In his weekly episode on Alhurra’s digital platforms, writer and journalist Ibrahim Essa poses a stark question: Does a Muslim need permission to think about his religion? He revisits episodes from the history of sectarian intolerance to show how jurisprudential disagreement was repeatedly transformed into a tool of exclusion — and, at times, violence.
Essa also examines the commonly cited principle, “There is no ijtihad (independent reasoning) where there is clear text,” citing historical examples that challenge the idea that independent reasoning belongs exclusively to certain schools of thought, clerics or institutions.
What follows is a condensed and edited version of the key arguments presented in the episode.
A Funeral Blocked by Sectarianism
In the year 597 AH (1200 AD), a highly prominent cleric died in Baghdad: the preacher of the Grand Mosque of al-Mansur. He was a Shafi‘i jurist, and one of the most distinguished religious figures of his time. Shafi’i, Hanbali, Hanafi and Maliki refer to four theological Imams who established four schools of thought and interpretation in Sunni Islam.
When his funeral procession set out, it naturally headed toward the most well-known burial grounds in Baghdad at the time — the Hanbali cemeteries. But Hanbalis blocked the streets and prevented the funeral from passing. Why? Because the deceased was Shafi‘i.
Despite the man’s stature as the mosque’s imam and preacher, clashes and violent confrontations erupted, forcing the Abbasid caliph himself to intervene and compel the Hanbalis to allow the burial.
It is an episode that invites deep reflection. It reveals how little we learn from history — and how ignorance of the past makes the present vulnerable to manipulation. These incidents are not obscure anecdotes; they are clearly documented in classical sources and major works of Islamic historiography.
Those same sources recount the story of Mansur ibn al-Sam‘ani, a Hanafi jurist who spent three decades following the school of Abu Hanifa before deciding to convert to the Shafi‘i school. What followed in Baghdad was a bitter conflict: fighting, public disputes and near civil strife between Hanafi and Shafi‘i clerics — once again requiring intervention from the caliph.
This raises a fundamental question: Can those burdened with such a history of sectarian fanaticism — regardless of school — truly be trusted as exclusive guardians of religious truth? Are these the figures we are meant to follow unquestioningly when they insist that truth resides only with them, or that thinking and independent reasoning are permitted only through their authority?
The Myth of “No Ijtihad with the Text”
Any discussion of ijtihad must begin by clarifying what the concept actually means. To exercise ijtihad is to engage the intellect: to reflect, examine, analyze and apply reason in understanding the Quran, the Sunnah, Islamic law and historical experience — in order to arrive at a judgment, an opinion or a position.
This process presupposes the existence of a thinking mind that speaks clearly and freely, without guardianship, coercion or predefined limits.
Yet some doctrine-based schools of thought — particularly contemporary Hanbalism as articulated by Salafi and Wahhabi movements, as well as official religious institutions — promote the notion that ijtihad belongs solely to them. When they repeat the phrase “There is no ijtihad with the text,” they are in fact asserting guardianship over the Muslim mind and monopolizing religion itself.
Such guardianship freezes religion into something rigid and lifeless, stripping it of intellectual vitality. The natural question, then, is: Why this obsession with restricting ijtihad? They rarely say outright that ijtihad is forbidden; rather, they insist that they alone are entitled to practice it.
But text, by its very nature, cannot be understood except through interpretation. No text is self-explanatory or definitive in meaning without human reasoning. The mere act of comprehension is itself ijtihad. How, then, can it be said that there is “no ijtihad with the text,” when understanding the text is impossible without reasoning?
In reality, the phrase means: There is no ijtihad except when I permit it — and when I exercise it myself. It is used to bar the ordinary Muslim, dismissively labeled “the masses,” from thinking or debating.
This represents a hierarchical, class-based division of knowledge — one never mandated by revelation and never prescribed by the Quran. Islam did not descend with compulsory interpretive sciences, nor did it require academic credentials for faith or understanding. These are human constructions — sometimes used to assert control, and sometimes for material gain.
“A Woman Was Right, and Umar Was Wrong”
Ironically, history itself disproves such claims to monopolized authority. One often-cited episode involves the Caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab, who sought to place a limit on dowries. A woman challenged him publicly in the mosque, citing the Quran. Umar acknowledged her argument and famously declared: “The woman was right, and Umar was wrong.”
