The aproach that qaradawi followed for modern fiqh searches

Qaradawi is one of the most important Muslim scholars of our time. He has a wide range of interests and his works display such variety. He has been drawing attention due to his academic writings. He has also been a public character as he takes part in press and education activities. He seems to be active in societal activities too, and to try to produce practical solutions for religious matters. He has been a pioneer in foundation of many institutions and schools for the benefit of Muslim communities. Qaradawi has been the founding member and president of European Council for Fatwa and Research. He has been looking for answers for problems of Muslims who are living in multicultural societies. At the same time, he has gained an important place all around the world and his ideas sometimes arouse controversies. His fame is probably due to his search for practical solutions and taking into consideration of exigencies of life based on the ideas of the urgency of modern problems and necessity of the applicability Islamic values. Qaradawi is also a good representing figure of salafi and reformative discourse which can be traced back to 13th Century but has gained speed since 18th century onwards. This work will basically explore Qaradawi?s approaches to contemporary problems, especially the way he justifies his fatwas and the way he uses the arguments. The author believes that understanding the rationale of Qaradawi is a way of understanding the way Muslims take part in the process of modernization in recent centuries. Qaradawi argues that he directly uses the proofs such as Qur`ân, Sunnah, Ijmâ, Qiyas under the light of universal principles of religion and in the light of rich heritage of fiqh; he prefers not to imitate blindly one madhdhab but chooses to be in equal distance to all. In this way, he chooses his answers from various views held by the classical schools of law. By doing so, he believes that he has opened the door of ijtihad to any one qualified to make ijtihad. Keywords: Qaradawi, fiqh, ijtihad, salafi, reformative, madhdhab.