Fourteenth International Conference on Religion & Spirituality in Society

Abstract

My research examines the role and function of Shāṭibī’s theory of maqāṣid in modern scholars’ framing the higher objectives of the Sharīʿa. Abu Ishaq Ibrahim b. Shāṭibī (d.1388), an Andalusian jurist of the Maliki branch of Islam. It has particular importance for modernist scholars. In the modern period, almost every scholar who dealt with maslaha (public interest) and maqāṣid al-Sharīʿa (the higher objectives of the Sharīʿa) with particular focus on the process of change, referred to Shāṭibī’s theory to ground their ideas in the tradition. Thus, his theory opened the doors for several modern maqāṣid understandings. These modern adaptations of Shāṭibī’s maqāṣid theory have rarely been subjected to the scrutiny of academic scholarship, and only a few studies have investigated the way that contemporary thinkers interpret Shāṭibī’s maqāṣid theory to extend Sharīʿa rules and create a solid ground for their innovative ideas. The main focus of this research is the different and sometimes contradictory modern approaches to Shāṭibī’s maqāṣid theory, considering socio-economic, cultural, political, and other factors that determine the approaches taken by the scholars.