oh really? it seems only the progressives, modernists, hadith rejecters are aware of this fact and go around parroting this nonsense. Prove it or remain silent? Just in case you didn’t know, ijtihad need to be performed by those who are capable of doing it. And traditionalist ijtihad has a complete different definition and application than the ijtihad you are calling for.
And thanks for telling us that you people know more about Prophet Muhammad (sal-allahu alayhi wa sallam) and understood Islam better than his companions (may Allah be pleased with them).
Rest of your bogus is typical rant from modernists and after the blunder you pulled about ijtihad you lost your credibility and sincerity of discussing anything.
Re: ot-islam and context
The person quoted in the initial post is indeed wrong. Ijtihad is practised today, by qualified scholars all over the world.
Islamic jurisprudence uses the following sources, in the following order (I'm avoiding the complex official words for these)
1) Quran
2) Hadith/Sunnah
3) Analogy to a rule explicitly defined in the Quran or Hadith/Sunnah
4) Unanimity amongst scholars (rare, but occurs in some cases such as on the Muslim/Non-muslim status of certain groups)
5) Ijtihad.
While ijtihad was stopped completely in the 1200s, recently it has begun again in limited situations. On many topics, 1400 years of legalistic debate over positions has left little room for ijtihad on old matters. A good example of this is is hijab - you find virtually all scholars are agreed at least on covering hair being mandatory.
Ijtihad is heavily applied in cases where neither the Quran, not Hadith/Sunnah, nor analogies to these, are valid because the situation is new. The best example is Islamic Finance, where there are now a multitude of different rules because of different ijtihad rulings by different scholars, based on their own detailed study of the Quran, Hadith and Sunnah.