Contemporary Muslim Society

The first approach represents the ijtihadi way of thinking, which leads to continuous intellectual progress. In a community where this intellectual tradition exists, each generation fully respects its predecessors but uses their achievements as a foundation to advance further. This ensures continuous growth and progress. In contrast, the other school of thought is based on blind imitation, restricting the intellectual progress of Muslims at a certain point. This approach has two disadvantages simultaneously. First, it deprives such individuals of reaching the higher intellectual levels of religious truth. Second, it causes such individuals to fall behind other nations in intellectual and academic fields. In the continually-moving caravan of humanity, they remain behind as mere dust on the road. This imitative mindset is precisely what the famous preIslamic poet Antarah bin Shaddad al-Absi (d. 615 AD) expressed in the opening lines of his Mu’allaqa: Hal ghaadara ash-shu’araau min mutaraddami “Have the poets left any patch unsewn?” In other words, he believed that everything worth saying had already been said, leaving nothing new for others to contribute. This kind of thinking puts a complete stop to the intellectual progress, resulting in intellectual stagnation—a state more harmful and dangerous for an individual or community than anything else. To further understand this issue, here are a few examples from the collection of Hadith.