Book Reviews

Understanding Maqāṣid al-Sharī‘ah: 
A Contemporary Perspective

Mufsir bin Ali al-Qahtani
Herndon, VA and Surrey, UK: IIIT, 2015. 202 pages.

Musfir al-Qahtani’s translated book is a recent contribution on the contempo-
rary relevance of maqāṣid al-Sharī‘ah. After a lengthy introduction in which
he outlines some technical aspects of the subject, he turns to their relevance
for issuing fatwas (e.g., “cultural development,” “religious extremism,” and
“the Muslim mindset”) before rounding-off with what he calls the “goal
awareness crisis.” Helpfully, the reader is provided with a synopsis at the be-
ginning of every chapter. 

The book is divided into five main chapters. The introduction seeks to es-
tablish a definition for the maqāṣid al-Sharī‘ah while drawing attention to how
others have referred to them. The reader is then briefly presented with the tex-
tual and “logical” (read: theological) arguments in favor of ta‘līl al-aḥkām (de-
termining the ratio decidendi of rulings), a fundamental query in the quest to
establish the field’s validity. Neither section is very detailed, and it soon be-
comes clear that the author wrote this book for activists who want to understand
what the maqāṣid are and what relevance they hold for their cause. 

Having established the proofs for the concept, al-Qahtani turns to the
maqāṣid’s meta-structure. There is nothing original in this chapter, as al-Izz
bin Abdussalam (d. 1262), al-Shatibi (d. 1388), Ibn al-Qayyim (d. 1350), and
the other usual figures are cited. It is much to the author’s credit, however,
that he refers (albeit once and almost just as a gesture) to Mustafa Shalabi (d.
1997), who has been largely overshadowed by other scholars despite his major
contributions to the field of Islamic law and legal theory, most notably in his
1944 Azhar ‘ālimīyah thesis Ta‘līl al-Aḥkām. 

The first chapter focuses on issuing fatwas. Here, the author highlights
why this undertaking is significant and provides two approaches. He labels the
first approach “excessive” and austere, which means that the mufti has read



76 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 34:2

the legal texts in a literal fashion or is uncompromisingly biased in favor of his
legal school. This approach is unfairly attributed to the Khawarij and Zahiris.
The second approach is excessively concerned with legal concessions and ju-
ristic evasions. Some of the examples he offers are questionable, such as the
lawfulness of ribā – an inaccurate depiction of the opinions to which he seems
to be referring. But other examples do stand up to scrutiny, such as the one re-
garding inheritance (i.e., are the shares allotted in the Qur’an immutable?). 

We should remember that the book is a translation seemingly addressed
to a Middle Eastern audience, with perhaps a particular focus on Saudi Arabia,
where the author lives. Al-Qahtani offers some guidelines that pertain to how
fatwas should be formulated, among them the role of context and consequence
and the importance of the mufti saying “I don’t know” when he does not know.
He illustrates this with examples of what he believes to be “balanced” modern
fatwas.

Chapter 2 details his controversial thesis. Although popular among mod-
ern writings on the maqāṣid, a subject that was traditionally a technical – even
obscure – element of Islamic legal theory and essentially a subdivision within
chapters discussing analogy, this subject has increasingly become conflated
or identified with notions of progress and development. In that sense, the book
shows how contemporary authors have shifted the role of the maqāṣid from
classical demarcations. This chapter also focuses on definitions of civilization.
A true grasp of this chapter’s contents can only be acquired, however, if the
readers are familiar with the author’s other main work on “civilizational
awareness,” as he essentially summarizes it here. 

This largely applies to chapter 3 as well, which concentrates on religious
extremism. A technical specialist may be startled at the author’s decision not
to explain how religious extremism in classical Islamic law differs from that
provided by the rather standard usage associated with government policy. Ac-
cordingly, “jihad” is effortlessly assimilated into the United Nations Charter
because it is the equivalent of “resistance to aggression.” While his intention
may be laudatory, al-Qahtani spends almost no time analyzing how such con-
clusions are derived, which only undermines his argument’s credibility. This
approach offers little guidance on how one should deal with dissenting schol-
arship and ignores the wealth of legal material highlighting the many other
maqāṣid of jihad. More interestingly, the chapter does lay down several rules
of thumb that Muslims ought to bear in mind when undertaking the task of
“commanding good” and “forbidding evil.” 

Chapter 4, which continues in the same vein, focuses on the vast topic of
the Muslim mindset. We are informed that Muhammad Abid al-Jabiri (d.



2010), Muhammad Arkun (d. 2010), Muhammad Shahrur (b. 1938), and oth-
ers who have tried to “reform” the Muslim mindset have failed to do so, os-
tensibly because they derived their epistemological tools from “secular
intellectual” environments. The author does not explore this further; he only
states that Ibn Ashur (d. 1974) and al-Fasi (d. 1973) are examples of scholars
who made the maqāṣid the centerpiece of their reformist methodology – a du-
bious rendering of their scholarship. We are then treated to an assortment of
legal maxims and to what can only be considered a facile exploration of post-
modernist thought and its impact on Muslim thinkers. Connecting these two
subjects to one another makes for troubling, disjointed reading.

Chapter 5 is a continuation of the same spirit found in the preceding two
chapters: further platitudes about the spread of love, harmony, and the pur-
posefulness of beauty, including a small section on the role of Muslim women
in society. Al-Qahtani does, however, seek to invigorate readers with the need
to face up to today’s challenges and thus leaves them with a series of questions
that demand answers.

While the book, especially in its introduction and first chapter, provides a
basic coverage of the maqāṣid for beginners, the remainder is better seen as an
example not just of how the maqāṣid have been transported out of their juristic
domain, but also how some Muslims who wish to remain true to their juristic
tradition use them as an instrument to hurl themselves into “modernity.” While
clearly not written for the specialist, I cannot help but note how much this book
displays flaccid thinking and distorts a sober and austere technical field. One
imagines that many scholars find such a treatment risible and demeaning of
the topic itself in comparison to other authoritative writings on uṣūl al-fiqh,
such as Muhammad Sa‘id Ramadan al-Buti’s Ḍawābit al-Maṣlaḥah. 

The book is useful for those interested in how the maqāṣid are commonly
discussed, how this concept is used (or abused), and how they have become
one of the prime instruments in contemporary discussions among scholars
and activists. However, its contents exhibit a fairly narrow and limited under-
standing of the topic, given the rigorous manner in which the maqāṣid have
been discussed in the classical uṣūl al-fiqh texts. How macro-fiqh and micro-
fiqh are interrelated, which the reader would have hoped to be the focus, is
largely overlooked. What remains amounts, regrettably, to yet more maqāṣid
mantras.

Tariq Al-Timimi 
Doctoral Candidate, School of LawSchool of Oriental and African Studies

University of London, London, United Kingdom

Book Reviews 77