We offer a new session of our lecture series dedicated to sharia, by Judge Muhammad Khalid Masud.

The lecture is also available on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/kA1_QKv5934

Shatibi developed the theory of Maqasid in the context of the impasse to which Islamic legal reasoning had reached in the socio-economic context in al-Andalus in the fourteenth century. It was based on a critical analysis of the debates among the Sufis, theologians, and jurists on the limits of the sources, principles, and methods of reasoning in Islamic legal tradition. The main point in this theory was that Maslaha, or human welfare was the foundational objective of Sharia. This objective is found in the intent of God as lawgiver in his communication, legal obligation, and legal obedience. Inductive study of the sources of Sharia sources led him to conclude that the protection of the following five areas of human welfare are the objectives of Sharia: religion, life, reason, genealogy, and property. He explains this system of protection in terms of concentric circles of necessities, legal needs and cultural requirements supported by supplementary and complementary legal considerations. Shatibi was opposed by his contemporary jurists except by his prominent disciples who continued following him in their writings. It was several centuries later in early twentieth century that Shatibi’s theory attracted the attention of reformists and Islamic modernists. The theory provides way forward in areas like finance, economics, banking, management, bioethics, and environment that were not considered strictly the domains of Islamic law. Critical studies by the traditionalists, and moderate Islamists also keeps this theory alive. My presentation is, however, limited to an introduction to al-Shatibi’s theory and its critical study by Tahir b. Ashur

Muhammad Khalid Masud

Presently, an Ad Hoc judge of the Shariat Appellate Bench, Supreme Court of Pakistan, Justice Dr Muhammad Khalid Masud has been formerly the Chairman, Council of Islamic Ideology, Director General, Islamic Research Institute, International Islamic University, Islamabad, Pakistan, Academic Director ISIM, and Professor of Islamic law at Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands, Distinguished Professor of Islamic law, International Islamic University, Malaysia, and Senior Lecturer, Centre for Islamic Legal Studies, Ahmadu Bello University Nigeria. His areas of research interests include Islamic law, history of Islamic law in south Asia and Spain, Islamic political and legal theories, modernity, and contemporary Sharia Debates. In addition to more than 60 book sections and more than one hundred research articles in journals of international repute, his major publications include Shatibi’s Philosophy of Islamic Law (1995), Iqbal’s Reconstruction of Ijtihad (1995), Shari’a Today (2013), edited and co-edited volumes Islamic Legal Interpretation (1996), Travelers in Faith (2000), Dispensing Justice in Islam (2006), Islam and Modernity (2009), Freedom of Expression in Islam (2021), and Sharia in the Twenty First Century (forthcoming 2021).

Further information: https://en.casaarabe.es/event/shatibi%E2%80%99s-theory-of-the-objectives-of-sharia