Ijtihad and Renewal By Said Shabbar (Herndon, VA: The International Institute of Islamic Thought, 2017. 146 pages.)

Abstract

Ijtihad and Renewal is a confessional manifesto by Moroccan scholar and
jurist, Said Shabbar. Very much in the style and substance of Taha Jabir
al-Alwani, Abd al-Majid Najjar, and other leading lights of the International
Institute of Islamic Thought, Shabbar adds a slightly more conservative and,
if I may add, an Arab touch to the wider renewal discourse of this milieu.
The intended audience of this monograph is no doubt a wide Muslim
readership, most of whom have little background in Islamic jurisprudence
(fiqh) and even less in its legal theory literature (uṣūl al-fiqh). So
this abridged version of Said Shabbar’s longer volume minus any footnotes
makes his material much more accessible to the general Muslim public.
Nancy Roberts’ translation is mostly excellent and very readable (I did have
some questions however about two sentences that were likely either misleading
or at least unclear) ...