1. What is the root word of "Ijtihad"? What does it mean?

2. Is the purpose of "Ijtihad" to establish the guideline for fuqaha and establish usool al-fiqh?

Ijtihad comes from two root words:

1. Jahada / yajhadu which means to exert effort, strive, to take pain or to overwork, overtax and exhaust.
2. Ijtahada / yajtahidu which means to exert one's utmost effort in the performance of an act.

The technical meaning of the word ijtihad is ‘the total expenditure of effort by a qualified Islamic scholar to infer with a degree of probability the rules of the Sharee'ah from their detailed evidence in the sources.’

The purpose of ijtihad is to extract or infer rules for new situations where there is no evidence. Hence ijtihad does not set up basic rules or the structure of usool al-fiqh. Rather, the opposite is true because the purpose of usool al-fiqh is to guide people in making correct ijtihad.