Farzana Hasan,s  shaking off her shoulder to get rid of  Quranic Verses of her choice may lead to getting rid of Quaran itself. On top of this intellectual error , Farzana gives this phenomenon the name of “Ijtihad” thus making even a worse error.

Ijtihad  is a technical term of Islamic Law that describes the process of making a legal decision by independent interpretation of  legal sources, the Quran and the Sunnah.

A mujtahid is bound to observe an order of priority between the Quran and Sunnah, and thus resort to the Sunnah is only made when he/she fails to find any guidance in the Quran, or if that guidance is general and a clarification is required which can only be derived by recourse to the Sunnah or the hadith.
However, should there be a clear text in the Quran on the matter, it must be followed and given priority over any ruling derived from the Sunnah or the hadith which may happen to be in conflict with the Quran.
The principle objectives of Usul al-Fiqah is to guide and regulate rulings deduced by intellectual exertion (Ijtihad) on the part of the Jurist (mujtahid) practicing Ijtihad.
The knowledge of the rules of interpretation, the „amm, khass, mutlaq, muqayyad, etc., is equally relevant to modern statutory law. When the jurist and the judge, whether in the Shariah or in secular law, fails to find any guidance in the clear text of the statue on a particular legal matter, he will exercise judicial construction or analogy and thus the skill is invaluable whether in a Shariah context or a court of statutory jurisdiction.

In many countries a special investigator is assigned investigative and advising powers, names coroner. Coroner investigates and advises the legislative authorities with most modern approach towards the required article. But what if a Mujtahid (coroner) makes errors of over confidence in his/ her judgement? That brings in Imam Ghazali, who perhaps tried to shut the door of “ijtihad”.

Take the example of “slaa-t” (prayer) , one of  the five pillars of Islam. Where the mention of all the ritual ablutions and all the articles of “slaa-t” in Quran? Now we may seek guidance from Hadith  for “how-to”.But  what will happen if a Mujtahid (coroner)
 abolishes “slaa-t” from its present form?  Just to make it more modern and secular or liberal or anti Islamist?

This will be interesting to consider the Revelation of Abdullah bin Mubarak, who was told that no one’s Haj has been accepted by God that year accept the pilgrimage of a poor cobbler. So Abdullah bin Mubarak searched for this cobbler, finally met him and greeted him for his Haj being accepted by God, but was astonished to learn that He never made it to Haj. He told that he had been putting aside pennies for so many years to finance his pilgrimage and this year he had accumulated enough to do so. He went to his neighbor to ask for some food , that they might have cooked and was told that yes they did have cooked food but was not Halal for him as they being so poor have found and cooked a dead animal.

The cobbler said he gave them all the money what was meant for Haj. Then Abdullah bin Mubarak knew how this poor cobbler’s Haj was accepted even by not departing for normal Ritual. Thus making an argument that helping of poor supersedes Haj which is a pillar of Islam.So where we draw line where to pull plug on what order of Quran?

I conclude that as a Mujtahid , a somewhat educated Muslim makes up his / her own ruling on the permissibility of an Islamic law but only for his/herself, unless is appointed by a Sharia Government or God.

Thus let us go back to Dr. Tahir Qazi’s post No.75.  

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