Editing Ijtihad (section)

==== Late classical period ====
Until the end of the 14th century, no voice had before actively risen to condemn the claims of ''mujtahids'' to practice ''ijtihad'' within their schools. However, the doctrine of ''Taqlid'' was steadily amassing support amongst the masses. The first incident in which ''muqallids'' openly attacked the claims of ''mujtahids'' occurred in Egypt, during the lifetime of [[Al-Suyuti|Suyuti]]. Suyuti had claimed to practice the highest degree of ''Ijtihad'' within the Shafi'i school. He advocated that Ijtihad is a backbone of [[Sharia]] and believed in the continuous existence of ''Mujtahids''.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=B. Hallaq|first=Wael|date=March 1984|title=Was the Gate of Ijtihad Closed?|url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/162939|journal=International Journal of Middle East Studies|publisher=Cambridge University Press|volume=16|issue=1|pages=27|doi=10.1017/S0020743800027598|jstor=162939|s2cid=159897995 }}</ref>

Around the 15th century, most Sunni jurists argued that all major matters of religious law had been settled, allowing for ''[[taqlid]]'' (تقليد), "the established legal precedents and traditions," to take priority over ''ijtihād'' (اجتهاد).<ref name="Oxford Islamic Studies" />{{request quotation|date=April 2016}} This move away from the practice of ''ijtihād'' was primarily made by the scholars of [[Hanafi|Hanafī]] and [[Maliki|Malikī]] schools, and a number of [[Shafii|Shafīʿi]]s, but not by [[Hanbali|Hanbalī]]s and majority of Shafīʿi jurists who believed that "true consensus" (''[[ijma|ijmāʿ]]'' اجماع), apart from that of Muhammad's Companions, did not exist" and that "the constant continuous existence of ''mujtahids'' (مجتهد) was a theological requirement."<ref name=WahhabiIslam>{{cite book|last=DeLong-Bas|first=Natana J.|author-link=Natana J. DeLong-Bas|title=Wahhabi Islam: From Revival and Reform to Global Jihad|url=https://archive.org/details/wahhabiislamfrom0000delo|url-access=registration|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]], USA|year=2004|page=[https://archive.org/details/wahhabiislamfrom0000delo/page/106 106]|edition=First|isbn=0-19-516991-3}}</ref> Although the [[Ottoman Empire|Ottoman]] clergy denied ''Ijtihad'' in theory'','' throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, the Ottoman Hanafite ''ulema'' had practiced ''Ijtihad'' to solve a number of new legal issues. Various legal rulings were formulated on a number of issues, such as the [[Waqf]] of movables, on drugs, coffee, music, tobacco, etc. However to support the official doctrine of "extinction of ''Mujtahids''", the Ottoman ''ulema'' denied ''Ijtihad'' even when it was practised.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=B. Hallaq|first=Wael|date=March 1984|title=Was the Gate of Ijtihad Closed?|url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/162939|journal=International Journal of Middle East Studies|publisher=Cambridge University Press|volume=16|issue=1|pages=30–32|doi=10.1017/S0020743800027598|jstor=162939|s2cid=159897995 }}</ref>

The increasing prominence of ''taqlid'' had at one point led most Western scholars to believe that the "gate of ''ijtihad''" was in fact effectively closed around tenth century.<ref name=rabb/> In a 1964 monograph, which exercised considerable influence on later scholars, [[Joseph Schacht]] wrote that "a consensus gradually established itself to the effect that from that time onwards no one could be deemed to have the necessary qualifications for independent reasoning in religious law, and that all future activity would have to be confined to the explanation, application, and, at the most, interpretation of the doctrine as it had been laid down once and for all."{{#tag:ref| The  mid-twentieth century European authority on Islamic law Joseph Schacht, said that [...] Since the 1990s, a large and growing body of research has demonstrated the continuing creativity and dynamism of Islamic legal thinking in the post-formative period, as well as probed the lively dialectic between legal rulings and social practice. While it is no longer possible to assert that "the door of ijtihad was closed" after the tenth (or, indeed, any other) century, however, there is still lively debate over the extent of legal change and the mechanisms by which it occurred.<ref name=katz>{{cite encyclopedia |title=The Age of Development and Continuity, 12th–15th Centuries CE|author=Marion Katz|editor1-first=Anver M|editor1-last=Emon|editor2-first=Rumee|editor2-last=Ahmed|encyclopedia=The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Law|year=2015 |pages=436–458|publisher= Oxford University Press |doi=10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199679010.013.14|isbn=978-0-19-967901-0|url-access=subscription |url=http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199679010.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199679010-e-14}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Schacht|first=Joseph|title=An Introduction to Islamic Law|publisher=Clarendon Press |year=1964|url=https://archive.org/details/introductiontois0000scha |url-access=registration|pages=[https://archive.org/details/introductiontois0000scha/page/70 70]–71}}</ref>|group=Note}}

While more recent research is said to have disproven the notion that the practice of ''ijtihad'' was abandoned in the tenth century — or even later in the 15th century — the extent of legal change during this period and its mechanisms remain a subject of scholarly debate.<ref name=katz/><ref>Wael B. Hallaq, "On the origin of the Controversy about the Existence of Mutahids and the Gate of Ijtihad," ''Studia Islamica'', 63 (1986): 129</ref> The ''Ijtihad'' camp primarily consisted of Hanbalis and Shafiites, while the Taqlid camp were primarily Hanafites who were supported to a greater or lesser extent by Malikis as well as some Shafi'is.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=B. Hallaq|first=Wael|date=March 1984|title=Was the Gate of Ijtihad Closed?|url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/162939|journal=International Journal of Middle East Studies|publisher=Cambridge University Press|volume=16|issue=1|pages=29|doi=10.1017/S0020743800027598|jstor=162939|s2cid=159897995 }}</ref>