Abstrakt
While for Sunni legal and spiritual authorities the legitimacy of Ijtihad is still a controversial topic, in Shia Islam its popularity is persistently growing and spreading. The paper is therefore dedicated to the place of Ijtihad within Shia Islam, examining in detail particularly its importance in contemporary controver- sial bioethical issues, such as organ donation, abortion, assisted reproductive technologies, gamete and embryo donation, cloning etc.
The research is based on relevant Qur'anic verses, theories and hypotheses of prominent Shia scholars, coupled with practical examples of the application of Ijtihad. The aim of the paper is to examine in detail the role of Ijtihad in Islamic bioethics within Shia Islam, compare it to its position in Sunni Islam and prove its irreplaceable importance in contemporary Islamic law.