Everyone at the gates

Pat Lang quotes this passage below. See if it reminds you of a certain religious-political persuasion from somewhere in the West.

""The practice of ijtihad," stresses the report compiled with the participation of several respected Muslim scholars, "must be revived."
Ijtihad - or hermeneutics - refers to the institutionalized practice of interpreting Islamic law (sharia) to take into account changing historical circumstances and, therefore, different views.
Ijtihad is the independent or original interpretation of problems not covered by the Koran (Islam's holy book), the Hadith (traditions concerning the Prophet's life and utterances), and ijma' (scholarly consensus). In the early days of the Muslim community, every adequately qualified jurist had the right to exercise such original thinking.
Fearing too much change would weaken their political clout, religious scholars closed the gates of ijtihad to Sunni Muslims about 500 years ago. From then on, scholars and jurists were to rely only on the original meaning and earlier interpretations of the Koran and the Hadith. However, there now is a growing movement among scholars and intellectuals to revive the practice of ijtihad." Salhani