Rethinking tariq ramadan’s thought on ijtihād : cosmos, scripture, and the limits of sharia

Abstract

This study examines Tariq Ramadan’s rethinking of Ijtihād and Sharia by analyzing his ontological, epistemological, and ethical frameworks to understand how he reconstructs Islamic legal thought for the modern world. Employing qualitative hermeneutic and comparative methods, this study generally asks how Ramadan’s ideas reshape the concept of Ijtihād, redefine the comprehensiveness and limits of Sharia, and what implications these have for contemporary Islamic legal and ethical reform. Here, I discuss Ramadan’s concept of dual epistemology or scripture that integrates the revealed text (kitāb masṭūr) and the observed universe (kitāb manẓūr), reframing Sharia from a legal system into a dynamic trajectory centered on maqāṣid al-sharīʿah. This study argues that while Ramadan redefines Sharia’s comprehensiveness as ethical universality rather than legal exhaustiveness and calls for interdisciplinary Ijtihād, his framework still retains epistemic hierarchies privileging traditional jurists, thereby limiting its democratizing potential. I further explore how his approach implies a semisecularist or hospitable secularism stance, wherein ethical outcomes take precedence over institutional forms, allowing secular institutions that uphold justice and dignity to reflect Islamic ethics more fully than formally Islamic structures. In the comparative part, this thesis compares Ramadan with Ismail Raji al-Faruqi, who envisions Sharia as a civilizational integrating all knowledge under Tawḥīd, yet risks epistemic homogenization, and with Sherman A. Jackson, who frames Sharia as jurisdictionally bounded while leaving space for moral agency beyond law. Finally, this study proposes that future Islamic legal and ethical reform requires not only epistemic unity, integrating religious scholars, scientists, and social experts as equal normative pillars to ensure Sharia remains a living moral force, faithful to its divine roots, while transformative within the complexities of modern life.