasoning).

## The maqasid framework

Reformist ijtihad rests heavily on *maqasid al-shari'a* — the higher objectives of the law. Al-Ghazali (d. 1111) in *al-Mustasfa* enumerated five necessities (*daruriyyat*) the Shari'a exists to protect: religion (*din*), life (*nafs*), intellect (*aql*), lineage (*nasl*), and property (*mal*). Al-Shatibi elevated *maqasid* into a complete theory, ranking interests as *daruriyyat*, *hajiyyat* (needs), and *tahsiniyyat* (embellishments). Modern reformers — Rashid Rida, Ibn Ashur in *Maqasid al-Shari'a al-Islamiyya* (1946), and Yusuf al-Qaradawi — argue that fidelity to these objectives, not literalist replication of medieval rulings, is the authentic method for new questions: organ transplantation, banking, bioethics.

## The 'closing of the gate'

The oft-cited thesis that *bab al-ijtihad* (the gate of ijtihad) closed around the 4th/10th century — after the four Sunni schools (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i, Hanbali) crystallised — is contested. Joseph Schacht popularised the 'closure' claim; Wael Hallaq's 1984 article *Was the Gate of Ijtihad Closed?* demonstrated that *mujtahids* continued operating throughout. What did harden was *taqlid* (imitation of an established school) as the default for ordinary jurists. The reform impulse of the 18th–20th centuries was, in essence, a summons to reopen ijtihad against unreflective *taqlid* — a debate a CSS candidate must be able to state on both sides.

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