There are two schools of Mujtahideen or interpreters: one of them favours ijtihaad muqaiyyad or limited ijtihaad and the other favours ijtihaad mutlaq or independent interpretation, not bound by the opinions of the earlier Mujtahideen, especially of the Middle Ages. It is the second school of ijtihaad mutlaq which asserts that the doors of ijtihaad are open and innovations in the Islamic law are possible, provided one remains with the injunctions and ahkam of the Quran and Sunnah.
This school asserts that ijtihaad has become important in the modem times due to the needs of the present time, such as economic, social and political changes, so that the Muslim society and peoples may become a powerful force in the modern times.
Shah Wali Allah (1703-1762), who lived in the last days of the Mughal Empire in India, was the first Muslim thinker to propound a theory of cautious exercise of ijtihaad. He was deeply perturbed by the decline of the Mughal Rule and by the threat to the Indian Muslims by the rise of the Marhata power and was deeply touched by the social, economic, political and military plight of the Muslims of his times.
Though he remained within the limits of Muslim Fiqah or jurisprudence, yet he asserted the need to apply the principle of maslehat or public good to the problems confronting the Muslim community. Accordingly, he favoured individual judgement or ra’i but within narrowly circumscribed ijtihaad. Consequently, he appealed to the prophetic tradition (Hadith) instead of following the opinions of the earlier jurists on basis of the doctrine of taqleed. He thus advocated the flexibility of the ijtihaad of the first four centuries of early Islamic histbry.