La teoría de al-Shatibi sobre los objetivos de la shari‘a
Khalid Masud, Muhammad
ABSTRACT
Al-Shatibi developed his maqasid theory within the context of the impasse which the method of Islamic legal reasoning had reached in the socio-economic context of fourteenth century Al-Andalus. Al-Shatibi’s theory was based on a critical analysis of the debates among Sufis, theologians and legal experts about the limits of sources, principles and reasoning methods in the Islamic legal tradition. The main idea behind this theory is that maslaha, or human welfare, constitutes the foundational goal of the shari‘a. This objective lies within the intention expressed by God in His message to mankind, and in the obligation to comply with His laws and obey Him. An inductive study of shari‘a sources led al-Shatibi to conclude that the objectives of the shari‘a lie in the protection of the following five realms of human welfare: religion, life, reason, genealogy, and property. Al-Shatibi illustrated this system of protection by resorting to the motif of concentric circles of needs and of legal and cultural requirements based on a series of supplementary and complementary legal considerations. Al-Shatibi’s theory aroused opposition among legal experts of the day, but not among his most noteworthy disciples, who followed in his footsteps in their writings. However, it was not until several centuries later that al-Shatibi’s theory began to attract the attention of Muslim reformers and modernists, in the early twentieth century. This theory charts a way forward to developing a genuinely Islamic jurisprudence in arenas such as finance, economics, banking, business management, bioethics and the environment, which were not considered to fall strictly within the domain of Islamic law. Critical studies completed among the ranks of traditionalists and moderate Islamists have also contributed to keeping this theory alive. Among the examples of such experts, Muhammad Khalid Masud, besides introducing us to the essential aspects of al-Shatibi’s theory, focuses on the critical approach taken towards the topic by Tahir Ibn Ashur.
KEYWORDS
Maqasid al-shari‘a, objectives of the sacred law, maslaha, human welfare, public interest, al-Shatibi, Granada, Al-Andalus, Tahir Ibn Ashur.