The author must conclude as he does that Afghani was a great religious reviver since he proceeds from the principles established by Afghani and Abduh, i.e. that deriving rulings directly from the Book and the Sunnah is still possible.

In other words, this praise comes from a disciple and a devotee.

This approach deliberately leaves out the consensus, because the consensus of the Ummah was long ago reached that it is not possible for anyone, no matter how qualified, to derive rulings directly from the Book and the Sunnah and so they must adhere to one of the great Imams of fiqh, i.e. the four Imams of the madhhabs, who the Muslims agree unanimously were absolutely qualified to derive rulings directly from the Book and the Sunnah.

Once a consensus has been reached, there is no reversing it since it is recognised by all the Muslims as the third fundamental principle: the Book, the Sunnah and consensus of the Imams who are valid exponents of ijtihad.

However, this does not mean that we are moribund and without ijtihad since there are clear and very dynamic ways of exercising ijtihad to meet new situations (for example, see: “Fatwa and Qada’ [sentence] in the Maliki School” by Sidi Ali al-’Iraqi al-Husaini http://bewley.virtualave.net/fatwa.html), but we cannot use ijtihad in areas where unanimity has already been reached, most significantly on the rulings governing usury.

As-salamu alaikum,

Abdassamad Clarke