(a) Ahmad Mustafa al-Zarqa'...

(a) Ahmad Mustafa al-Zarqa', the author of the valuable work al­ Madkhal al-faqhi al-'amm, says: Ijtihad means deduction of the ahkam of the Shari’ah from their elaborate adillah found in the Shari'ah.

[^37] (b) Al-`Allamah Abu `Abd Allah Shah Wali al-Faruqi al-Dihlawi al-Hanafi, in his book Kitab al-'insaf fi sabab al- Ikhtilaf, writes: Ijtihad means employment of effort and endeavour for the comprehension of the far`i ahkam of the Shari'ah from their elaborate adillah, which comprise the Book, the Sunnah, ijma` and qiyas. (c) Muhammad Amin has also defined ijtihad in his book Taysir al-tahrir in similar terms. (d) Dr.

Subhi al-Mahmasani says: Ijtihad means exertion and effort for discovering the ahkam and laws of the Shari'ah from their legal sources. Critique of the Third Type of Definitions These definitions are also not free from the defects of the earlier ones, because, like the previous definitions, they need the word waza'if in order to include the Practical and the Rational Rules with the ahkam of the Shari'ah.

Another objection against the definition given by al-­Dihlawi is that he has considered qiyas one of the sources of the ahkam, a viewpoint which is rejected by the Shi'ah (this will be dealt in detail while discussing the sources of ijtihad).

Fourth Definition of Ijtihad The great thinker and scholar of the Islamic world Muhammad ibn al-Hasan ibn `Abd al-Samad, popularly known as al-Shaykh al-Bahai, in his book Zubdat al-'usul, writes: Ijtihad is a capacity (malakah) by means of which one obtains the power of deducing the ahkam of the Shari'ah. Some other scholars have also defined ijtihad in different words that are close in meaning to this definition. Here we shall quote two of them as specimen.

(a) Ijtihad is the manifestation of the capacity for discovering the hujaj (pl. of hujjah) and adillah for deriving the ahkam of the Shari'ah and the Practical Obligations (al-waza'if al-`amaliyyah), whether posited by the Shari'ah or affirmed by reason. (b) Ijtihad is a capacity by means of which a faqih becomes able to relate the minor premises with the major premises and thereby obtains a hukm of the Shari'ah or an answer to a Practical Obligation.