ABSTRACT
The keynote of Islamic law, the shari’ah, lies in its objective and purpose. This core of Islamic law is referred to as the maqasid as-shari’ah. It unravels the practical ways of understanding the cardinal message of the Qur’an in the oneness of God and its application through the divine law of monotheism in the living experience. These two parts of the total law of monotheism are called Tawhid. 1 The world-system and its epistemology are based on three central premises: first, the Qur’an; second, the guidance in general of the Prophet Muhammad in the light of the Qur’an, 2 called the sunnah; and, third, the interpretations of the learned ones to rules derived from the fundamental epistemological premise of the Qur’an and the sunnah taken together. These three components of the understanding of law and rules form the worldly expression of monotheistic law concerning the details of actions and responses overarching across the domain of the good things in life as declared by the Qur’an, explained by the sunnah and interpreted by the learned ones. The rest of the evolutionary nature of the shari’ah undergoes human discourse and interpretations on specific issues under investigation.
While the first domain premised on the Qur’an, the sunnah and the understanding of the learned ones forms the maqasid as-shari’ah, the remaining extended setting out of the rules of the maqasid as-shari’ah forms the interpretive elements of the shari’ah. These elements are subject to change, revisions and extensions based on authoritative investigation (ijtihad) and understanding by discourse, consensus and further evolution (shura). Such practices evolving the boundaries of the scope of shari’ah in respect of specific issues and problems demonstrate the dynamic nature of the shari’ah. The domain of investigation then expands to “everything” relating to wellbeing of the most general kind derived from the application of the corporeal meaning of the divine law in action in the world-system in general and specifics in particular. In the latter case are examples such as shari’ah and economics, globalization and their diversely particular areas.
