Definition of "ijtihad" [ijtihad]

• The process of Muslim jurists making a legal decision by independent interpretation of the Qur'an and the Sunna; such a jurist is a mujtahid (noun)

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• "A self-identified lesbian and practitioner of the Islamic tradition of critical thinking known as ijtihad, she has served as a legislative aide in the Canadian parliament, editorialist at the Ottawa Citizen, and host of several Canadian television shows."
• "While it is true, however, that Sunnism, like Catholicism, is the largest branch of its respective faith, Jasser's analogy is off-base because it understates the true root of all Islamic extremism and violence: a literal interpretation of the Qur'an which stems from the renunciation by Sunni scholars, over a millennium ago, of the doctrine known as ijtihad, "independent reasoning" in Qur'anic exegesis."
• "Islam has a detailed legal process called ijtihad for deriving new Islamic rulings."