Islamic reformism in the eighteenth century has received increased scholarly attention in recent years. Much of this attention has focused on the role of ijtihad in eighteenth-century reformist thought and concurrent debates about taqlid. A predominant trend in this scholarship is the search for connections—in particular student-teacher connections—linking scholars in a common reformist chain. Such a view has been criticized for over-emphasizing student-teacher relationships as well as focusing too narrowly on scholars tied to the network of ulama in the Hijaz. These criticisms, however, do not address many similarities shared between reformist scholars who are otherwise unconnected. I propose in my paper to analyze closely the views on ijtihad of three eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century reformist scholars from three separate cultural and scholarly environments: the Indian Hanafi Shah Wali Allah Dihlawi (1703-1762), the Inner Asian Hanafi Abu Nasr Qursawi (1776-1812), and the Yemeni Zaydi Muhammad b. ‘Ali Shawkani (1759-1834). Each of these scholars took a critical stance towards the conventional construction of madhhab authority and promoted original legal interpretation of scripture. The details of the each scholar’s stance, however, differ significantly, as does how they conceived of ijtihad and how it should be carried out. I will analyze and compare the three views in light of their respective socio-historical contexts and current debates on eighteenth-century reformism and legal reasoning. It is my hypothesis that while the differences between their respective stances can be attributed to different particular legal traditions—for instance, differing views towards uses of hadith among Indian Hanafis versus Central Asia Hanafis or Yemen Zaydis—the similarities can be traced to broader trends within the history of the Islamic scholarly tradition. In particular, I would argue that the understanding of madhhab authority and its construction that was predominant in the late post-classical period led to the articulation of a certain a reformist inclination that focused on the renewed exercise of ijtihad as a religious necessity. The reliance on established legal doctrines within the madhhabs—including Zaydism—contributed to a backlash against the strictures of madhhab authority by reform-minded scholars. Though the precise formulation of this critique varied in different contexts and from reformer to reformer, its impetus was the established methods of legal reasoning in the late post-classical madhhab.