Q. 21:78-9: A Quranic Basis for Ijtihād?

The verses78 & 79 of the Quranic chapter al-'Anbīyā' are perhaps the most important arguments through which the issue of Prophets’ 'Ijtihād is to be argued and approved. Shiite and Sunni exegetes have had various and different opinions on the issue. The present work is intended to report and analyze the commentaries and to probe the approval or rejection of the theory of Ijtihād in the Holy Quran. The ideas of prominent Shiite and Sunni exegetes and scholars including Bayḍāwī, Najm al-Dīn Rāzī, Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, ‘Abūsu'ūd Efindī, ‘Ālūsī, Shāfi'ī, Juwaynī, 'Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī, Naẓẓām, Zamakhsharī, Jubbā'ī, 'Ibn Bābiwayh Qumī, 'Ibn 'Īsā, Balkhī, Imam Ṣādiq (A.S.) and Ṭabrisī are presented and investigated here in this paper. Religious Jurists, Mutazilite and Shia scholars’ viewpoints, 'Allāmah Ṭabāṭabā'ī’s theory, as well as, Mukhtiahs and Muṣawwibas’s opinions on the issue of the Quranic basis for 'Ijtihād are the most important topics discussed here.