Usul al-Fiqh and Ijtihad in Shi‘ism

Abstract The second chapter traces the genesis and development of both ijtihad (reasoning) and usul al-fiqh (legal theory) in Shi‘i intellectual history. It argues that the concern for knowledge and certitude, which characterized much of Shi‘i juristic literature in its formative period, was displaced with a recognition and acceptance of doubt as an inalienable feature of the law. The chapter also demonstrates that in the thirteenth and …