S L M Rifai

Origin, history and doctrines of Maqasid al-Shariah. S L M Rifai

This book primarily addresses three salient questions which deal with the general philosophy of Islamic law. What is general philosophy of Islamic law? Where does this idea of the general philosophy of Islamic law come from? Why do we need the doctrines of the general philosophy of Islamic law? These are some of the salient questions that this book deals with. The literal application of some aspects of the texts of the Holy Qur'an and prophetic traditions words to words is not always viable. Neither classical Islamic thought nor the literal legal schools provide ready-made answers for the problems of modern Islamic world. This does not mean we must abandon some teachings of Islam as some radical Muslim secularists claim. This does not mean we should ignore intellectual legacies of Muslim scholars of 1400 hundred years of Islamic history. This does not mean we must belittle the text of the Qur'an and the traditions of the prophet to meet the demands of the modernity. There is nothing wrong in the divine texts of the Qur'an and yet, human understanding and attitudes to the divine texts differ from century to century, place to place and person to person. For the last 14 centuries, different Muslim communities have been reading the corpus of Islamic law differently with their own social contexts. There is no uniformity in human understanding of divine texts. The divine texts are prone to different human interpretation for various reasons. The corpus of Islamic rules we have today are the collections of 1400 hundred years of Islamic legal heritage and legal interpretation of different times, different social contexts. We should have not only thorough knowledge of Islamic sciences, but we should also have a thorough knowledge of the general philosophy of Islamic law to choose some appropriate legal ideas, opinions from the 1400 hundred years of Islamic legacy.