punished for this difference of opinion with the whole body of Companions.13 Ijtihād, on the other hand, is encouraged by a saying of the Holy Prophet, which promises reward even to the man who makes an error in it: “When the judge gives a judgment and he exercises his reasoning faculty and is right, he has a double reward, and when he gives a judgment and exercises his reasoning faculty and makes a mistake, there is a reward for him.14
Later jurists speak of three degrees of Ijtihād, though there is no authority for this in either the Holy Qur’ān or the Ḥadīth or in the writings of the great Imāms. These three are: exercise of judgment in legislation (ijtihād filshar‘) in a juristic system, (Ijtihād fil-madhhab), and in particular cases (Ijtihād fil-masā’il). The first kind of Ijtihād (exercise of judgment) in the making of new laws, is supposed to have been limited to the first three centuries and, practically, it centres in the four Imāms who, it is thought, codified all law and included in their systems whatever was reported from the Companions and the generation next to them (Tābi‘īn). Of course, it is not laid down in so many clear words that the door of Ijtihād for making laws is closed after the second century of Hijrah, but it is said that the condition necessary for a jurist of the first degree have not been met with in any person after the first four Imāms, and it is further supposed that they will not be met with in any person till the Day of Judgment. These conditions are three: a comprehensive knowledge of the Holy Qur’ān in its different aspects, a knowledge of the Ḥadīth with its lines of transmission, text and varieties of significance, and a knowledge of the different aspects of qiyās (reasoning).15 No reason is given why these conditions were met with only in four men in the second century of Hijrah, and why they were not met with in any person among the Companions or in the first century. It is an assertion without a basis. The second degree of Ijtihād — exercise of judgment in a juristic system — is said to have been granted to the immediate disciples of the first four Imāms. Muḥammad and Abū Yūsuf, the two famous disciples of Abū Ḥanīfah, belong to this class, and their unanimous opinion on any point must be accepted, even if
13 IS. T. IV. I, p. 166.
14 MM. 17:3-i.
15 KA. IV, P. 15.