Ijtihad Its Meaning Sources Beginnings and the Practice of Ray [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

This totality in all its dimensions was understood, absorbed and put into
practice by genuine Muslims.

And if we observe that the same
Islam lost its effectiveness in the social arena after the passage of some
centuries, that was because those who were entrusted with the duty to safeguard
its intellectual and ideological frontiers had come to forget its totality and
comprehensiveness, thus depriving Islam of its real power and efficiency. The
biggest factor in this crisis was the existence of the unwholesome dominance of
the tyrannical and despotic regimes that had captured the leadership of Islamic
society in the name of the Prophet's khilBfah
and produced rulers who in the impious state of ignorance and intoxication
stood up in the mihrab to lead
Muslims in congregational prayers. These rulers promoted. mercenary scholars
and pseudo‑fuqaha' devoid of taqwa who
served their interest and sent into exile the committed, aware and authentic
fuqaha' who strove to awaken the people or often subjected them to martyrdom.

Elsewhere, while discussing the
ninefold eras of the development of fiqh that followed the period of
legislation, the sevenfold eras in the history of ijtihad, and the sixfold eras in respect of the exposition of fiqh,
we have shown the real faces of these pseudo‑fuqaha' and pseudomujtahids, pointing out their nefarious
views in every period, and revealed the havoc that has been wrought on the body
of fiqh and faqahah by these
mercenaries in the garb of fuqaha' in their pursuit of worldly gain. The harm
done by them to fiqh was so serious that they made fiqh, with its spring of ijtihad and all its effusive vigour and
dynamism, loose its relevance and withdraw into isolation in front of the
expansion of human knowledge and civilization, to the extent that the people of
the world came to believe that Islamic law has no solution to the multifaceted
problems of life.

Although in the early eras there
did exist great fuqaha' and pious and aware mujtahidun,
but none of them had the free hand ‑ which the wali‑e faqih does at the present ‑ to take punitive
measures against such elements. But that which is certain is that they have
been and shall remain the object of history's censure. This is because they
have made the shining face of progressive Islamic fiqh to appear dark and
clouded and have distorted its features.

In any case, if we really intend
to revive authentic fiqh and true faqahah
and if we have concern for the genuine life of Islam and the Islamic Ummah
and revival of the past glory and sublimity of the word of tawhid, we should direct our understanding to the totality of the
human and the comprehensiveness of Islam in all its dimensions: devotional,
economic, political, legal and cultural in the spheres of social and individual
life. Only then can we use this invaluable source which is a great Divine trust
and the al‑thaql al‑'akbar, for
the benefit of humanity in the contemporary era.