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traditional mindset, none of them was able to break the fiqhi mould. No doubt, they downplayed fiqhi ijma to some extent and strongly condemned qayas but dared not question interpretative role of the traditions. History, as it has come down to us through the transmitters of Hadith, remained a sacred zone for them. Believing in the history was essential if they were to follow in the footsteps of the pious elders, the salaf. The salafi reformers in a way conveniently ignored the basic perplexing question: if being so faithful to the salaf was a precondition to faith, where was the room for any ijtihad then? Breaking the fiqhi mould or making a dent on traditional thinking, in effect, is the first step to ijtihad. And if we are aware that the fiqhi mould is not Godordained rather it is more a product of history, it may be easier for us to do so. The formative period of fiqh was an age when the Greek inquisitive methodology was in vogue. Intellectual centres in the Muslim lands were also exposed to Christian theological and ontological issues. The very debate about the supposed ‘createdness of the Qur’an’ was basically a byproduct of Muslim response to the ‘logos’. For the new converts to Islam it was natural to make sense of the new religion through their familiar terminologies and institutions. Later when the Islamic seminaries sprang up throughout the Muslim world and, the private ulema assumed the role of interpretaters of Islam, it became customary for them to grant their students ijazah, much like semikha of the Jews. The emergence of clergy in Islam, to a great extent, owes to the Jewish rabbinic tradition where a responsa (fatwa) was seen as a divine intent. As the later day rulers, the ulul amr, were no longer in spiritual command, the masses had no other option but to turn to the private ulema for matters religious. This provided an encouraging atmosphere for many divergent and often conflicting pictures of Islam to emerge. Within less than two centuries we hear of people talking about the supposed 72 heretical sects in Islam. The situation became so chaotic that a commonly agreed definition of