What is Ijtihad?

http://www.al-islam.org/al-tawhid/general-al-tawhid/ijtihad-its-meaning-sources-beginnings-and-practice-ray-muhammad-ibrah-1#‘ijtihad-utterances-prophet-s

http://thelawstudy.blogspot.com/2014/07/importance-of-ijtihad-in-islamic-law.html

http://www.academia.edu/4497745/The_Role_of_Ijtih%C4%81d_in_Progressing_Islamic_Law_in_Modern_Times

Significance and utilization of Ijtihad in Islamic law history (heavy elaboration)

http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t236/e0354

http://www.stevenmasood.org/article/concept-ijtihad-history-islamic-jurisprudence

http://www.al-islam.org/al-tawhid/general-al-tawhid/ijtihad-its-meaning-sources-beginnings-and-practice-ray-muhammad-ibrah-4#practice-ijtihad

http://www.irfi.org/articles3/articles_4801_4900/ijtihad%20and%20the%20development%20of%20islamic%20legal%20theoryhtml.htm

http://www.al-islam.org/al-tawhid/general-al-tawhid/outline-history-restriction-ijtihad-shaykh-aga-buzurg-tehrani

http://acc.teachmideast.org/texts.php?module_id=2&reading_id=210&sequence=3

Opinion of people on Ijtihad

Gate of Ijtihad closed?

http://www.jus.unitn.it/download/gestione/moussa.abouramadan/20111005_1107The%20Gate%20of%20Ijtihad.pdf

Progressive Muslims assert that the closing the doors of ijithad has debilitated "intellectual growth"

http://dspace.cigilibrary.org/jspui/bitstream/123456789/15036/1/Ijtihad%20Reinterpreting%20Islamic%20Principles%20for%20the%20Twenty%20first%20Century.pdf?1

Voices of a New Ijtihad

http://islamuswest.org/publications_islam_and_the_West/Who_Speaks_For_Islam/Who-Speaks-For-Islam_21.html

Open the Gates of Ijtihad

http://www.commongroundnews.org/article.php?id=2579&lan=en&sp=1

Development and history of Ijtihad (short version)

During the early years of Islam, when religious law was first being formulated, ijtihad was a common process practiced by trained jurists and recognized as "ra'y"

As the meaning and process of ijtihad became more clearly constructed.

Ijtihad was "limited to a systematic method of interpreting the law on the basis of authoritative texts, the Quran and Sunna," and the rulings could be "extended to a new problem as long as the precedent and the new situation shared the same clause.

As the practice of ijtihad transformed over time, it became religious duty of a mujahad (people who is well versed in Islamic legal sources) to conduct legal rulings for the Muslim society.

Around the beginning of the 900s, most Sunni jurists argued that all major matters of religious law had been settled, allowing for taqlid, "the established legal precedents and traditions," to take priority over ijtihad.

Due to the Sunni movement towards taqlid during this era, some Western scholars today argue that this period led to the notion of the "closure of the doors of ijtihad" in Islam.

However, the Shi'i Muslims recognized "human reasoning and intellect as a legal source that supplements the Quran and other revealed texts," thus continuing to acknowledge the importance of ijtihad. (Noted: the usage of Ijtihad heavily depends on the law schools, Sunni disapproved, but others like Shi’i still continued to use it)

During the turn of the seventeenth century, Sunni Muslim reformers began to criticize taqlid, and promoted greater use of ijtihad in legal matters.

recent years, ijtihad has been the center of public discussion as reformers argue for the "replacement of taqlid with ijtihad as a way to confront legal issues raised by contact with modern Western society."[