Essay from the year 2014 in the subject Law - Miscellaneous, grade: 1,7, University of Exeter, language: English, abstract: The text "e;Irshad al-Fuh?l ila tahq?q al-haqq min ?ilm al-us?l"e; is written by Muhammad ?Al? b. Muhammad Al-Shawkan?. He is a Sunn? legal scholar, writer and teacher from Yemen, who lived from 1760 until 1849. Al-Shawkan? is seen as one of the most influential modern Islamic jurists, which is supported by the qualification of him as 'mudjaddid' or 'regenerator' by Rashid Rida. Al-Shawkan? achieved a good reputation by working on defining requirements to attain the different status as a jurist. He is described as "e;an ardent opponent on the restrictions of ijma?"e; and known "e;for his support for the greater use of the ijtihad"e;. This text fits in his released literature about the requirements of attaining different levels of legal scholarship. Roughly translated, the title means: "e;Guideline for the experts to achieve the truth in the science of the principles of the law"e;. Al-Shawkan? gives in his text basic conditions, which are required to be a mujtahid. In my opinion a mujtahid is a Muslim jurist, who has the ability to perform ijtihad. Al-Shawkan? specifies what a mujtahid is in paragraph two. In his opinion, a mujtahid must try to acquire an opinion of a legal rule and have the ability to derive legal rules by working with the legal sources. Obligatory for this are adulthood and sanity. After this section, he starts listing the conditions, but obviously, adulthood and sanity are also requirements to be a mujtahid. The difference to the following conditions is, that this inherent quality can not be changed by the prospective mujtahid in contrast to the following acquirable conditions
