Issues of Ijtihad

THE ART OFCLEAR THINKING that this meant that the slogan raised by the people in the procession had dissolved in the air, as it were, and was not able to be converted into reality. Listening to the man, I said that the processionists’ slogan was so weak that even after engaging in bloody rioting, it could not empty the locality of the inhabitants of his community. That being the case, I asked, what was the need for those members of his community to get so agitated over such a weak slogan? The simple reply to the slogan would have been to respond in line with the ancient saying, ‘Dogs keep barking, and an elephant continues to walk on.’ The response of the agitated inhabitants of the locality in the example above is one of a lack of right thinking. Right thinking can fully save a person from bloody rioting. But in the above case, wrong thinking resulted in the people of a locality experiencing the two-sided devastation of humiliation and loss. Wrong thinking instigates a person to react to a provocative situation in the very same manner, while right thinking teaches a person how to defuse a provocative situation and render any provocation ineffective. Secondary Position A lesson is imparted every day in the congregational prayers that are held in mosques. This lesson is that when, out of 10,000 worshippers, 9999 worshippers, praying behind a