Maṣlaḥa as “Flourishing” and Its Place in Sunnī Political Thought

Abstract

Modern Muslim reformers have made regular appeals to maṣlaḥa (well-being) and maqāṣid al-sharīʿa (the purposiveness of the law) in justifying numerous reform proposals. These arguments have proven to be controversial, not only among traditional Muslim scholars, but also western scholars of Islam who argue that these concepts were always marginal to the enterprise of Islamic law, and that the ubiquity with which arguments are now made in the name of maṣlaḥa and maqāṣid al-sharīʿa are little more than utilitarianism. This article distinguishes between the controversial position of maṣlaḥa and maqāṣid al-sharīʿa in theology (kalām) and theoretical jurisprudence (uṣūl al-fiqh) and its ubiquity in substantive law (fiqh) to argue that jurists took for granted the purposiveness of the law in their immanent practices of formulating detailed rules. I argue that this reflects the political or social dimension of the law, and it applies a fortiori to the rules governing political office. I argue that maṣlaḥa, should be understood as a particular kind of flourishing rather than a form of utility and this is reflected in the teleological nature of juristic reasoning in substantive law. Using this framework, I analyze the rules of the caliphate and consider what the “maṣlaḥa” of the political is – i.e., what does it mean for the political to “flourish” – from the perspective of Sunnī law.