Considerations on the Higher Objectives of the Law as a New Project for Legal Reforms

Muslim scholars of the contemporary era are increasingly expanding the scope of the old theory of maqasid to include not only “people’s interests’ (masalih) but “rational priorities” (awlawiyyat). Although surrounded by new streams of Islamic traditionalism and Islamic extremism, the reform oriented trends continue to offer new ideas to adapt Islamic law to the changing situation of the time.
In this paper, I will focus on the works of two contemporary Egyptian authors Tariq Ramadan (b.1962) and Jasser Auda to represent the modern trend of Islamic legal reform movement based on the maqasid theory. A brief reference to the history of the rise of maqsid theory, in the beginning, will show how the theory was conceptualized as the philosophy of Islamic law by the fourteenth century jurisprudent Abu Ishaq al-Shatibi. The primary intention of the Lawgiver, according to Shatibi, is the welfare of the people (maslahah).
Tariq Ramadan proposes a school of higher objectives of law as part of Islamic legal methodology (usul al-fiqh) to take the social and human environment into account. Not only does it shed light on fundamental texts, he writes, “but only by knowing it accurately can one remain faithful to the divine Lawgiver’s intend”. This assertion is based on his theological approach to the Qur’ānic notion of ayat (lit. signs) by which he equates knowledge of the outside world with that of the revealed scripture. He states that the “…surrounding Creation is a Universe of signs that must be grasped, understood, and interpreted”. (Radical reform, 2009, 75 & 88)
Jasser Auda provides a space for the maqasid theory in his “systems approach”. Despite the multi-dimensionality of efforts made by Auda to re-philosophize Islamic law, “the implication of purpose” remains the most tangible part of his work. He first refers to the difference between goal and purpose as the latter produces the same outcome in different ways and different outcome in the same or different environment. Thus, purpose-seeking systems could produce different outcomes for the very same environment as long as these different outcomes achieve the desired purpose. Auda presents an interesting outline of the relationship between purposefulness and other features of the system of Islamic law, in which the process of ijtihad plays a significant role.