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| Ijithad: Applying Islam in the 21st century |
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Indeed, the subject of ijtihad addresses two important questions regarding Islam's continual relevance that are often thought to support reasons for its reform. Firstly, the specificity of Islam to the circumstances of seventh century Arabia and, secondly, the ability for the finite body of Islamic texts left by the Prophet of Islam (peace be upon him) to address ever changing human problems.
Regarding the first, Islam's legislative rules and principles are founded on a doctrine that views problems as extending from the needs of human beings as human beings. That is to say, not in their racial, regional or tribal context, or as a reaction to a particular social condition; or as Muslims or non-Muslims, but as human beings. It is only a specific doctrine inasmuch as it is specific to all human beings. It is a timeless conception of the human condition, for it is not man's nature that changes with the passage of time, but his material circumstances; the complexity of material and technology, which develop through continuous scientific endeavour.
Man's innate needs, whether basic organic requirements such as the need for food, clothing and shelter or basic instinctual drives such as survival, justice and security, remain consistent. Furthermore, the needs that extend from this basic constitution such as the need to regulate political, social and economic relationships individually or collectively are also seen to exist across the expanse of human history. Though their manifestations may change, it could not be said that new needs have manifested or that the existing ones always increase, either in complexity or propensity. New world-views, thoughts and beliefs may develop over time and emerge at various points in human history, but these too do not represent a shift in man's fundamental nature, intellect or needs. Since the Islamic system addresses problems as demands extending from this consistent human nature, it is continually applicable and a consistent source of solutions for tackling human problems.
Indeed, it is not thoughts, but things that time may render obsolete. An idea is invalidated by identifying its intellectual shortcomings whereas material things are replaced and considered obsolete as scientific and engineering progress produces increasing material sophistication.
Ijtihad is a legal tool employed by jurists to extract legislation for any number of new problems from the original Islamic texts. It is a defined process established by Mohammed (peace be upon him) during his lifetime and allows the finite body of Islamic texts to address, in detail, previously unfamiliar events. The key aspects of ijtihad that make this possible relate to analogy and to a process of linking the subject matter of contemporary problems with similar occurrences in the Islamic texts and precepts. The pivotal role of analogy in the process ijtihad is such that the leading Islamic jurist Mohammed Idris al-Shafi'i, in his book al-Risalah, went as far as to equate the two:
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