I personally think that we need ijtehad to come to some conclusion on various issues confronting the Islamic world these days, would that be considered as biddah as most situations would not have been present during the prophets 
time?
Re: Ijtehad is biddah?
Muslim leaders need to reign in clerics and standardize scholarly Islamic work and education. You can’t teach Islam if you don’t have a college degree haven’t studied other religions, shown active community service, and shown leadership skills in community organization. In positive not destructive ways. Then they need to pay these people WELL so people are motivated to go into a clerical profession. OR just acknowledge there is no such thing as cleric, pope in Islam and limit an imam’s duties to leading the prayer and restrict the khutbas so they are non political. Clean out arms and ammo from masjids. I find it incredibly ridiculous that people are hiding guns, ammo, and bombs in these places!!! How the public doesn’t swarm in with danday and pull out these frauds and thrash them in public I don’t get. Oh wait right. They have guns.
Re: Ijtehad is biddah?
This is the most famous hadees which serves as a foundation for permissibly of ijtihad.
Mu’adh ibn Jabal states that when the Prophet (PBUH) sent him to Yemen, he asked:
“what will you do if a matter is referred to you for judgement?” Mu’adh said: “I will judge according to the Book of Allah.” The Prophet asked: “what if you find no solution in the Book of Allah?” Mu’adh said: “Then I will judge by the Sunnah of the Prophet.” The Prophet asked: “And what if you do not find it in the Sunnah of the Prophet?” Mu’adh said: “Then I will make Ijtihad to formulate my own judgement.” The Prophet patted Mu’adh’s chest and said “Praise be to Allah who has guided the messenger of His Prophet to that which pleases Him and His Prophet.”[Abu Daud]
And another is:
Amir ibn Al-As reported: I heard the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, say, “If a judge makes a ruling, striving to apply his reasoning (ijtihad) and he is correct, then he will have two rewards; and if a judge makes a ruling, striving to apply his reasoning and he is mistaken, then he will have one reward.”
[Sahih Muslim, Book 18, Number 4261]
Re: Ijtehad is biddah?
^ 
JazakAllahuKhair brother Mirch
What we should learn to do is exactly that … refer every issue to the Qur’an and Sunnah first it will save us a lot of unnecessary embarrassment by bringing non-issues for discussion, ironically about a matter of bidd’ah … We can only call for bidd’ah if we know a matter in detail … and for sure we need to know what a bidd’ah is, and whether a matter is allowed or not.
In the concern for bidd’ah are we ourselves falling in to bidd’ah?
Re: Ijtehad is biddah?
As Hassan Nisar puts it wisely, our religion is based on the principle of changing rules for the changing needs and unchanging rules for the unchanging needs.
Re: Ijtehad is biddah?
That’s quite a nice statement … 
Re: Ijtehad is biddah?
really informative reply :k: