Trends in modernist approaches to the
study of maqāṣid al-sharīʿa with special
reference to al-Shāṭibī’s al-Muwāfaqāt fī
Uṣūl al-Sharīʿa
Neo-Muʿtazilism in the writings of Aḥmad al-Raysūnī and others
Candidate number: 2835K
Word count: 11,824
Dissertation
Tripos Part II, 2012
Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies
University of Cambridge
‫‪2‬‬
‫"اذا كنت تريد المصلحة الشرعية فليس لمعرفتها طريق غير الوحي"‬
‫‪1‬‬
‫‪Al-Kawtharī, Maqālāt al-Kawtharī, 242.‬‬
‫‪1‬‬
3
Contents
1. The ethics of jurisprudence and Islamic perspectives
5
2. Neo-Muʿtazilite trends in interpreting al-Shāṭibī’s al-Muwāfaqāt
14
3. Paradoxes, observations and repercussions
26
4. Conclusion
41
5. Bibliography
44
4
Notes
All translations are my own. Transliterated Arabic has also been provided in footnotes for
quotes from al- Shāṭibī due to the technical nature of his language.
The transliteration system used is that of The International Journal of Middle East Studies,
although I have kept diacritics where these appear in names and book titles.
The main text gives shortened references as full referencing and citation can be found in
the bibliography.
Dates from before 1800 C.E. are given in hijri and the Common Era, in that order.
5
The ethics of jurisprudence and Islamic perspectives
Over 2000 years ago, in one of Plato’s earliest dialogues, there occurs what is now called
the ‘Euthyphro dilemma’. Socrates asks Euthyphro if the gods love something because it is
good, or if it is good because the gods love it.2 This problem revolves around the nature of
ethics and morality. It forces us to consider whether the nature of ‘goodness’ is arbitrary or
whether it is an ontological necessity. Consequently, the stance taken with regards to this
question plays a determinative role in our conception of jurisprudence and law.
The essence of the Euthyphro dilemma is perennial in scope and hence is tackled by
philosophers and scholars of jurisprudence across eras and civilisations. For monotheists,
who assume a universe with one pre-eternal omnipotent Creator, certain paradoxes arise: is
this deity constrained by an external theory of moral values or not, and how do humans
access morality? In order to safeguard the omnipotence of the Creator from a theory of
external morality, voluntarist theology and command ethics hold that moral actions are
precisely that which God commands. Morality therefore becomes equated with God’s law,
and is, in a sense, arbitrary because it is subject to God’s will.
An alternative view is that of natural law. This theory, lex naturalis, famously upheld
by Thomas Aquinas sees morality as objective, ontologically inscribed into the universe,
and accessible to human reason. Human-posited law, lex humana, is based on lex naturalis
from which it draws its power to bind by translating the higher law into laws for day-today problems. However, there are evident problems with an ontological morality. How can
it be proven? How can an action be good unless a Creator inscribed it with such a quality?
As a reaction to these problems, modern legal positivism attempted to sever the link
between legality and morality. For this school, legal validity was based on the
2
Plato, Euthyphro, 10.
6
promulgation of norms in a given society. Abandoning an objectivist morality, positivists
effectively allowed for law to be subject to human, rather than divine, conceptions of
‘goodness’. In this sense, its subjectivist stance on legal ‘goodness’ is similar to that of
voluntarists described above. Many legal positivists however developed a ‘soft-positivist’
stand, unable to completely separate law from a higher morality, but denying the existence
of necessary objective moral constraints on law.
Despite the centuries of theorising, the question of how we can discern what
constitutes ‘goodness’ and how to translate this into law is still unanswered. Although
jurisprudential theorists and the popular soft-positivist school reject Humean noncognitivism in matters of ethics, an acceptable theory of what constitutes ‘goodness’
remains elusive. Zygmunt Bauman has termed this an “aporetic situation”3 whereby
human conscience requires a morality, whilst universal objectivism within ethics remains
an impossibility. According to Bauman the situation is hence unsolvable. Against this
backdrop we will examine modern Muslim responses to the Euthyphro dilemma as found
in interpretations of al-Shāṭibī’s al-Muwāfaqāt fī Uṣūl al-Sharīʿa. Although, before we
delve into this, an understanding of classical Islamic theories of jurisprudence and morality
is necessary.
For Muslims, the Prophet Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son is a paradigmatic
symbol of uncomprehending obedience. This obedience to God is celebrated in religion,
and it is his submission which makes Abraham God’s khalīl and beloved prophet (Qurʾān
37:99-112). The most commonly proposed Islamic response to the status of morality thus
became one of ethical voluntarism, or “theistic subjectivism”4 whereby something is good
only because God declares it so, not because it is ontologically so. This is the position of
3
4
Bauman, Postmodern Ethics, 8.
George Hourani, Reason and Revelation, 17.
7
the Ashʿarite school of kalām which eventually came to prevail over its early contender,
the Muʿtazilite school. For the Ashʿarites, divine revelation was the source for both
legislation and knowledge of morality, ‘goodness’ or al-maṣlaḥa al-sharʿiyya.5 This
resulted in a theory of command ethics and the relegation of human intellect to uncovering
God’s law rather than determining law or determining what is ethical. Jurists are
mubayyinūn not musharriʿūn.6 As was mentioned above, this response was justified with
the aim of protecting the omnipotence of God in theory, for if true maṣlaḥa were objective
and thus independent of God’s commands, then God would be held accountable to it,
which is anathema to the concept of a free and all-powerful God. Consequently, the
Ashʿarite school accepted that if God commanded murder or theft, the performance of
these actions would be morally good.
Despite this, the theory of maqāṣid al-sharīʿa (theory of the higher objectives of
Islamic law, hereafter maqāṣid) holds that God, out of His infinite wisdom and mercy, has
broadly aligned His commands with what is morally intelligible to human intellect. The
five maqāṣid, or objectives, of the law, are commonly defined as the protection of:
religion, life, intellect, progeny and property, and are derived from an inductive reading of
scripture, al-istiqrāʾ al-kullī min adillat al-sharīʿa.7 Therefore, while allowing revealed
law to be morally intelligible to human intellect, the theory still maintains the textualist
and prescriptive hermeneutic necessary for a morality of theistic subjectivism and
jurisprudential theory of command ethics. The great scholar Tāj al-Dīn al-Subkī (d.769
H/1368) saw this moral intelligibility as a necessity in encouraging humans to comply with
the law.8 Similarly, late classical ʿaqīda texts such as Ibrāhīm al-Laqānī’s (d.1041 H/1631)
5
Meaning legally sanctioned ‘goodness’ as opposed to that determined by human consciousness
Al-Ḥajj, al-Madkhal, 300.
7
Al-Muwāfaqāt, I:21-22.
8
“(Wa min shurūṭ al-ilḥāq bihā [maqāṣid al-sharīʿa]) ayy bi-sabab al-ʿilla (ishtimālahā ʿalā ḥikma tabʿath)
al-mukallaf (ʿalā al-imtithāl wa-taṣlaḥ shāhid li-ināṭat al-ḥukm) bi-l-ʿilla ka-ḥifẓ al-nufūs”, al-Maḥallī, in al6
8
Jawharat al-Tawḥīd affirm the obligation to believe that God preserves these maqāṣid.9
Nevertheless, the prescriptive hermeneutic necessitated that positive law be derived from
the Qurʾān and ḥadīth literature, and scholarly consensus, ijmāʿ. In the absence of an
answer to legal problems in these sources, analogies to the texts were made, whereby the
effective legal causes of rulings, ʿilal, are identified and applied to new situations. The
methods for identification of such legal causes were dealt with in books of uṣūl, sources of
law, under the heading masālik al-ʿilla, methods for identifying effective legal causes. In
the rare instances when it was not possible to identify an appropriate ʿilla in the texts and
apply it to a particular new situation, there was recourse to al-maṣlaḥa al-mursala,
unrestricted interests. This option required invocation of the maqāṣid to determine the
ruling. Although there were classical debates on the acceptability of maṣlaḥa, the
conclusion was that an acceptable use of maṣlaḥa must be scripturally grounded, and
hence maintain the prescriptive hermeneutic that command ethics necessitates. This debate
will be examined in more detail below. It is important to bear in mind that maqāṣid
remained primarily utilised in the sphere of doctrine.
Abū Iṣhāq al-Shāṭibī (d.790 H/ 1388) is widely accepted today to be the master of
maqāṣid. He followed the Ashʿarite school in matters of ʿaqīda, and this study will show
that his discussion of maqāṣid must be understood in light of this fact. Previous scholars
such as Imām al-Ḥaramayn al-Juwaynī (d.478 H/1085), Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (d. 505
H/1111) and ʿIzz al-Dīn ibn ʿAbd al-Salām (d.660 H/1261) had written about maqāṣid, but
none had devoted as much writing as al-Shāṭibī. Maqāṣid compromise the primary topic of
his text, al-Muwāfaqāt. He also elaborated on it in his other surviving book al-Iʿtiṣām. AlShāṭibī was a grammarian and jurist of the Mālikī school who lived in Granada under the
Bannānī, Ḥāshiyyat, II:237. The text in brackets is al-Subkī’s Jamʿ al-Jawāmiʿ, and the rest is the sharḥ
(commentary) of al-Maḥallī.
9
“Wa-ḥifẓ dīn thumma nafs māl nasab, wa-mithluhā ʿaql wa-ʿirḍ qad wajab”, al-Laqānī, in the sharḥ of alBayjurī, Tuḥfat al-Murīd, 198.
9
Naṣrid kingdom. Intellectually speaking Naṣrid Granada was not a dynamic place, there
being only one school of law (Mālikism) and one school of ʿaqīda (Ashʿarism). There was
a close relationship between the Naṣrids and the Mālikī jurists; loyalty to the sultans was
an unstated condition for becoming a judge in Granada.10 Due to his refusal to submit to
the status quo, for example in not making supplication for the sultans during his Friday
sermons, al-Shāṭibī suffered “prosecutions and slander”11 some even describing the
situation as an inquisition, miḥna, against him.12 Despite this, some of his writings have
survived, including the now much celebrated al-Muwāfaqāt which was first published in
Tunis in 1884. Yet, until the book’s rediscovery by the great Islamic revivalist Muḥammad
ʿAbduh no references to it are to be found in later writings, and it appears to have been
unstudied for centuries.
The recent history and usage of the al-Muwāfaqāt is intimately tied to ʿAbduh’s
reform movement and the growth of neo-Muʿtazilism. This term is in reference to the early
school of ʿaqīda, Muʿtazilism, which held morality to be objectivist and hence accessible
to the ʿaql, human intellect. Although the Muʿtazilites disagreed with Ashʿarites on the
nature of morality, they followed the same schools of law, thereby refraining from
questioning the ‘goodness’ of sharīʿa in practical terms.
However, the term neo-
Muʿtazilism refers to a school of thought that translates Muʿtazilite concerns into issues of
practicality. Although few figures identify openly as neo-Muʿtazilite, this study locates
neo-Muʿtazilite tendencies in those who subscribe to moral objectivism and hold law
accountable to this theory. Similar to Aquinas’s axiom of natural law, lex injusta non est
lex, is the neo-Muʿtazilite requirement for law to be based on rationally identifiable
objective morals, which, in the eyes of Ashʿarite theologians, can only amount to human
10
Secall, “Rulers and Qāḍīs”, 235.
Al-Raysūnī, Naẓariyyat al-Maqāṣid, 120.
12
Al-ʿUbaydī, al-Shāṭibī, 22.
11
10
moral subjectivism. The maqāṣid theory has been a useful tool in the neo-Muʿtazilite
project. Whilst the early Muʿtazilite school was concerned with questions of theology and
epistemology, and the role of the human intellect therein, neo-Muʿtazilism does not have
clear-cut questions and is not a clearly defined school. This study uses the term to identify
a trend of thought that proposes reform of Islamic law by upholding an objective morality
to which the law is subject.
The growth of neo-Muʿtazilism is closely tied to the Islamic revivalist movement,
which sought to provide an intellectual defence of Islam in the 19th and 20th centuries due
to Europe’s military and cultural domination over Muslim lands. A symbolic spark of this
movement may be found in Ernest Renan’s lecture on “Islam and Science” at the Sorbonne
in 1883, in which he publically attacked Islam as anti-rationalist and incapable of adapting
to modernity. In such a context, polemicists such as Jamāl al-Dīn al-Afghānī (d.1897), set
out to free the Islamic world from the imperial grip, albeit without systemised thought. AlAfghānī has been described as “the Socrates of the [reformist] movement. He wrote little
but inspired a great deal”.13 It is important to note that al-Afghānī’s shīʿī roots still
supported branches of Muʿtazilite thought and philosophy, which had long disappeared in
Sunni tradition, and consequently influenced his intellectual defence of Islam. Al-Afghānī
taught philosophy, logic and higher theology to his students and was known for seeking
out eclectic texts.
The revivalist movement which came after al-Afghānī, spearheaded by his previous
student Muhammad ʿAbduh (d.1905) and ʿAbduh’s own disciple Rashīd Riḍā (d.1935), is
also considered to have promoted a “rationalist type of theology associated with the early
Islamic theologians ‘the Muʿtazilites’”.14 This belief system was at least partially inherited
13
14
Badawi, Reformers of Egypt, 17.
Rahnema, Pioneers of the Islamic Revival, 25.
11
from al-Afghānī’s background. Wael Hallaq has also suggested that ʿAbduh’s theology
“no doubt reflected an indirect Kantian influence.”15 Equally, it has been said that ʿAbduh
was frustrated with “learning by rote of commentaries on ancient texts”16 and considered
his goal to be proving the compatibility of Islam and modernity.17 The revivalist
movement did more than just planting the seeds of neo-Muʿtazilism, it also advocated the
abandonment of taqlīd, which it interpreted as blind adherence to received dogma and law
devoid of critical thought. The traditional education system of ijāzāt and salāsil, whereby
texts were only studied with teachers with authoritative chains of transmission leading
back to the original authors, was discarded. This system that had “guaranteed the
transmission of authoritative religious knowledge”18 was seen as preventing the free
thinking necessary for the modern world and as ironically leading the Muslim umma to err
from the ‘true’ Islam.
In 1884 ʿAbduh travelled to Tunis, the same year that the al-Muwāfaqāt was first
published. In the introduction to his 1906 edition to the book ʿAbdullāh Darāz recounts
how his interest in al-Muwāfaqāt grew from ʿAbduh’s insistence that all students in
Egypt’s al-Azhar University study it.19 However, to engage in an authoritative study of a
book written centuries ago, for which there is no silsila, can pose problems in Islamic
scholarship. Al-Muwāfaqāt is a book of uṣūl and books of this category were often
deliberately intended to be notoriously difficult, even incomprehensible, unless studied
with the author or a teacher with the appropriate ijāza. This was due to their specialised
vocabulary which could have multiple or opposing meanings, namely ‘the language of the
15
Hallaq, Sharia, 503.
Albert Hourani, Arabic Thought, 131.
17
Ibid., 161.
18
Makdisi, Rise of the Colleges, 141.
19
Darāz, “Muqaddima”, 11.
16
12
jurists’. Al-Shāṭibī even describes the contents of al-Muwāfaqāt as a “concealed secret”20
which he forbids anyone without a thorough training in Islamic sciences from reading.
This also implies the necessity of the appropriate silsila in order to understand the full
meaning of the book. It is needless to say that Islam, as a religion, is more than an
epistemological cognitive theory, it is a living tradition in which knowledge is sanctified
and transmitted from person to person. From a traditional Islamic perspective then, it is
difficult to speak with complete authority about al-Muwāfaqāt. This study, whilst not
attempting to analyse al-Muwāfaqāt itself, aims to show how, by re-appropriating alShāṭibī’s maqāṣid theory, some modernist scholarship has used the work for an end other
than that which its Ashʿarite commitments necessitate.
At the heart of this phenomenon lies the Euthyphro dilemma and the question of
the nature of morality. This study opened with a discussion on the vacillation between an
objectivist morality and a subjectivist morality in Western scholarship because these
discussions are the cognates of those in modern Islamic thought. While classical Islamic
scholarship accepted theistic subjectivism in ethics, modernist scholarship has called for
objectivism. However, as has been pointed out by legal positivists and philosophers such
as Bauman, moral universal objectivism entails many philosophical problems, which lead
many to consider it an impossibility. Likewise, classical Islamic scholarship would regard
objectivists as mere supporters of human moral subjectivism.
It is helpful to consider the phenomenon of neo-Muʿtazilism in the context of the
broader Islamic reformist movement. Modernity and the concept of ‘progress’ has led
many contemporary Islamic thinkers to question the relevancy of Islamic tradition in light
of the constantly evolving man. This is partly why over the past 150 years there has been a
ressourcement of other previously marginal scholars and texts from the Islamic tradition,
20
“Maknūn al-sirr”, al-Muwāfaqāt, I:17.
13
such as Ibn Taymiyya (d.728 H/1328) and Muḥammad ibn ‘Alī al-Shawkānī (d.1834).21
Modernist scholars, be they reformist or salafī, have sought to discover, or return to, the
‘true’ Islam. This ‘true’ Islam is intended to be answerable to modern day questions of
pluralism, progress and secularism.
The definition of Islamic modernism used in this study is the premise that the past
is fundamentally different to the present. This premise results in the view that past
intellectual traditions are unsuitable for solving today’s problems, and hence that there is a
need to reform old scholarship, or overhaul it entirely. Modernism is therefore tied to
particular temporal assumptions which entail a relationship of hesitance or caution with
regards to classical scholarship. In contrast to this, Hussein Agrama has analysed the
concept of time in classical scholarship whereby humans and their needs are considered to
never truly change. This view meant that creativity and reform were not criteria for good
scholarship.22
For modernist scholars classical Ashʿarite theistic subjectivism is antithetical to
modern day rationality. This study proposes that al-Muwāfaqāt is used as a source from
within the tradition that justifies the discarding of ethical voluntarism in favour of moral
objectivism. This study, due to its limited nature, will only discuss modernists writing in
Arabic and publishing within the last two decades, the foremost of whom will be Aḥmad
al-Raysūnī.
21
22
E.g.: Rappoport and Ahmed (eds.), Ibn Taymiyya; Dallal, “Appropriating the past”.
Agrama, “Ethics, tradition, authority”, 8-9.
14
Neo-Muʿtazilite trends in interpreting al-Shāṭibī’s al-Muwāfaqāt
In this section we will analyse and comment on modernist writings, and justify their
characterisation as neo-Muʿtazilite. The central modernist thinker examined in this study is
the Moroccan maqāṣid specialist Aḥmad al-Raysūnī (b.1953). He has published widely on
the topic, including Naẓariyyat al-Maqāṣid ʿind al-Imām al-Shāṭibī which is the primary
source of neo-Muʿtazilite readings of al-Muwāfaqāt that will be addressed in this study.
Al-Raysūnī is especially important within the maqāṣid movement because of his work on
al-Shāṭibī and extensive publishing and experience. He is perceived as a mainstream
figure, not calling for the total abandonment of tradition in favour of a neo-maqāṣid
jurisprudential theory, but in whom neo-Muʿtazilite tendencies can be clearly discerned.
He is involved in Islamist politics and the reformist movement, his personal website
describing him as an “Islamic legal scholar of freedom” and as able to “make compatible
what appears to others as contradictory, namely the problematic of Islamic law and its
relationship to human freedom”.23 It would appear, therefore, that al-Raysūnī proposes an
Islamic response to modernity. In doing so, he interprets al-Shāṭibī’s notions of maqāṣid
with a neo-Muʿtazilite reading. This is a tendency that can be found amongst other Islamic
modernist scholars who will be compared to al-Raysūnī below.
As a foundation, al-Raysūnī highlights al-Shāṭibī as a pre-eminent scholar.
However, the discrepancy between the historical
al-Shāṭibī and al-Raysūnī’s
characterization is striking. As we noted earlier, al- Shāṭibī and his works were either lost
or unstudied until the late 19th century, and consequently do not seem to have played any
role in Islamic scholarship until the modern period. Despite this, al-Raysūnī describes alShāṭibī as the mujaddid of his century24 and the scholar whose maqāṣid theory can provide
23
24
<www.raissouni.org/?info=3096> (last accessed 5/12/2011)
Al-Raysūnī, Naẓariyyat al-Maqāṣid, 337.
15
Islamic law with “a source of rebirth and renewal” in modern times.25 Al-Shāṭibī is
described as part of the same movement of “efforts for renewal and initiatives of ijtihād
and reform” that began with figures such as ʿAbduh and Riḍā and continue today.26 Other
modernist scholars, such as Ḥamādī al-ʿUbaydī make similar assertions, proclaiming that
studying al-Shāṭibī will allow us to renew sharīʿa whilst still maintaining authenticity and
rootedness in tradition; it will end the intellectual subordination of Muslims.27 Similarly,
the Moroccan researcher Jilālī al-Marīnī describes Islamic positive law after the time of the
Four Imams as stagnated, and posits al-Shāṭibī as one of the few scholars truly capable of
ijtihād by grace of his maqāṣid theory.28 Although these characterisations do not
necessarily negate the historical facts, if one accepts them then it does seem peculiar that
such an important figure could have been neglected for so long. More significant then is
al-Raysūnī’s claim that “al-Muwāfaqāt has enjoyed great appraisal and remarkable
attention in both ancient and contemporary times.”29 Despite this assertion being simply
not true, it allows al-Raysūnī to present his use of al-Shāṭibī and maqāṣid theory as nothing
new to traditional Islamic sciences, and instead as something which has perpetually played
a crucial role in Islamic scholarship. Some may deem this as an attempt to conceal a
modern theory as part of the Islamic scholarly tradition. In any case, the historical
inaccuracies lend an insight into the overarching preoccupation of modernist scholars,
namely, the battle between the past and the present.
The nature of Mālikism, al-Shāṭibī’s school of law, has also been misrepresented
by al-Raysūnī and others. The school is often held up as the most rationalist and adaptable
25
Al-Raysūnī, Naẓariyyat al-Maqāṣid, 351.
Al-Raysūnī, al-Fikr al-Maqāṣidī, 7.
27
Al-ʿUbaydī, al-Shāṭibī, 7.
28
Al-Marīnī, al-Qawāʿid al-Uṣūliyya, 8.
29
Al-Raysūnī, Naẓariyyat al-Maqāṣid, 112
26
16
of the madhāhib, and special attention is paid to its use of maṣlaḥa and maqāṣid.30 AlRaysūnī characterises it as the “the most outstanding school for maqāṣid”31 and the “readymade system” of the people of Medina.32 These two distinguishing marks imply two
claims. The first is that Mālikism is the most rationalistic legal school, and hence the most
appropriate for modern times. The second implied claim is that, seeing as this rationalism
was the practice of the people of Medina, then it is closest to the Prophetic model, and
therefore to the ‘spirit’ of Islam. In another piece of writing, al-Raysūnī argues that the
Mālikī school is the most appropriate for “ijtihād, renewal and openness,” which he puts
down to its “flexible theories” such as maṣlaḥa and maqāṣid. He then continues to attribute
the European movements of “reform, renewal and renaissance” to the Mālikī school and
the inspiration it gave from the wonders of its civilisation in al-Andalus.33
These
statements show an attempt to link Mālikism and the maqāṣid theory to modern values and
Western history. Furthermore, the implication of its perceived flexibility, and the link to
Western thought, could be the espousal of a Kantian system of humanly defined ethics, or
what others may call natural law. This interpretation is justified when one considers that
al-Raysūnī sees the defining feature of Mālikism to be its requirement for interpretation of
scripture and the exercise of qiyās to be through the lens of maṣlaḥa.34 Al-ʿUbaydī makes
similar assertions to al-Raysūnī, considering the Mālikism as the school that makes the
most use of maṣlaḥa and maqāṣid,35 and the one closest to Prophetic practice.36 He also
links the blossoming of philosophy in Islamic Spain to the Mālikī environment.37
30
E.g.: Zaḥra, Mālik, 367-404; George Hourani, Reason and Revelation, 268-269.
Al-Raysūnī, Naẓariyyat al-Maqāṣid, 73.
32
Ibid., 74.
33
<http://www.alislah.org/2011-04-10-21-59-54/2009-10-07-11-52-06/item/18598-raissouni.html> (last
accessed 5/12/2011)
34
Al-Raysūnī, Naẓariyyat al-Maqāṣid, 81.
35
Al-ʿUbaydī, al-Shāṭibī, 135.
36
Ibid., 46.
37
Ibid., 48.
31
17
Despite these claims, the modernist characterisation of the Mālikī school is at
variance with the writings of scholars contemporary to al-Shāṭibī, for example the
Andalusian and Mālikī scholar Shams al-Dīn al-Rāʿī (d.853 H/1449). Al-Rāʿī was from
Naṣrid Granada and moved to Cairo where he encountered significant rivalry between
different schools of law. He wrote a book to defend Mālikism as the superior school of
Islamic law, basing his argument on the Mālikī use of ʿamal ahl al-madīna, the practice of
the people of Medina, as a source of law.38 He saw this form of transmitting the Prophetic
practice, through action rather than narration, as more authentic. Similarly, the Moroccan
Mālikī scholar Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ (d.544 H/1149) explains the superiority of the Mālikī school as
being its closeness to Prophetic practice, and details stories of how the Medinan scholars
were better at following the prophetic sunna.39 This reasoning for its pre-eminence over
other schools is quite removed from, if not antithetical, to modernist writings which place
emphasis on Mālikī use of reason, maṣlaḥa and maqāṣid. The reasoning of the these two
jurists is symptomatic of an Ashʿarite theology where the concern is to uncover the
Prophetic practice as best as possible in order to uncover God’s law, rather than focussing
on ways to make it more flexible.
Building on the maṣlaḥa-flexibility thesis, one of the most apparent ways in which
the neo-Muʿtazilite approach comes across in the writings of al-Raysūnī and other
modernists is the view that maṣlaḥa is a condition for law. This implies an objectivist view
of morality and jurisprudential theory close to that of natural law. This view does not
consider maṣlaḥa to be a matter of ethical voluntarism and prescriptive hermeneutics;
rather it is subject to human experience and intellectual judgements under the pretext of
objectivism. Whilst maqāṣid had been a doctrinal theory laid down to confirm an existing
system, modernist maqāṣid writings point towards the overhauling of the system. As a
38
39
Al-Rāʿī, Intiṣār al-Faqīr al-Sālik.
ʻIyāḍ, Tartīb al-Madārik, 58-63.
18
preliminary we will first examine al-Shāṭibī’s Ashʿarite commitments found in his writing
in order to see how al-Raysūnī and others depart from them. We read in al-Muwāfaqāt that
“the ʿaql does not legislate”40 and it “cannot determine the good or bad”.41 Al-Shāṭibī
considers that the maṣlaḥa of mankind “is what is in accordance with God’s command”,42
and he justifies this view by declaring that “the Lawgiver is the greatest doctor”.43 These
statements show that human intellect can only legitimately uncover laws, but cannot
decide what is good or bad independently of revelation.44 Maqāṣid is therefore a doctrinal
confirmation of the moral goodness of the law necessitated by theistic subjectivism, not
something the law can be made subject to.
Contrary to this, al-Raysūnī argues that “maṣlaḥa-based interpretation” must be at
the foundation of how we understand the meaning of texts and derive rulings from them. It
is true that classical ʿaqīda and jurisprudence held maṣlaḥa to be at the foundation of law.
Al-Shāṭibī writes, for example that “the law was laid down for no other purpose than to
serve human beings’ maṣlaḥa”.45 However, this must be understood as a confirmation that
God knows what the best, or true, maṣlaḥa is.46 Yet, al-Raysūnī’s interpretation of alShāṭibī’s vision for maṣlaḥa is that “maṣlaḥa-based interpretations” form the basis for
interpreting scripture and deriving rulings.47 This implies that law is subject to human
interpretations of maṣlaḥa. Nonetheless, al-Raysūnī is not totally unaware of the
discrepancy between his views and al-Shāṭibī’s Ashʿarite commitments. He criticises “the
negative impact” of Ashʿarism which denies that things are good or bad in themselves,
40
“Wa-l-ʿaql laysa bi-shāriʿ”, al-Muwāfaqāt, I:25.
“Lā yuḥassin wa-lā yuqabbiḥ”, al-Muwāfaqāt, I:58.
42
“Fa-hiya [maṣāliḥ al-ʿibād] ʿāʾida ʿalayhim bi-ḥasab amr al-shāriʿ”, al-Muwāfaqāt, I:382.
43
“Fa-inna al-shāriʿ huwa al-ṭabīb al-ʾaẓam”, al-Muwāfaqāt, I:365.
44
The ninth topic (masʾala) of kitāb al-maqāṣid explains that the maqāṣid are known through revelation
(naql) and not ʿaql, al-Muwāfaqāt, I:294-296.
45
“waḍʿ al-sharīʿa innamā huwa li-maṣāliḥ al-ʿibād”, al-Muwāfaqāt, I:262.
46
i.e. maṣlaḥa according to theistic subjectivism
47
Al-Raysūnī, Naẓariyyat al-Maqāṣid, 281.
41
19
claiming only God makes them so.48 Al-Raysūnī holds that good and bad are rationally
discernible and are simply confirmed by divine revelation, and says that to think otherwise
is not only irrational, but is also to ignore the clear message of scripture.49
Similar to al-Raysūnī, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Kīlānī, of Mutah University in Jordan,
writes about al-Shāṭibī’s maqāṣid being, in their broadest sense, simply the maṣlaḥa of
humankind.50 However he neglects to mention that this refers to maṣlaḥa as determined by
God. When he then explains that the maqāṣid are vital for modern day ijithād,51 this
ambiguity persists and causes a clear shift from al-Shāṭibī’s Ashʿarite stance.
Al-ʿUbaydī, in line with al-Raysūnī, promotes a neo-Muʿtazilite reading of alShāṭibī, although with a slightly different outlook. Whilst al-Raysūnī acknowledges the
importance of the Muslim scholarly tradition, al-ʿUbaydī holds al-Shāṭibī to be removed
from the tradition, thereby espousing a salafī stance. The modern salafī movement openly
attempts to do away with traditional schools of law and ‘return to the salaf’, the pious
forefathers, and thus the spirit of Islam. It argues that the tradition that built up after the
salaf was a bidʿa, a blameworthy innovation. Whilst the salafī movement and the reformist
movement appear ostensibly at odds with each other, the former considered conservative
and the latter liberal, many of their tendencies actually stem from the same historical
founders, namely ʿAbduh and Riḍā and the revivalist movement.52 This is observed very
easily in al-ʿUbaydī, who, whilst being a part of the reformist maqāṣid movement, has a
salafī outlook as he often calls for scriptural literalism and a return to the salaf.53 Yet, at
that the same time he asserts that laws of muʿāmalāt (those not directly related to worship)
48
Ibid., 263-4.
Ibid., 268.
50
Kīlānī, Qawāʿid al-Maqāṣid, 47.
51
Ibid., 62.
52
Badawi, Reformers of Egypt, 15.
53
Al-ʿUbaydī, al-Shāṭibī, 209, 216.
49
20
are “limited only by the fact they must achieve maṣlaḥa”,54 and that the effective legal
cause, ʿilla, of a ruling is the same as its ratio legis (ḥikma), therefore when the ratio legis
is not achieved, the ruling cannot be applied.55 The equation of an ʿilla with its ratio legis
is a gross inaccuracy in interpreting classical scholarship, the implications of which we
will examine below. Nevertheless, al-ʿUbaydī’s position of both salafī literalism and neoMuʿtazilite reformism is perhaps understandable given the historical roots of the
modernist/reformist movement and that of the salafī movement. Both al-ʿUbaydī and alRaysūnī, position themselves as heirs of ʿAbduh and Riḍā. While al-ʿUbaydī uses alShāṭibī to distance himself from traditional Islamic sciences, al-Raysūnī uses him to justify
reform from within. They both relate to time and tradition within a modernist framework,
believing that situations have changed, human needs have changed, and the tradition must
adapt accordingly.
Having argued that scripture must be examined in light of maqāṣid, al-Raysūnī also
emphasises maqāṣid as the most important aspect of law. He warns that when neglecting
maqāṣid “we will indeed fall into gross error and considerable hardship, and that is to say
nothing of our violation of the Lawgiver’s guidance”.56 Although by itself this statement is
ambiguous, given al-Raysūnī’s espousal of an objectivist and rationally discernible theory
of maṣlaḥa, which he views as the “core of maqāṣid”,57 he would appear to be promoting a
sort of natural law theory quite removed from the command ethics of al-Shāṭibī’s
Ashʿarism. Al-ʿUbaydī makes similar claims when he calls maqāṣid the way forward for a
revival of Islamic law,58 and the ignorance of it the cause of “all error and innovation”.59
54
Ibid., 224.
Ibid., 145.
56
Al-Raysūnī, Naẓariyyat al-Maqāṣid, 179.
57
Ibid., 255.
58
Al-ʿUbaydī, al-Shāṭibī, 5.
59
Ibid., 187.
55
21
With regards to neo-Muʿtazilite reform, al-Raysūnī argues for the examination of
the particulars of law in light of its universals. He asserts that in order for the maqāṣid not
to be lost there must be a rational assessment of the changing sources of maṣlaḥa.60
Importantly, this idea that the source of maṣlaḥa can change (which concomitantly allows
positive law to change) risks being a logical fallacy in al-Raysūnī’s reading of al-Shāṭibī.
From what we have read of al-Muwāfaqāt, it is evident that he maintains that maṣlaḥa, at
least in as much as humans are capable of grasping it, exists in as far as the Lawgiver
expresses it in scripture. Given this, it is illogical to then justify the reform of scriptural
particulars in the name of universals which themselves are deduced from scripture. The
only way for al-Raysūnī to avoid this logical fallacy is to claim that the universals, the
maqāṣid, are knowable by human reason alone, yet this idea is vigorously rejected by alShāṭibī who insists on scripture as the only pointer towards knowledge of maqāṣid.
Nevertheless, the examination of particulars in light of universals remains a key
discourse within the neo-Muʿtazilite readings of al-Shāṭibī, and the movement itself more
broadly. As noted above, al-ʿUbaydī equates the maqāṣid with ʿilal. Given his neoMuʿtazilite stance, this also allows him to modify rulings whenever he deems the maqāṣid
not to be achievable otherwise. In classical uṣūl, in order for law to be enacted ʿilal must
be verifiable or measurable, munḍabiṭ. Seeing as the nature of maqāṣid is that they are not
measurable, instead constituting wisdoms, they are hence precluded from acting as ʿilal.
The need for a quantifiable legal cause is important given the nature of command ethics
and the need for precision. In equating maqāṣid toʿilal, al-ʿUbaydī allows jurists to reform
positive law when they determine that its wisdoms are not being achieved. This approach
opens up the path to human subjectivism under the guise of an objectivist morality.
60
Al-Raysūnī, Naẓariyyat al-Maqāṣid, 286.
22
Al-Raysūnī also highlights his prioritising of universal maqāṣid over the particulars
of positive law. He affirms that “the universal is to be given priority over the particular if
there is a conflict between the two”.61 He also quotes an early forefather of the maqāṣid
school, ʿAllāl al-Fāsī, to suggest that when there is necessity “the objectives of the law
exert influence even over that which is explicitly required in scripture”62 thereby
committing maqāṣid to overriding particulars. This trend of making such broad statements
without qualification or examples can be found amongst a number of other modernist
interpreters of al-Shāṭibī. For example, the Egyptian scholar ʿAbd al-Salām bin ʿAbd alKarīm describes al-Shāṭibī’s nature as to look for “the core of things, the reality of affairs,
rather than outward forms”,63 and says that one of al-Shāṭibī’s maxims is “particulars
which oppose universals are disposed of”.64 These views are contradictory to al-Shāṭibī’s
stance that particulars are indeed legislated for the protection of maqāṣid. He says, for
example, that the goodness of sharīʿa is absolute and comprehensive, kullī, and hence “the
particulars of law are included under this [goodness], because a comprehensive look into it
[the goodness of sharī’a] is constituted by looking at particulars”.65 This is in accordance
with the Ashʿarite position that knowledge of maṣlaḥa is derived from the particulars of
scripture, because true maṣlaḥa is equal to the commands of God.
Similar to the unqualified and broad claims of examining particulars in light of
universals is the oft cited and little explained concept of al-ijtihād al-maqāṣidī, or maqāṣid
based ijtihād. This term is ambiguous, and could be interpreted in a number of ways. On
the one hand, it could simply mean to keep in mind the overall spirit of the law when
deriving rulings without a clear text in scripture, which is something al-Shāṭibī would
61
Al-Raysūnī, Naẓariyyat al-Maqāṣid, 377.
Ibid., 360-1.
63
Karīm, al-Imām al-Shāṭibī, 30.
64
Ibid., 50.
65
“Fa-la-yadkhul taḥtahā al-juzʿiyyāt, fa-l-naẓar al-kullī fī-hā manzal li-l-juzʿiyyāt”, al-Muwāfaqāt , I:286.
62
23
undoubtedly support, and even insist upon. However, al-Raysūnī’s analysis of al-Shāṭibī’s
ijtihād maqāṣidī is that he, al-Shāṭibī, used it in order to force scholars to open the way to
istiṣlāḥ (ruling by maṣlaḥa) rather than restrict it.66 This is a neo-Muʿtazilite approach to
understanding al-Muwāfaqāt because he implies that al-Shāṭibī somehow intended for
reform of law based on maqāṣid. Yet, for al-Shāṭibī, ijtihād maqāṣidī is no more than a
reference to an inductive reading of texts which does not lose its Ashʿarite hermeneutic.
This is apparent in his section on ijtihād within al-Muwāfaqāt in which he writes that
knowledge of the maqāṣid is a necessary quality for a mujtahid. However he says the
maqāṣid are “built on the consideration of maṣlaḥa, but only in as far as the lawgiver, not
human perception, has determined it such.”67
On the other hand, al-ʿUbaydī and Kīlānī link the idea of al-ijtihād al-maqāṣidī to
the idea of using the maqāṣid as ʿilal. The attempt to used humanly perceived maqāṣid as
ʿilal is what renders their thought as neo-Muʿtazilite. Al-ʿUbaydī claims that ijtihād
maqāṣidī is more appropriate than ijtihād based on traditional uṣūl.68 He argues that in
traditional uṣūl, rulings are deduced from language, grammar and exegesis, as opposed to
an understanding of the wisdom of the sharīʿa. Implicit in this view is the idea that
maṣlaḥa is not definitively contained in scripture, but rather in human intellect. The
method used by traditional uṣūl, however, was designed to ensure the closest possible
reading of scripture, as this was the most appropriate method for deducing legal rulings
and ensuring maintenance of command ethics. Moreover, we can also see an example of
using maqāṣid as ʿilal in Kīlānī’s writing. In a rare instance we find the substantiation of
the broad claims being made. Kīlānī takes the example of there being a difference of
opinion among modern jurists over the permissibility of photographing humans. He
66
Al-Raysūnī, Naẓariyyat al-Maqāṣid, 360.
“Mabniyya ʿalā ʿitibār al-maṣāliḥ, wa-anna al-maṣāliḥ innamā ʿutibarat min ḥayth waḍaʿahā al-shāriʿ
ka-dhālik”, al-Muwāfaqāt, II:373.
68
Al-ʿUbaydī, al-Shāṭibī, 179.
67
24
declares that photography is definitely permissible, and his argument against those who
say otherwise is that they have not understood the maqāṣid, which is not concerned with
such harmless actions.69 Instead of locating the ʿilla for the basis of his ruling, such as the
nature of one’s intention, or something related to the process of reproducing the human
form, Kīlānī uses recourse to maqāṣid, which means he neglects using a textually-based
quantifier. The advantage of textually-based quantifiers is that jurists can ‘measure’ when
a ruling is to be applied, e.g. one is counted as travelling for the purpose of shortening
prayers after x kilometres, as opposed to deciding for oneself what counts. This ensures the
fulfilment of command ethics, instead of leaving individuals subject to themselves.
Kīlānī’s neglect of this demonstrates his preference for humanly-identified rulings, and
thereby humanly-identified maṣlaḥa.
Furthermore, neo-Muʿtazilite readings of al-Shāṭibī also suggest new maqāṣid. As
neo-Muʿtazilism promotes an objectivist morality not limited to scripture, it follows that in
modern times new maqāṣid would be suggested. Whilst al-Raysūnī does not elaborate
much on the topic, saying simply “I advocate that we open this topic up for discussion”,70
at least entertaining the idea, others advance the issue. The Tunisian scholar of maqāṣid
Nūr al-Dīn bin al-Khādimī quotes al-Shāṭibī’s five maqāṣid, and then suggests that
“protection of freedom or the dignity of humanity” be added to the list,71 which he justifies
as necessary in modern life. In the same piece al-Khādimī posits maqāṣid as the best tool
for what he calls “fiqh al-taḥaḍḍur”, ‘civilisational law’. The use of this new and unusual
term implies that a new fiqh is needed to create civilisation, and the emphasis on the need
for maqāṣid implies that the traditional juristic tools are lacking and not suitable for
modern times. Creating new maqāṣid such as preservation of freedom and human dignity
69
Kīlānī, Qawāʿid al-Maqāṣid, 267.
Al-Raysūnī, Naẓariyyat al-Maqāṣid, 386.
71
Khādimī, Abḥāth fī Maqāṣid al-Sharīʿa, 143.
70
25
seem as though they must be in reference to liberal concepts which would otherwise not be
in line with Islamic positive law, such as freedom of apostasy or fornication without
corporal punishment. If this were not the case then Islamically sanctioned freedoms, such
as freedom to become Muslim and freedom to choose one’s spouse, would already be
accounted for under other maqāṣid, therefore negating the need for new maqāṣid. The
same attempt to liberalise can be found in work of the Egyptian scholar of maqāṣid Jamāl
al-Dīn ‘Aṭiyya who calls for new maqāṣid such as preservation of justice, brotherhood,
solidarity, freedom, dignity and human rights.72 The perceived need for new maqāṣid
highlights the belief that maṣlaḥa is not fully encompassed in scripture, and that the human
intellect can identify where and how it must be completed. These views belie an
underlying theory of natural law, whereby the human mind can access objective morality.
This is a thoroughly anti-Shāṭibian approach to the subject matter, for it does not see
scripture as containing the sum-total of maṣlaḥa.
In this section we have provided a textual analysis of modernist writings in order to
see the contradictory nature of their interpretations of al-Shāṭibī. The nature of these
inaccuracies in readings of al-Shāṭibī requires us to examine the maqāṣid project as a
whole and to consider the wider implications of the issue at hand. This is the subject of the
next section.
72
‘Aṭiyya, Naḥwa tafʿīl Maqāṣid al-Sharīʿa, 101.
26
Paradoxes, observations and repercussions
When discussing ethics and law which command humans to behave in certain ways, it is
important to consider questions of human accountability. From an Islamic perspective, all
of mankind will stand before God on the Day of Judgement, and be held accountable for
their actions. However, who exactly is responsible to the sharīʿa? Ashʿarites posit that
humans are not responsible for acting in accordance with the sharīʿa until revelation
reaches them. The Māturīdī school, which did not exist in al-Shāṭibī’s Andalusia, holds
those unreached by revelation responsible for belief in God by virtue of their ʿaql. They
also maintain that humans are responsible to understand ‘goodness’ in a broad sense, but
that those unreached by revelation are not accountable to the laws of sharīʿa as these are
known only through revelation.73 Hence, by consensus, Sunni scholarship, to the exclusion
of the Muʿtazilites, does not hold humans responsible for behaving in line with the rules of
sharīʿa and its ethical precepts unless they have been reached by revelation. This is
because the ʿaql alone is deemed an insufficient determinant of ethics and legal rulings.
From this position, we can understand that sharīʿa is, by its nature, something divine, and
not a part of human determination.
Kevin Reinhart’s study on the boundaries of Muslim moral thought before
revelation shows how the moral status of human actions prior to revelation was essentially
indeterminate.74 The lack of knowledge concerning what constituted goodness meant the
past itself was indeterminate, whereas post-revelation the availability of this knowledge
meant that the future is settled. The modern notion of ‘progress’, a teleological progression
of humanity towards greatness (however vaguely defined), was alien to classical Islamic
civilisation, because the complete and final revelation of the Qurʾān meant that the most
73
74
Al-Usmandī, Lubāb al-Aḥkām, 46-50.
Reinhart, Before Revelation.
27
perfect possible understanding of God and ethics was made available to the Prophet
Muḥammad. The task of later Muslims was to uncover and reconstitute this knowledge.
Despite this, the Islamic revivalist movement which would sow the seeds for the
maqāṣid school accepted the Enlightenment paradigm of “the modern breaking free of the
continuity of an earlier mode of time”.75 Their task became “one of constructing,
reforming, reviving or synthesising Islam in order to make it relevant to the needs,
demands and predicaments of those whom they considered the victims of modern
civilisation”.76 Changing concepts of time had rendered tradition “increasingly irrelevant
in the face of the future’s incessant novelty”.77 This can be seen in al-Raysūnī’s thought.
He describes the maqāṣid school as “liberation from many of the blockades and chains for
which God sent down no authority”,78 from which is understood that he views the tradition
of Islamic scholarship to be preventing modern Muslims from progressing forward in a
teleological fashion. Bearing this in mind, it is interesting that al-Raysūnī also locates the
solution to the woes of tradition from within the tradition. He considers the Islamic
tradition to “have overlooked the maqāṣid in both content and method”,79 but that maqāṣid
are necessary “for there to be a truly Islamic thought”.80 By referencing classical Islamic
scholarship al-Raysūnī affords himself legitimacy and avoids the accusations garnered by
the salafī movement for overhauling centuries of scholarship.
In spite of this, the contradictory nature of al-Raysūnī’s interpretation of al-Shāṭibī
reveals a troubled relationship to past scholarship that is characteristic of modern
scholarship. The Lebanese analyst of the maqāṣid school, Nūr al-Dīn Būthūrī, has written
that the school sees “classical Islamic fiqh frameworks as neither capable of embracing the
75
Koselleck, Futures Past, 31.
Rahnema, Pioneers of the Islamic Revival, 6.
77
Agrama, “Ethics, tradition, authority”, 8.
78
Al-Raysūnī, al-Fikr al-Maqāṣidī, 6.
79
Ibid., 99.
80
Ibid., 100.
76
28
reality of modern civilisation and its increasing complexities, nor of responding to the need
for Muslims to regain balance.”81 This point of view is perhaps a reaction to, and a result
of, the impact of Western thought and historicity on Muslim peoples. Hallaq has claimed
that traditional sharīʿa met its demise over a century ago, and that the rise of nation states
has necessitated a Muslim response to the challenge of modern legal questions.82 One of
the most prominent questions that came to be re-examined was the perennial challenge of
the status of morality and human intellect, or the Euthyphro dilemma. The perceived
Muslim backwardness and subsequent quest to find the spirit of Islam led to many
conclusions; it is important to situate the maqāṣid movement within this phenomenon.
Although, we must highlight that the purpose of this analysis is not to juxtapose modernity
with tradition. This view would fail to recognise how modernist scholarship itself is rooted
in Islamic tradition as is evident from their referencing of Islamic sources. It is more
helpful, therefore, to regard tradition as a beam of light refracted by modernity into
different responses,83 with the maqāṣid school and its neo-Muʿtazilite readings of alShāṭibī being one of these refractions.
A further crucial observation on the modernist readings of al-Shāṭibī, and the
maqāṣid school more generally, is that they rarely bring their arguments to the full
conclusion, which would appear to be a rejection of Ashʿarite theistic subjectivism and a
commitment to a theory of natural law. Hallaq names the fathers of the maqāṣid school
such as Rashīd Riḍā and ʿAllāl Fāsī as religious utilitarianists who, through their system of
maṣlaḥa and ḍarūra (necessity), reduce the law to nothing more than what is convenient to
them.84 Malcolm Kerr refers to Riḍā’s juristic method of equating maṣlaḥa and necessity,
81
Būthūrī, Maqāṣid al-Sharīʿa, blurb.
Hallaq, “Can the Shariah be restored?”.
83
Brown, Rethinking Islamic Reform, 3.
84
Hallaq, History of Islamic Legal Theories, 214-231.
82
29
and only giving secondary consideration to scripture, as no more than natural law.85
Equally, David Johnston sees the logical conclusion of maqāṣid as “a hermeneutical turn
away from the letter of the law to a focus on the spirit”86 and labels the maqāṣid approach
to Islamic law as one of ethical objectivism.87 However, the reasons why modernist
scholars examined in this study do not bring their arguments to this full conclusion are at
once perplexing and illuminating, for they shed light on the nature of the school and its
contention. To manifestly advocate natural law and moral objectivism is too much of a
deviation for writers such as al-Raysūnī who are still writing from a scripture directed
perspective.
Before we probe the nature and contention of the school, it is pertinent to consider
early legal disputes on hermeneutics and the nature of maṣlaḥa. These focussed on the
distinction between theistic subjectivism and human subjectivism in issues of morality and
hermeneutics. The opponents of al-maṣlaḥa al-mursala considered it antithetical to
command ethics and an example of human subjectivism which could lead to developments
such as modern legal positivism. However, maṣlaḥa as it was eventually incorporated into
the Sunni tradition, was textually derived and hence acceptable to command ethics, and is
referred to as al-maṣlaḥa al-muʿtabara, or textually considered interests.88 Therefore, in an
attempt to feign a textual hermeneutic we find confusing statements in al-Raysūnī’s
writing, such as his acknowledgment and agreement with the classical view that
fundamentally there is no such thing as maṣlaḥa mursala, only maṣlaḥa muʿtabara.89
Whilst al-Raysūnī recognises this fact of classical jurisprudence, many other statements in
85
Kerr, Islamic Reform, 201-202.
Johnston, “Turn in the Epistemology and Hermeneutics of Twentieth Century Uṣūl”, 257.
87
Ibid., 163.
88
In his edited edition of al-Ghazālī’s uṣūl text al-Mankhūl Ḥasan Hītū explains that none of the great jurists
reject use of al-maṣlaḥa al-mursala that is “in line with maqāṣid al-sharīʿa, or classified under a source from
amongst the sources of sharīʿa, even if it is not from one of those formally specified”, al-Ghazālī, alMankhūl, 472.
89
Al-Raysūnī, Naẓariyyat al-Maqāṣid, 263.
86
30
his writings contradict it, including his anti-Ashʿarite stance and view that the human
intellect can recognise interests not identified in scripture which become morally binding.
These contradictory positions are common in the writings of maqāṣid scholars and prevent
them from providing a resolution to their main argument. The argument thus remains
latent.
In explaining the modernist failure to reach their conclusions, Sherman Jackson
makes the distinction in Islamic prescriptive hermeneutics between juristic induction and
juristic empiricism, the former being based on interpretations of scripture as a whole, such
as the maqāṣid, and the latter being interpretations of isolated verses. He shows that,
historically, faithful juristic induction has produced results no different to juristic
empiricism. This explains why modernist scholars cannot bring their argument to its
conclusion whilst remaining authentic to classical scholarship.90 Additionally, despite his
inductive method, al-Shāṭibī was still thoroughly loyal to the positive legal doctrines of the
Mālikī school, so to conclude an objectivist or utilitarian reading of him in which calls for
the reform of positive law made in his name would be inconsistent.91 As Bernard Weiss
points out, in the writings of al-Shāṭibī, “even at this furthest limit of juristic interpretive
endeavour the textualist outlook reigned supreme”.92
Given the Ashʿarite framework, a textualist hermeneutical approach has been the
only possibility within Islamic law; anything else “would have amounted to nothing less
than an act of self negation”.93 Within the textualist and Ashʿarite framework however
there have been attempts to explore juristic induction through devices such as istiḥsān,
90
Jackson, “Literalism, Empiricism and Induction”, 1469-1486.
Al-Shāṭibī’s fatāwā remain loyal to the fiqh rulings of the Mālikīs. They have been collected by
Wansharīsī, I:26,29,278,327; II:292,468; IV:140,205; V:23,26,59,60,201,213,219,387; VI:71,327,387,389;
VII:101,105,109,111,125; VIII:133,284; IX:227,252,633; X:102; XI:39,42,103,112,123,131,132,139;
XII:10,12,14,18,25,29,30,35,42,293. Wansharīsī, al-Miʿyār al-Mughrib.
92
Weiss, Spirit of Islamic Law, 87.
93
Hallaq, History of Islamic Legal Theories, 208.
91
31
juristic preference, and istiṣlāḥ, which were developed to go “beyond the confines of the
texts”.94 Legal devices, ḥiyal, were also ways of following the letter of the law whilst
keeping in line with its spirit.95 Nevertheless, empiricism and close readings of the text
remained integral to these processes; the primary commitment was scripture driven.
Ramaḍān al-Būṭī masterfully demonstrates how istiḥsān and istiṣlāḥ, when used faithfully,
are no other than an advanced form of qiyās producing “hidden analogies”96 and, when
using istiṣlāḥ, the maṣlaḥa “is based on evidence considered by the Lawgiver”,97 i.e.
maqāṣid al-sharīʿa. He thus demonstrates that the legal outcomes of these rulings are
entirely textual.
On the other hand, Jackson records “a fundamental distinction between an
approach to legal interpretation that aims to satisfy demands of practicality on the one
hand, and an approach that strives to maintain consistency with an overarching prescriptive
hermeneutic on the other”.98 He sees the aim of devices such as istiḥsān and istiṣlāḥ as “to
reverse the negative or unanticipated effects of a strict formalist reading”.99 Al-Būṭī’s
success therefore is in showing that these ‘practical’ measurers to which Jackson refers are
not rationalistic departures from the scripture, but rather form a deep understanding of
scripture. Al-Shāṭibī, entrenched in a heavily Ashʿarite framework and anchored in Mālikī
fiqh, did not therefore seek to advance an opposing hermeneutic which would allow for a
complete overhaul of positive law. Instead, his writings can be situated in Jackson’s
framework of practical measures consistent with a prescriptive hermeneutic. The patent
absence of an opposing hermeneutic makes it challenging for neo-Muʿtazilite readings of
al-Shāṭibī to allow us to support the principles of natural law and moral objectivism.
94
Ibid., 85.
That ḥiyal could also be used to defy the spirit of the law is why some ʿulamāʾ, including al-Shāṭibī,
rejected their validity
96
Al-Būṭī, Ḍawābiṭ al-Maṣlaḥa, 251.
97
Ibid., 230.
98
Jackson, “Fiction and Formalism”, 177.
99
Ibid., 195.
95
32
Indeed, an unfortunate truism of Islamic studies in the West has been the “notion
that the voluntaristic ethics of Ashʿarite theology ultimately destroyed the rationalism of
Islamic law as reflected in Muʿtazilite theology and the raʾī of early jurists”.100 However
devices such as istiḥsān and maqāṣid undermine this idea, they demonstrate that Muslim
jurists, or fuqahāʾ (literally: those who understand) sought to understand the law in its
entirety, from an empirical and inductive perspective. Revelation and intellect were never
meant to be severed, rather they were seen as serving each other. As revelation is not a list
of unambiguous commands, the intellect is necessary to extract rulings and principles.
Furthermore, revelation serves the intellect in not allowing it to become subjugated to a
morality of human subjectivism; it demonstrates limits for ultimately humans live within
God’s creation not the other way round. Certainly, differences of opinion arise because the
methodology is not infallible, yet Prophetic guidance teaches that this is a mercy. Steffen
Stelzer goes beyond this basic command ethics vs. natural law dichotomy, reflecting on the
nature of religion being a situation whereby “human beings cannot know themselves
through themselves; where, thereby, the end of their actions is not in their reach”. 101 The
Ashʿarite denial that the value of actions lies in the actions themselves reflects this axiom,
and moreover it is important for the unity of believers. It directs attention to human actions
in light of a monotheistic universe, rather than the potentially innumerable judgements of
human beings. Equally, the particular Islamic view of man is that he is indebted to God;
the word dīn, religion, being derived from dayn, meaning debt. Man thus stands before
God and His law, rather than being concerned with making his own end. Finally, Stelzer
points that sharīʿa, in so far as it represents the Divine Word, is “but an ever-recurrent
epiphany”102 whereby believers interact with the Divine.
100
Abd-Allah, “Theological Dimensions”, 249.
Stelzer, “Ethics”, 162.
102
Ibid.,169.
101
33
A second reason why modernist scholars have perhaps not been able to bring their
arguments to the full conclusion is that the argument often relies on an, imagined
rationality of the Mālikī school. As was explained above, the Mālikī school was founded
originally to replicate the practice of the people of Medina, constituting an intellectual
ancestor to literalism rather than inductive rationalism. Methods of uṣūl were a later
Shāfiʿī and Ḥanafī innovation, then adopted by all schools. The Mālikī school has
historically been the centre of attacks by opponents of maṣlaḥa, yet its use of this device
is, in reality, only superficially different to other schools. The moral objectivism in the
neo-Muʿtazilite sense had no role in Mālikī uṣūl. The Mālikīs regarded inductively located
maṣlaḥa as a formal source of law but did not give it precedence over empirically
determined maṣlaḥa, i.e. the particulars of law specified in scripture103 and its faithful
application produced the same results as the qiyās of other schools. The great Mālikī uṣūl
scholar Abū al-Walīd al-Bājī (d.474 H/1081) writes that “there are three legal proofs:
scripture [including ijmāʿ], qiyās, and istiṣḥāb [the presumption of continuity, e.g.
presumption that someone is alive until proven dead]”,104 and explains that it is not
possible for a jurist to give a ruling without a scriptural basis “because it is a ruling that the
individual [i.e. not God] desires and inclines to. This is invalid by consensus of the
umma...[such a ruling] is no different to the ruling of a child.”105 Al-Bājī thus demonstrates
a primary concern for textuality. Al-Būṭī has said that the dispute over the Mālikī use of
maṣlaḥa is only in name and terminology.106 In al-Ghazālī’s famous uṣūl book alMustaṣfā, we also find many examples of how the Shāfiʿī school, which supposedly denies
the use of maṣlaḥa, actually makes extensive use of it.107 Al-Ghazālī clarifies that the
103
Al-Būṭī, Ḍawābiṭ al-Maṣlaḥa, 202-7.
Al-Bājī, al-Manhāj, 28.
105
Al-Bājī, Iḥkām al-Fuṣūl, II:694-695.
106
Al-Būṭī, Ḍawābiṭ al-Maṣlaḥa, 322.
107
Al- Ghazālī, al-Mustaṣfā, II:491-506.
104
34
Shāfiʿī objection is to maṣlaḥa which is humanly-identified rather than textually
prescribed.
We now turn to the only study in the English language on al-Shāṭibī thus far, the
seminal and detailed work by Muhammad Khalid Masud “Shatibi’s Philosophy of Islamic
Law”. In this study Masud presents al-Shāṭibī’s thought as a stepping stone towards the
reform of Islamic law in line with the European Reformation, a path which Masud sees as
unfortunately cut off.108 It is important to discuss this work because it represents a view of
al-Shāṭibī quite different to that discussed in this study. Masud records that both Christians
and Muslims investigated the philosophy of law and both found its objectives to be for the
common good of the community, “yet whereas in Christian Spain these investigations
continued and were responsible for the shaping of the modern concept of law in Europe,
among the Muslims this attempt seems to have stopped with Shatibi”.109 Masud seems to
stress al-Shāṭibī as a precursor to the Islamic Reformation which failed to materialise. He
characterises al-Shāṭibī as seeking an answer to the challenge of the immutability of
Islamic law.110 In Masud’s view, al-Shāṭibī “suggests that it is the legislator who decides
what maṣlaḥa is”111 and favours “maṣlaḥa as an independent legal principle”.112 Masud
therefore pursues an objectivist theory of morality that cannot be justifiably applied to alShāṭibī. Whilst it is not the aim of this study to ascertain the purpose and meaning behind
al-Shāṭibī’s writings, we can see that Masud’s view is contradictory to al-Shāṭibī’s
Ashʿarite framework.
108
Masud, Shatibi’s Philosophy, 59-60.
Ibid., 60.
110
Ibid., 2.
111
Ibid., 120.
112
Ibid., 134.
109
35
Later studies which suggest similar ideas on al-Shāṭibī, such as Janin and
Kahlmeyer’s work, continue to use Masud’s paradigm.113 According to Janin and
Kahlmeyer, al-Shāṭibī “set himself the task of reforming the method of legal reasoning that
had gradually emerged”.114 This view seems to be in line with the modernist scholars
discussed above. Anver M. Emon’s inquiry into Islamic natural law theories includes a
chapter on al-Shāṭibī, who he characterises as a “Soft Naturalist”.115 Emon moves beyond
Masud’s basic paradigm as he recognises al-Shāṭibī’s “voluntarist theology”,116 but he
continues to see maqāṣid as a rationalistic departure from scripture. Emon considers the
use of maṣlaḥa and maqāṣid “to justify resort to naturalistic reasoning”,117 and as thereby
“granting ontological authority to reasoned deliberation in sharīʿa”.118 However, alShāṭibī’s use of scriptural induction and maintenance of the Ashʿarite prescriptive
hermeneutic discussed above means that legal reasoning based on maqāṣid derives it
authority from the will of God, not from ontology or nature. Emon’s neglect of this
distinction is the falling point of his attempt to recast the Islamic jurisprudential tradition
as naturalist. The lack of a reliable examination of al-Shāṭibī in light of issues raised in this
study would explain why these characterisations of his work are still prevalent, and this
study hopes to point to a need for a thorough and authentic interpretation of al-Shāṭibī.
Due to a lack of conclusion or tangible proposals, the repercussions of the maqāṣid
school and its neo-Muʿtazilite readings of al-Shāṭibī’s al-Muwāfaqāt are difficult to
ascertain. Recognising this fact, Jackson attempts to concretise maqāṣid,119 and sketches
what ‘protection of the intellect’ may provide in terms of legal rulings that would be
otherwise difficult to ascertain through standard qiyās. He sees a potential result as the
113
Another example is: Euben and Zaman, “Introduction”, 8-9, n.8.
Janin and Kahlmeyer, Islamic Law, 80.
115
Emon, Islamic Natural Law Theories, 165.
116
Ibid., 167.
117
Ibid., 165.
118
Ibid., 182.
119
Jackson, “Literalism, Empiricism and Induction”.
114
36
illegality of indoctrination used by authoritarian governments which has as its end goal to
prevent populations from using their intellect to make critical judgements, though Jackson
recognises much more work needs to be done to concretise maqāṣid. However, the
expressed desire for iṣlāḥ (reform) by the modernists studied here means that their work
seems potentially much more similar to reformists such as Muhammad Talbi. Talbi
frequently invokes the maqāṣid and al-istiqrāʾ al-maqāṣidī as a way to approach scripture.
He proposes the historical contextualisation of legal rulings in order to identify the maqṣad
behind them.120 Through this methodology he does away with rulings such as the
husband’s right to physically discipline his wife, and the death penalty as a punishment for
apostates. Yet, this overhauling of sharīʿa and uṣūl is unconvincing to traditional scholars
because of its outright rejection of command ethics.
Muḥammad al-Ṭāhir ibn ʿAshūr (d.1973) has listed the technical discussions in
which maqāṣid are often mentioned in classical Islamic sciences.121 A more productive
method for those trying to reconstruct Islamic law by way of maqāṣid would be to build on
these discussions instead of striving to overhaul the system. The proposal to overhaul the
system and the implied disdain for doctrinal commitments makes modernist writings
appear shallow, and it is unclear to what extent their views will carry weight amongst
Muslim scholars in the long term. Moreover, the resurrection and misinterpretation of alShāṭibī detracts from the main argument, which is different to what al-Shāṭibī stood for.
Therefore, despite maqāṣid being a part of the Islamic tradition, its misuse by certain
thinkers has served to delegitimize its proponents in the eyes of other scholars. Al-Būṭī’s
book, Ḍawābiṭ al-Maṣlaḥa, for example is the classic scholarly rebuttal of modern
reformists.
120
Nettler, “Mohamed Talbi’s Ideas”, 129-155.
He lists the areas as: “Mubāḥith al-munāsaba wa-l-ikhāla fī masālik al-ʿilla, wa mabḥath al-maṣāliḥ almursala, wa-mabḥath al-tawātur, wa-l-maʿlūm bi-l-ḍarūra, wa-mabḥath ḥamal al-muṭlaq ‘alā al-muqayyad
idhā ittaḥada al-mawjib wa-l-mawjab aw ikhtalifā.”, ʿAshūr, Maqāṣid al-Sharīʿa, 168.
121
37
Noel Coulson has described Islamic modernist approaches to legal texts and the
consequent legal development as “conditional almost exclusively on the novel influences
to which Islam thus became subject.”122 Indeed, this study has emphasised neo-Muʿtazilite
readings of al-Shāṭibī’s al-Muwāfaqāt, and the resurrection of al-Shāṭibī and maqāṣid
theory more broadly, as a reflection of modern influences and emphasis on Western
rationalism and moral objectivism. Al-Būṭī also sees it as “a response to many of the
characteristics of Western civilisation”.123 However, the judgement of both Coulson and
al-Būṭī is perhaps too simplistic; the Islamic encounter with modern Western thought
began over a century ago and has matured. Whilst Albert Hourani has shown the early
Islamic modernists (pre al-Afghānī) to have been importers of Western ideas, and Hallaq
still regards the early revivalists as religious utilitarianists who are not loyal to their
tradition, the writers discussed in this study represent a more mature step towards a
Muslim response to modernity. As Muhammad Zaki Badawi writes, “adjustment to
modernity thus took the form sometimes of accepting or adopting Western solutions before
formulating specifically Muslim solutions stemming from Muslim culture and taking into
account the Muslim system of values”.124 The trends discussed in this study must be seen
as a step towards a Muslim solution rooted in Islamic tradition for the challenges posed by
modernity.
Equally, it would be inaccurate to judge the maqāṣid endeavour as a battlefield
between the ‘rationalists’ and the ‘traditionalists’ because no scholar denies the capability
of the human intellect to apprehend reality. The question revolves around two competing
visions of morality, one which is deontic and objectivist, and the other ontological and
122
Coulson, History of Islamic Law, 149.
Al-Būṭī, Ḍawābiṭ al-Maṣlaḥa, 348.
124
Badawi, Reformers of Egypt, 112.
123
38
subjectivist;125 the question is “does goodness reside in the structure of the created world
or in the ungrounded determination of God?”126 If the former, then is the human mind able
to determine this unaided? Or rather is not the spirit of a revealed law to replace human
fallibility with divine wisdom? Modernist interpretations of al-Shāṭibī could be described
as shallow because they rely on an objectivist morality alien to al-Shāṭibī and do not
critically engage with traditional scholarship. We can see that instead of truly dealing with
the Euthyphro dilemma at the heart of the issue, the trend has been to adopt an eisegetical
reading of al-Shāṭibī in order to further a different agenda, which can be identified as the
adoption of Western moral objectivism. This internal contradiction does not allow alRaysūnī and others to express their point of view with credibility.
This apparently superficial adoption of Western thought represents another failing
of the maqāṣid movement. In trying to reform sharīʿa through maqāṣid, they hold the
maqāṣid up as an objective Kantian morality. Captivated by the universalising nature of
Enlightenment and Western thought, Islamic modernists were eager to co-opt it into their
own system, a process that began two centuries ago and has become seemingly more
urgent as the Muslim world continues to lag behind intellectually. Yet, as Hallaq has made
clear, no modernist has made a convincing solution to the harmonising of Western and
Islamic legal theory which remains authentically Islamic.127 Whilst the objectivist
conception of morality has fallen out of popularity in Western philosophy, with new
theories of post-modernism and moral relativity gaining support. Muslim reformers are yet
to deal with this development.
Developments in Western philosophy and jurisprudence have increasingly
abandoned natural law and the view that morality resides in the structure of the created
125
Reinhart, Before Revelation, 127.
Ibid., 5.
127
Hallaq, History of Islamic Legal Theories, 231.
126
39
world, instead it is seen to reside in the human mind itself. In fact the forefront of much
Western philosophy claims that even this is impossible; morality simply does not exist.
John Gray sees ethics as a shallow and transient concept revealing of the “human gift for
self-deception”.128 In his words, the idea of the free conscious individual “is an error that
conceals us from what we really are”.129 Gray’s moral ‘rejectionism’ thus even negates the
human capacity to determine goodness; goodness has no objective basis. He considers the
world incomprehensible to humans, and declares humanism as another form of religion but
this time deluded by the supposed divinity of the human mind. Bauman, on the other hand,
refers to the human need for morality, whilst pointing to the impossibility of an objective
theory of ethics. He says that “an ethics that is universal and ‘objectively founded’, is a
practical impossibility; perhaps also an oxymoron.”130 He affirms that the situation is
unsolvable and that consequently “we need to learn how to live without such
guarantees”.131 His approach to a theory of ethics is similar to the widespread softpositivism in jurisprudence which is hesitant to renounce the importance of ethics, but
cannot accept the existence of an objective set of values.
The results of these
developments are shattering to neo-Muʿtazilism and Islamic modernism built on the coopting of Western philosophy. If objective morality does not exist, yet relativist or
arbitrary laws without an ethical basis are also not acceptable, then the position of theistic
subjectivism seems less far-fetched. Many are likely to see this as proof of the superficial
nature of the maqāṣid project in the first place.
After this critical analysis of neo-Muʿtazilite readings of al-Shāṭibī’s al-Muwāfaqāt, it
is necessary to establish the broader picture of the maqāṣid endeavour. This will no doubt
allow us to become more sympathetic towards it, whilst recognising that the movement has
128
Gray, Straw Dogs, 116.
Ibid., 41.
130
Bauman, Postmodern Ethics, 10.
131
Ibid., 11.
129
40
internal contradictions. The fact that al-Raysūnī and others do not complete their own
argument could hint at the social impetus for their thought. The psychology of the Muslim
umma, in as far as it is represented by the modernists discussed, and its lack of self
confidence in its own intellectual tradition in the face of modernity and Western
rationalism, dictates a need to recreate its past. Al-Muwāfaqāt has been used as a tool in
this endeavour to compete with modern values such as reason and acquired knowledge.
Although it is not always constructive to overturn and rewrite past tradition, the act of
looking into it is a positive step for the advancement of authentic Islamic scholasticism in
contemporary times.132 In this way, the advancement of the maqāṣid pawn is an important
step.
The concomitant danger, however, is that identifying the objectives of law is a highly
subjective endeavour, and for this reason, if the next generation of Muslim scholars wish
to remain loyal to their tradition, they will need to re-examine the arguments of the
maqāṣid school, and in particular its neo-Muʿtazilite leanings. The advantage of the
conservative position which must always be kept in mind is that it helps to curb the
intellect from remaking the sharīʿa in its own image. The discarding of moral objectivism
in Western philosophy should allow Muslim modernists to see the pitfalls of the maqāṣid
movement, which can be seen as little more than the imposition of human subjectivism.
The resultant benefits of a prescriptive hermeneutic in arriving at an Islamic system of
ethics, i.e. sharīʿa, should also become clearer.
132
Regarding questions of modern ethics, Mohammed Fadel demonstrates the importance of looking into the
Islamic legal tradition rather than overhauling it: Fadel, “Two Women, One Man”.
41
Concluding remarks and points for further research
The most important aspect of this study has arguably been its contribution to the study of
Islamic responses to modernity. The shaping of the modern world is closely tied to the
growth of liberalism, itself the current dominant global ideology. Liberalism promotes
certain key values such as individualism, human rights, free will etc., and struggles to
accommodate alternate world views which are not fully committed to these values. This
presents a challenge to modern Muslim thinkers. Gary Browning cynically notes that “the
defence of liberalism in terms of its political neutrality is inspired by the notion that it fits
with the value pluralism of the contemporary social world”.133 He points out that political
neutrality is meaningless if separate world views cannot be accepted, which they often
have not been.
The way that Islamic thinkers respond to modernity and the tenets of liberalism, be
it by conservatism and self-protection, reform and accommodation, or hostility and selfdefence, is of crucial importance to both a Muslim and non-Muslim audience. If ultimately
successful, Islamic responses to modernity can ensure the survival and return of Islam as a
living great civilisation and maker of the world.
This study has drawn attention to a new development amongst Islamic modernists,
those who seek to find an accommodation for Western values in Islam, and locate this
accommodation in the tradition itself. Unfortunately, the result proved at least partially
contradictory to the Islamic tenets of doctrine and intellectual tradition, revealing itself to
be a rather superficial project; future attempts must demonstrate more commitment to
Islamic intellectual heritage in order to avoid ultimate illegitimacy. The work of modern
Western philosophers such as Gray and Bauman has pointed to the demise of the light of
133
Browning, “Contemporary liberalism”, 159.
42
the Enlightenment, and the decline of modern Western universals. This will allow space
for the return of local wisdoms in the realm of philosophy and ethics.
The adoption of modern historicity has led to a lack of commitment to traditional
Islamic scholarship, abandoning the traditional Islamic educational method and its system
of ijāza transmission in favour of searching out eclectic texts and engaging in an
eisegetical project. It is partly the lack of a silsila for al-Shāṭibī’s al-Muwāfaqāt that has
allowed it to be read and interpreted in ways at such variance with the author’s theological
commitments. It also makes it a severely onerous task to begin trying to ascertain what alShāṭibī meant or intended in writing the book.
Furthermore, the claim that maqāṣid is the saviour of Islamic law in the modern
world does not hold water when we consider the history of Islamic law. The legal tradition
encompasses a vast body of literature and scholarship which took place over the span of
more than a millennium, and turned a finite number of texts into a seemingly infinite body
of law. Is this tradition really so incapable of providing solutions to problems of the
modern world? Does modern man face a world so radically different from that seen before
him? The emergence of neo-Muʿtazilism is at least partly due to its being seen as a
“symbol of the will to be in a modern, pluralist world in which Muslims share social and
political space with other confessional communities, as well as secularism”,134 a view
strongly propagated by some Orientalists.135 However the basis of its philosophical thrust
has now been rejected by new developments in the study of morality. The Euthyphro
dilemma therefore remains unsolved.
Does this not demonstrate that Muslim intellectuals must have more commitment
to their own tradition and present themselves as equal contenders in the fields of
134
135
Martin and Woodward with Atmaja, Defenders of reason, 220.
E.g. George Hourani, Reason and Revelation, 276.
43
philosophy and ethics rather than compromising on tenets of their faith? Despite the
paradox it presents at first sight and all the evident difficulties of application, classical
Sunni responses to questions of law and ethics appear to still offer respectable
contributions to the famously perplexing problem.
44
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Websites
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<http://www.raissouni.org/?info=3096> (last accessed 5/12/2011)