Reformulating The Concept of Maṣlaḥah: From A Textual Confinement Towards A Logic Determination

Abstract

Up to this contemporary era, the concept of ma ṣ la ḥ ah developed by several leading Moslem scholars seems to be rather theocentric in a way that it is transfixed on the ma ṣ la ḥ ah considerations contained in the texts (na ṣṣ ). This means that the concept of ma ṣ la ḥ ah has so far been shadowed in the textual confinement so that the resulting ma ṣ la ḥ ah becomes an old-fashioned, stagnant, and less-able concept for responding to the times’ challenges. This study aims to open up discourses and opportunities for the development and reformulation of ma ṣ la ḥ ah in the current contemporary era. This qualitative study is library research. The data used were obtained from book literatures, journals, and other writings related to ma ṣ la ḥ ah and were analyzed using a content analysis method. The discussion was done by describing the historical data of previous thoughts on ma ṣ la ḥ ah from the process of textual confinement to logic determination which was then formulated with the reality of today's modern era life. The results of this study indicate that: 1) from its historical aspect, the reformulation of ma ṣ la ḥ ah is one which has so far only been assessed in the perspective of Shāri' (the Law Maker), hence, it is necessary to reformulate it in the perspective of mujtahīd by referring to ma ṣ la ḥ ah associated with the issues’ reality context, 2) there is a need to incorporate the concept of ethics and humanity into the structure of ma ṣ la ḥ ah, and 3) there present a necessity to formulate a collective-based ijtihād in probing of ma ṣ la ḥ ah to create a scientific ma ṣ la ḥ ah-based ijtihād methodology.