A Forward-looking Ijtihad in the Modern Era: fighting for women’s rights in Muslim society on the basis of Allah’s compassion and justice in the Quran

A Forward-looking Ijtihad in the Modern Era: fighting for women’s rights in Muslim society on the basis of Allah’s compassion and justice in the Quran

By: Farzana Hassan-Shahid

Though the need was widely felt to undertake ijtihad in the form of juristic rulings, earlier tensions among emergent juristic schools suggest there were differences in methodology over how such rulings were to be derived. There were some who insisted all rulings would have to conform to the text of the Quran and Sunnah, thereby discarding the notion that Ijma (Consensus) or Qayas (analogy) could be considered legitimate sources of Shariah. However, what crystallized as the Usul-ul- Fiqh or the classical theory of jurisprudence, positioned the Quran and Hadith as the primary, and Ijma and Qiyas as secondary sources of Islamic law. The secondary sources would have to conform in principle to the two primary sources.

http://www.newageislam.com/a-forward-looking-ijtihad-in-the-modern-era--fighting-for-women%E2%80%99s-rights-in-muslim-society-on-the-basis-of-allah%E2%80%99s-compassion-and-justice-in-the-quran--/ijtihad,-rethinking-islam/d/864