The Relation Between Ijtihad and Taqlid

One of the most important practical discussions in al-Muwafaqat is al-Shatibi's treatment of ijtihad (independent legal reasoning) and taqlid (following a qualified scholar's ruling without examining the evidence yourself) — and crucially, the question of who is qualified to do which, and under what circumstances. This discussion addresses a question that has generated significant controversy in Islamic legal history and remains relevant to how Muslims access and apply Islamic law today.

Al-Shatibi defines ijtihad as the exertion of the maximum possible scholarly effort (al-wus' al-kamil) in deriving a legal ruling from the primary sources of the Shariah. The mujtahid — the scholar qualified to engage in ijtihad — must possess mastery of Arabic at a level sufficient to understand the Quran and Sunnah in their original linguistic context; comprehensive knowledge of the Quran and its legal verses; comprehensive knowledge of the Sunnah — both its content and the science of hadith authentication; knowledge of the matters on which there is scholarly consensus (ijma'); knowledge of the legal principles (usul al-fiqh); and knowledge of the objectives of the Shariah (maqasid) as they relate to the matter at hand.

This demanding specification of qualifications for ijtihad explains why al-Shatibi and the classical scholars generally held that the majority of Muslims — including educated non-specialists — are obligated to follow taqlid: they are not qualified to independently derive legal rulings from the primary sources, and the attempt to do so without proper qualification is likely to produce errors. Taqlid, for the ordinary Muslim, is not intellectual cowardice or blind following but appropriate recognition of the division of scholarly labor that Islam itself establishes.

Al-Shatibi makes an important distinction between two types of taqlid. The first is the taqlid of the ordinary layperson (al-muqallid al-'ammi): they are obligated to follow a qualified scholar (or a qualified legal school) without requiring the scholar to provide their evidence, just as a sick person follows a doctor's prescription without requiring a medical degree. The second is the taqlid of the advanced student who is capable of evaluating evidence: for such a person, taqlid that involves simply accepting a ruling that conflicts with clear Quranic or sahih hadith evidence they are aware of is not permissible.

Al-Shatibi is also concerned with the misuse of ijtihad — what he calls 'al-ijtihad fi mawaqif al-nass' (ijtihad in the presence of clear textual evidence). Where the Quran or a sahih, explicit hadith addresses a matter directly, there is no room for ijtihad: the text is the ruling. Ijtihad applies to matters where the texts are silent, ambiguous, or apparently in conflict. The danger of allowing unlimited ijtihad in the face of clear texts is that it effectively removes the authority of revelation and substitutes human reasoning — a form of bid'ah that al-Shatibi, as a scholar of the Maliki tradition deeply committed to the Sunnah, considered one of the gravest threats to Islamic legal integrity.