The Closing of the Gate of Creative Legal Reasoning (Insidad Bab al-Ijtihad) and the Possibility of Opening up (Infitah) in the Jurisprudential Thoughts of Sunni School

The issue of closing of the gate and opening up of ijtihad’ (insidad and infitah bab al-ijtihad) is of the important issues in the Sunni jurisprudence (fiqh). This matter is of the long time and vast issue which has been continued during the period of history and both attitudes have their special proponents. Some of the prior and recent Islamic Sunni jurists (fuqaha) have accepted closing of the gate and opening up of ijtihad’ (insidad) and also the most of the contemporary Islamic sunni have accepted this attitude and they believe that the stipulations of ijtihad in the contemporary time (present time) is impossible. The insidad proponents do not have the same (identical) opinion (a consensus view) about the concept of insidad and time limit. The examination of the prior and contemporary Sunni scholars of the principles of jurisprudence (usul aI-fiqh) shows that the backgrounds (bases) of closing of the gate of ijtihad’ (insidad) are: 1. liar/ false ijtihad claimants 2. the birth of different parties and isms 3. the emergence of the branches and divisions among Mujtahidin (expert scholars) 4. Political factors 5. the discipline of ijtihad methods and attitudes 6. concealment of religious opinions, dissemblance of one’s faith or dissimulation (Taqiya) in ijtihad declaration 7. tendency to Taqlīd. They have also mentioned proofs for insidad which they can be categorized to six groups: 1. Sadd al Dharai (Blocking the means) 2. the propagation and codification of the four Sunni schools 3. researchers’ consensus (ijma) 4. the impossibility of occurrence of ijtihad conditions for the Later Islamic Scholars 5. the impossibility of hadith correction at the time of the later Islamic Scholars 6. the problem of the absence of mujtahid at the present time. The issue of insidad has not been accepted by some of the former and later Islamic jurists and they have commented the authorization and even obligation of ijtihad for those who have the stipulations and the possibility of its occurrence. Among this, the most attempts have been done by the later Islamic scholars in recent centuries for proving infitah. The present paper is going to analyze the process of opinions and thoughts through the comparative study and with analyzing and criticizing them it has achieved that among the mentioned attitudes what is more logical and correct is opening up of ijtihad and possibility to happen its conditions.