In Islamic law, the analysis of problems not covered precisely in the Hadīth , or the scholarly consensus called the ijmāʽ .
In the early Muslim scholarly community, every jurist had the right to exercise such original thinking, but the growth of legal schools prompted Sunnite Muslim authorities to declare that the principal legal issues had been settled by the 10th century. {{link=Shiite">Shīite Muslims have always recognized ijtihād , and jurists considered learned enough for this kind of analysis have great authority. In the 20th century an attempt was made to restore ijtihād among Sunnites to help Islam adapt to the modern world.