Due to distance...

Due to distance, many had become acquainted with their religious duties through local ‘ulamā’ while the latter had greater chances of consulting the Imām of their time. During the period of occultation, however, there is no option but to refer to the ‘ulamā’ . The ‘ulamā’ are those who are capable of deducing laws from the religious sources. This capability is technically called ijtihād and one who possesses this capability is known as a mujtahid .

Of course, in addition to ijtihād the intellectual authority has other required qualities such as God-wariness [ taqwā ] and knowledge of the state of affairs of his own time. Hence, the mujtahidīn are the intellectual and religious authorities of the people during the period of occultation.[^1] Salient features of ijtihād Non-monopoly. As defined earlier, ijtihād is not a monopoly of a particular social group or class.

Anyone with the required intellectual and moral qualities can be the intellectual authority. As such, according to the Shī‘ah, no particular class or stratum of society is presented as the intellectual and religious authority of the people. Accessibility of ijtihād. In the Shī‘ah school of thought, anyone can acquire the competence to exercise ijtihād within a specific set of rules.

In the Sunnī school of thought, the door of ijtihād is closed.[^2] The Sunnī ‘ulamā’ have to express views within the framework of ijtihādī viewpoints of a certain number of their great mujtahidīn . According to the Shī‘ah teachings, however, the ‘ulamā’ always have the right to exercise ijtihād .

Basically, the scholars who are competent to practice ijtihād are not obliged to practice taqlīd , for they have to act upon their personal ijtihād .[^3] So, it is possible to have different ijtihād s and juristic opinions at one time. It is even possible for a mujtahid to express diverse opinions over the course of time and recant his former religious edict [ fatwā ]. Ijtihād as rule-based. Ijtihād as a method of understanding the sharī‘ah depends on a set of rules.

In other words ijtihād , which is the process of arriving at a specific understanding of the religion, is considered ijtihād only when it is derived through a specified logic. Understanding which is not anchored in technical and systematic ijtihād is speculative interpretation [ tafsīr bi’r-rayy ] which is devoid of any value. Of course, it must be noted that systematic understanding does not always arrive at truth and unambiguous law.