human judgment to be exercised freely to meet new circumstances. Mālik was not content with what his great predecessor Abū Ḥanīfah had accomplished, nor Shāfi‘ī with what his two predecessors had done; and in spite of the three having practically exhausted the well of jurisprudence, Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal gave to a world, whose thirst for knowledge was ever on the increase, the result of the application of his own judgment. The great jurists not only applied their judgment to new circumstances but they also differed in their principle of jurisprudence, which shows that no one of them considered the others infallible. If they were not infallible then, how did they become such after so many centuries when the mere lapse of time necessitated new legislation to meet new requirements? That the Holy Prophet opened the door of Ijtihād is only too clear, that he never ordered it to be closed after a certain time is admitted on all hands; and even the great Imāms never closed that door. Neither Abū Ḥanīfah, nor Mālik, nor Shāfi‘ī, nor yet Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal ever said that no one after him shall be permitted to exercise his own judgment, nor did any one of them claim to be infallible; neither does any book on the principles of jurisprudence (uṣūl) lay down that the exercise of a man’s own judgment for the making of new laws was forbidden to the Muslims after the four Imāms, nor yet that their Ijtihād has the same absolute authority as the Holy Qur’ān and the Ḥadīth.

Ijtihād was a great blessing to the Muslim people; it was the only way through which the needs of succeeding generations and the requirements of different races merging into Islām could be met. Neither the Holy Prophet, nor any of his Companions, nor any of the great jurists ever said that Muslims were forbidden to apply their own judgment to new circumstances and the ever changing needs of a growing community after a certain time; nor has any one of them said, what in fact no one could say, that no new circumstances would arise after the second century. What happened was that the attention of the great intellects of the third century was directed towards the collection and criticism of the Ḥadīth. On the other hand, the four Imāms rose so high above the ordinary jurists that the latter were dwarfed into insignificance, and the impression gained ground gradually that no one could exercise his judgment independently of the former. This impression in its turn led to limitations upon Ijtihād