Maqāṣid al-Sharīʻa and Contemporary Reformist Muslim Thought: An Examination

Maqasid al-Shari’a and Contemporary Reformist Muslim Thought looks at the effectiveness of Maqasid al-Shari’a – as understood as both a classical legal hermeneutical construct developed by premodern Islamic legal theoreticians.

The basic rationale behind bringing out this volume is that although many noteworthy works have been written on issues pertaining to Muslim reformist thought and the concept of maqāṣid al-sharīʿa, there still remains a need for a study that examines the role and the usefulness of maqāṣid al-sharīʿa as a philosophic-legal cum hermeneutical tool for the purposes of, what I broadly term here, “the contemporary Muslim reformist project” (as is briefly defined later). This book aims to accomplish this by, at times, critically examining how this concept is used in contemporary Muslim reformist thought in relation to a number of specific philosophical, legal, ethical, social, and political issues. Contemporary Muslim reformist thought is a complex and diverse phenomenon consisting of a number of discourses and actors with different reform agendas and priorities. Perhaps its lowest common denominator is the idea that various aspects of the inherited premodern Islamic tradition, especially aspects of Islamic law, with respect to its underlying worldview assumptions, episteme, and various methodologies underpinning this body of knowledge, are not adequately equipped or need serious reform/rethinking in meeting the many challenges Muslims are facing today, in the context of forming a majority versus Muslim minority society. These reformists differ in the manner in which they conceptualize and employ the concept of maqāṣid al-sharīʿa, and they assign to it different hermeneutical positions in their overall approach to Islamic legal theory. This book specifically contributes to expanding our understanding of the role and usefulness of the maqāṣidi-based approach in contemporary Muslim reformist thinking, both Sunni and Shiʿi, by examining the arguments espoused by some of the main contemporary theoreticians behind this approach.

This volume aims to answer two main questions and others related to them:

1. How exactly are the various proponents of contemporary Muslim reformist thought employing the concept of maqāṣid al-sharīʿa for the purposes of their reformist agenda?
2. How useful or effective is the concept of maqāṣid al-sharīʿa, understood as both a classical legal hermeneutical construct developed by premodern Islamic legal theoreticians as well as its contemporary reconceptualization/reinterpretation, in meeting the challenges Muslim reformist thought is responding and seeking to find solutions to?

Table of Contents

Contemporary Muslim Reformist Thought and Maqāṣid cum Maṣlaḥa Approaches to Islamic Law: An Introduction 1 Adis Duderija

• Islamic Law Reform and Maqāṣid al-Sharīʿa in the Thought of Mohammad Hashim Kamali Adis Duderija
• Yusuf al-Qaradawi’s Purposive Fiqh: Promoting or Demoting the Future Role of the ʿulamāʾ -David L. Johnston
• Doha—The Center of Reformist Islam? Considering Radical Reform in the Qatar Context: Tariq Ramadan and the Research Center for Islamic Legislation and Ethics (CILE)-David Warren
• Maqāṣid al-Sharī‘a in Contemporary Shī‘ī Jurisprudence- Liyakat Takim
• Maqāṣid or Sharī‘a Secularism, Islamic Reform, and Ethics in Modern Turkey-Aydogan Kars
• Maṣlaḥa and Rachid al-Ghannushi’s Reformist Project- Karim Sadek
• On Reading Shāṭibī in Rabat and Tunis- Ebrahim Moosa
• Maqāṣid al-Sharīʿa, Gender Non-patriarchal Qurʾān-Sunna Hermeneutics, and the Reformation of Muslim Family Law-Adis Duderija

A Case Study of Patriarchy and Slavery: The Hermeneutical Importance of Qurʾānic Assumptions in the Development of a Values-Based and Purposive Qurʾān-Sunna Hermeneutic- Adis Duderija

Bibliographic Information

Title: Maqāṣid al-Sharīʻa and Contemporary Reformist Muslim Thought: an examination

Editor: Adis Duderija

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014

Language: English

Length: 270 pages

ISBN: 9781137323859

Pub. Date: 2014

Maqāṣid al-Sharīʻa and Contemporary Reformist Muslim Thought