Discover the meaning of the term Al-ajthad (اجتهاد) in Islamic vocabulary.
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Updated on 11 April 2026 at 1:05 AM
📖 5 min readLinguistically: the exertion of one's utmost effort; technically: the faqih's devoting his full capacity so that he attains a predominant opinion (zann) regarding a religious ruling (hukm shar'i).
The exertion of effort in seeking the intended goal by way of legal argumentation.
Linguistically: bearing hardship; technically: the faqih's devoting his full capacity to attaining a predominant opinion (zann) concerning a religious ruling. In other words: the exertion of effort to reach the intended goal; devoting one's full capacity means expending all one's energy until one feels from oneself the inability to do more; its pillars and conditions are set out in the principles of fiqh.
Linguistically: engaging the soul to expend energy and bear hardship; it is an ifti'al (derived form) of jahd, whose verb ajhada means to grow weary. The form here expresses constrained effort, not spontaneous effort: it is the deployment of effort to grasp and reach the intended goal. It has also been said: devoting one's full capacity to obtaining something that entails cost and hardship. Hence one says: strive to carry the boulder, but one does not say: strive to carry the apple. From this: the toil of thought in the rulings of opinion. Al-jahd (with fatha or damma): energy and hardship. Technically: Abu al-Baqa' said: devoting the faqih's full capacity until he perceives from himself the inability to do more, in order to attain a predominant opinion (zann) on a religious ruling. Al-Jurjani said: devoting the faqih's full capacity so that he attains a predominant opinion (zann) on a religious ruling, and he also said: the exertion of effort in seeking the intended goal by way of argumentation. Al-Baji defined it like the linguistic definition, saying: exerting one's utmost capacity to reach the aim. Ibn al-Hajib defined it as: the faqih's devoting his full capacity to attaining a predominant opinion (zann) on a religious ruling.
Devoting one's full effort to grasping religious rulings.
Linguistically: engaging the soul to expend energy and bear hardship (al-Mufradat, p. 101), such as the toil of thought in the rulings of opinion; it has also been expressed as "the exertion of effort in seeking the intended goal". By established usage: the jurist's devoting his full capacity to attaining a predominant opinion (zann) on a religious ruling (al-Ta'rifat, p. 8).
Engaging the soul to expend energy and bear hardship. Technically: exerting the utmost effort to attain knowledge of the legal ruling (Ibn Hajar). Al-jihad: masdar of jahada. Devoting one's full capacity to repelling the enemy. Legally: expending effort in fighting the disbelievers (al-Ba'li and Ibn Hajar). In the Law: calling to the true religion and fighting whoever does not accept it (al-Haskafi). It also applies, in the Law, to striving against the soul, the devil, and the defiant: striving against the soul is by learning the matters of religion, then acting on them, then teaching them; striving against the devil is by repelling the doubts he brings and the desires he adorns; striving against the disbelievers is by hand, wealth, tongue, and heart; and against the defiant by hand, then tongue, then heart (Ibn Hajar and al-Jurjani). Al-jahd: hardship; in the noble hadith: "I seek refuge in You from the jahd of tribulation", that is, the painful state. The oath; in the noble Quran: "They swore by Allah with their most solemn oaths that if a sign came to them they would believe in it; say: the signs are only with Allah, and nothing tells you that, when it comes, they will not believe" (al-An'am 6:109), that is, their gravest and strongest oath. Capacity, energy. Scantiness of good. Emaciation. Wretched condition. Al-juhd: capacity, energy. The little thing on which the destitute lives; jahd al-mu'il: the amount borne by the condition of one with little wealth; in the hadith on charity: "Which charity is best? He said: the effort of the destitute." Al-mujahid: active participle of jahada; among the Shafi'is: one who remains in fighting for what is right. Al-mujtahid: active participle; among the Shafi'is: one who knows the rulings of the Quran, the Sunna, analogy and its types, the condition of transmitters, the tongue of the Arabs, and the scholars' statements, in agreement and in difference.