The Words | 27. Word | 495
(495-499)

The Twenty-Seventh Word

Treatise on Independent Judgements of the Law ( Ijtihad)

[Five or six years ago in an Arabic treatise, I wrote concerning a matter to do with independent judgements on points of the Shari'a. Now, at the request of two of my brothers, this Word was written about that matter in order to put in his place someone who had overstepped the mark in his attacks on it.]

In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.

If they had only referred it to the Prophet, or to those charged with authority among them, the proper investigators would have tested it from them [direct].1

The door of independent judgements on the law is open, but at the present time there are six obstacles to entering it.

THE FIRST: In winter when the storms are fierce even small holes are blocked up, and it is in no way reasonable to open up new doors. Under the onslaught of a mighty flood, to make openings in the wall in order to repair it leads to being drowned. In just the same way, at this time of denial and the assault of the customs of Europe and the legion of innovations and the destruction of misguidance, to open up new doors in the citadel of Islam in the name of ijtihad, and make openings that will be the means of those bent on destruction scaling the walls and entering it, is a crime against Islam.

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1.Qur'an 4:83

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The Words