The means of consultation should suit the conditions of the particular time and place but must be free and impartial. While the government follows the "sharia" law, when it comes to a question about which no explicit injunction is to be found in the "sharia", the matter is "settled by consensus among the Muslims." Maududi favored giving the state exclusive right to the power of declaring "jihad" and "ijtihad" (establishing an Islamic law through "independent reasoning"), traditionally the domain of the "ulama".