I. ISLAMIC DOCTRINE IN THE PLURALISTIC LANDSCAPE

Pluralistic societies with competing worldviews struggle to agree on shared conceptions of the social good necessary to create an enabling environment for continued social peace and political stability.Footnote ¹ Many of these societies are homes for adherents to Islamic worldviews. In this article, I aim to situate the Islamic doctrine on social good among other religious and philosophical doctrines which form the fabric of plural societies around the world. The work is largely constructed as a thought experiment to introduce Islamic normativity on the social good to the public deliberations in pluralist societies. These deliberations are characterized by a possibility for different worldviews to freely express themselves and contribute to forming harmonious public opinions on areas of common interest to people across the ideological spectrum. I try to use language that is accessible to the diverse comparative worldviews when discussing Islamic ideas of the social good, without omitting the textual and metaphysical origins of the arguments. In particular, I use language familiar in comparative legal theory and comparative moral philosophy to explain the main features of the Islamic doctrine on the social good. In doing so, I try to locate the positivist sphere of Islamic doctrine and show where Scripture is taken to be the ultimate authority on good and evil.Footnote ² I also survey the doctrine and try to explain the enormous normative sphere of rationalized notions of the social good. The thought experiment will explore possibilities of reconciling Islamic normativity with widely debated moral and normative philosophies.

At a very abstract level, I aim to position Islamic notions of the social good within the classical versions of deontological and consequentialist discourses. On a more specific level, I explore possibilities to locate common grounds with more specific comparative theories on human flourishing such as the ‘Human Development Paradigm’ developed by Amartya Sen, and Mahbub ul-Haq and Martha Nussbaum's ‘Central Capabilities Approach’.Footnote ³

Exploring Islamic doctrine's vision of the social good in a pluralistic landscape is significant for both believers and non-believers, whether living together in both Muslim-majority countries or in countries where Muslims are a minority. For Muslims seeking to critically engage in public discourses and influence debates around an Islamic vision of the social good, this article will provide the appropriate tools and concepts to contribute to that end. Normally, rationalized visions of the social good in Islamic doctrine are largely presented as part of maqāṣid al-sharīʿa (the objectives of Islamic Law). Maqāṣid al-sharīʿa’s fundamental proposition is that the overarching purpose of the divine order is the promotion of people's interests.Footnote ⁴ These interests are largely understood in a taxonomy of basic social needs such as the promotion of religion, life, and wealth among other things. However, Muslim jurists have yet to frame these basic social needs into more precise normative statements to formulate an Islamic theory of the social good.

This article helps in two ways. First, it locates notions of the social good associated with maqāṣid within the comparative discourses on consequentialism and deontological ethics. This could provide much needed conceptual insight to move maqāṣid from its highly abstract formula to be a benchmark to articulate more precise normative positions on the social good from an Islamic perspective. Second, parts of this article explore the possible contexts within which notions of maqāṣid could operate. For instance, while Islamic jurisprudence on maqāṣid agrees that promoting life is the fundamental objective of Islamic law, it is largely silent when it comes to explaining how this objective can be reflected in modern contexts. This objective is largely understood in reductionist terms to mean protecting human life against life-threatening violations. Here, I propose to contextualize maqāṣid in general within the comparative frameworks on human flourishing. I ask: What does it mean to connect promotion of life as an objective of Islamic law to the ‘Human Development Paradigm’? For example, can this fundamental maqṣād (plural: maqāṣid) be translated into a language familiar to human development literature? Can we think beyond the realm of bodily harm to include enabling or empowering individuals to live autonomous and fulfilling lives?

This research also appeals to non-believers living in pluralistic societies. By locating Islamic doctrine through and within comparative philosophical frameworks of the social good, this research provides an accessible account of the scope and main features of notions of the social good in Islamic doctrine. Arguably, adherents of other worldviews will find the vision proposed in this article more accessible compared to what is available in mainstream Islamic jurisprudence. The article is comparative by design. Adherents of other worldviews would not only be able to understand the language used here, but would also find that elements of their notions of the social good are similar to elements of the social good in Islamic doctrine. For instance, Islamic narratives discussed here such as the intrinsic value of human life, human dignity, and social cooperation may touch on moral intuitions shared by secular citizens.

In Part II, I start by sketching out a theoretical point of reference to situate Islamic normativity in the pluralistic social orders. I enter the discussion through John Rawls’ ideas on the fact of reasonable pluralism and the idea of overlapping consensus. I position Islamic sources of normativity as one of the reasonable comprehensive doctrines as per Rawls’ theory of political liberalism. I highlight the potential for Islamic normativity to engage in efforts to achieve an overlapping consensus as a necessary condition for a just and stable society. However, I note that Rawls’ overlapping consensus is a far-fetched aim in light of his restrictive public reason proviso. This proviso imposes a heavy burden on Islamic doctrine that would limit its effective and productive contributions to the idea of overlapping consensus. Here, I replace Rawls’ public reason proviso with Jürgen Habermas's more expansive ideas on the public sphere. Under Habermas’ public sphere, the metaphysical propositions need not be excluded but must be contextualized in accessible language that others can understand and possibly relate to.

The rest of the article explores how such a contextualization might occur. In Part III, I start by describing the widely-held positions in Islamic jurisprudence around the positivist pedigree of Islamic doctrine. Then, in Part IV, I move to explain how those positions started to change dramatically since the eleventh century as several Muslim jurists suggested that the structure of the positivist texts can form a basis for post-scriptural normativity. Here, I pause to show that this was not a unanimous observation. Sharp disagreements dominated the role of rational analysis in articulating normative statements and attributing them to the Divine Will. I then show that those who accepted active normative roles for human intellect, despite disagreements on the scope of such roles, prevailed. The majority of the positions in Islamic jurisprudence suggest that the Lawgiver is acting with a normative vision centred around the promotion of a good life on Earth. Part V shows that a recurring theme throughout the textual sources indicates that promoting life, fairness, wealth, and dignity are essential objectives of Islamic doctrine. In Part VI, I explore whether this theme should be understood in consequentialist or deontological terms. In this article, I show that Islamic normativity has close links with deontological ethics but does not banish consequentialism.

In Part VII of this article, I start exploring whether it is possible to reconcile Islamic normativity with comparative normative theories on human flourishing. I show that few theories within the liberal discourse use language that is largely compatible with Islamic normativity. I argue that Islamic normative discourse could benefit from these theories to construct an Islamic frame of reference on the social good. For instance, I show that Nussbaum and Sen's theories on human flourishing share common ground with Islamic notions of the social good. They promote the interest of people as the ultimate purpose of the social order by emphasizing that morally required choices are not necessarily those which maximize the good consequences for the majority. Rather, the goal is to establish a society that promotes fundamental plural values, including life, good health, knowledge, and opportunities.

II. THE FACT OF PLURALISM AND THE IDEA OF THE OVERLAPPING CONSENSUS

Liberal thinkers sharply disagree on the admissibility of religious justifications in public and political life. A large number of those thinkers reject the use of any form of religious arguments in political deliberations.Footnote ⁵ Before explaining what contributions Islamic normativity can make to the plural spheres of normativity, I must find a formal theoretical paradigm that recognizes the political capacity of religious normativity to be present in the public and political deliberations. I decided to choose both John Rawls and Jürgen Habermas as theoretical points of reference to contextualize my argument. Both philosophers created an intellectual architecture to reconcile heterogeneous positions on the social good in pluralistic social orders. Rawls highlighted pluralism as an enormous challenge to his abstract theory of justice.Footnote ⁶ He recognized that the way toward just and stable societies starts from a dialectical approach between conflicting doctrines to achieve an ‘overlapping consensus’ on the social good.Footnote ⁷ Habermas, on the other hand, appreciates the potential positive contributions that religious normativity could yield if empowered to be present in the public sphere.Footnote ⁸

Rawls is widely known as one of the most influential figures in modern discourses on the ideas of social justice. In 1971, he introduced an abstract theory of justice, in which he used a hypothetical device of representation known as the ‘original position’.Footnote ⁹ Rawls imagines people starting from a position of human equality where they are all under a veil of ignorance. They lack information on their identities, gender, social status, health, and so on. Rawls argues that people in that original position would achieve justice when they agree on two principles of fairness to organize background institutions in the basic structure of society. First, everyone is to have equal priorities to a set of basic liberties necessary to lead an autonomous life and exercise their moral powers. Second, positions and offices would be open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity and any inequality in the distribution of goods must be continually adjusted to benefit the least advantaged in society.Footnote ¹⁰

Rawls’ theory of justice was the subject of criticism for its purported failure to address questions of justice rooted in modern social and political realities. For instance, Rawls’ theory says very little about addressing questions of justice within the political and social realities of Europe or Asia.Footnote ¹¹ To address this fundamental gap in his theory of justice, Rawls made significant conceptual modifications in Political Liberalism.Footnote ¹² First, Rawls accepts that the idea of the original position is problematic and that a meaningful theory of justice must take into account the fact of pluralism. People sharing time and space have different conceptions of justice. Second, Rawls seems to abandon his ‘veil of ignorance’. People, in reality, will not deliberate on the ideas of justice from underneath the veil of ignorance. People usually enter political life with the comprehensive doctrines which shape their views on justice and the social good.Footnote ¹³ In Rawls’ words:

For the purposes of this article, I present Islamic normativity as one of these comprehensive doctrines. Islamic comprehensive doctrine should be understood as clusters of ideas and ideals originating from the Islamic Scripture as well as the various sources of rationalized notions of Islamic normative principles as represented in mainstream Islamic jurisprudence. Combined, these clusters would be taken to supply the content of the idea of the social good for Muslims, including standards of fairness, good, evil, right, and wrong. In reality, Muslims represent a significant element in the fabric of pluralism throughout the world in Asia, Africa, Australia, and the United States. It is interesting to note that recognizing the fact of pluralism as a social reality is part of the Islamic worldview. In this context the Qurʾān says, ‘Had Your Lord willed, He would have made humankind one nation; but they continue in their differences.’Footnote ¹⁵ The default position of interaction that Muslims should take to live through these differences in times of peace is one of positive engagement. On this the Qurʾān says, ‘Allah does not forbid you to deal justly and kindly with those who fought not against you on account of religion and did not drive you out of your homes. Verily, Allah loves those who deal with fairness.’Footnote ¹⁶

Rawls theorized a possible overlapping consensus among these different and conflicting comprehensive doctrines to arrive at shared visions on the social good and promote a just and stable society.Footnote ¹⁷ People in plural polities may find principled justifications in their comprehensive doctrines that overlap with the comprehensive doctrines of other citizens and eventually meet on a focal conception of fairness.Footnote ¹⁸ Rawls’ idea of the overlapping consensus is built on the assumption that adherents of different comprehensive doctrines will share a platform and engage in dialogue to introduce and justify their conceptions of justice. However, this platform should be open only to those doctrines that are willing to abide by the requirements of public reason. According to Rawls, ‘[g]iven the fact of pluralism, there is, I think, no better practicable alternative than to limit ourselves to the shared methods of, and the public knowledge available to, common sense, and the procedures and conclusions of science when these are not controversial’.Footnote ¹⁹

Accordingly, arguments that cannot be framed within Rawls’ public reason limits should be excluded from public deliberations aiming at achieving an overlapping consensus among comprehensive doctrines in pluralist societies. In a sense, the public reason proviso seems to be extremely pertinent to religious justifications in public life. Rawls specifically excludes religious justifications that only propose metaphysical justifications not accepted by the adherents of other doctrines. In Rawls’ view, these justifications ought to be seen as non-public reasons, and as such, they cannot be used to justify political positions in the search for an overlapping consensus in pluralist societies.Footnote ²⁰

Rawls’ public reason test assumes a form of neutral universal rationality through which other comprehensive doctrines must be assessed. For instance, to bring a religious normativity to public discussions on the social good, believers must put aside their religious convictions and debate with others in secular terms. While this might be possible for some religious persons, others will find it difficult or even impossible to set aside their beliefs. For many believers, religion is their identity.

Jürgen Habermas takes a more lenient position towards the place of religious justifications in public life. The platform from which an overlapping consensus could emerge is a public sphere that should be open to every citizen, religious or otherwise. It is a place ‘which mediates between society and state, in which the public organizes itself as the bearer of public opinion’.Footnote ²¹ In liberal polities, this place would be protected by fundamental constitutional freedoms, including free speech and the freedom of assembly. Within the public sphere, formal secular institutionalism does not have overarching authority to limit inputs from citizens of all backgrounds. Habermas adds that there is no valid constitutional or normative reason for liberal states to translate the separation between religious and public institutions into a condition asking all religious citizens to give up the metaphysical origins of their public justifications. Habermas states that:

Therefore, according to Habermas, there is no good reason to exclude religious participation in public life even if this participation can influence liberal institutions through elections or interest groups. The constitutional freedoms that characterize the public sphere make it different from the secular nature of the formal sphere of the liberal state. Habermas further opines that liberal polities can benefit from religious participation in the public sphere:

While Habermas does not require religious citizens to abandon the metaphysical origins of their reasons when they participate in public deliberations, he requires that they engage in a translation of their religious language into terms accessible to non-religious citizens. According to Habermas, religious participation in the public deliberations will only be meaningful ‘if the necessary translation … occurs’.Footnote ²⁴ Habermas sees ‘translation’ as ‘a cooperative task in which the non-religious citizens must likewise participate’.Footnote ²⁵ Therefore, the burden is not imposed on religious citizens to speak in the language that their fellow secular citizens can understand. Secular citizens also must perform an important task. They ‘must open their minds to the possible truth content of [religious] presentations and enter into dialogues from which religious reasons then might well emerge in the transformed guise of generally accessible arguments’.Footnote ²⁶

Habermas’ translation requirement attracted some criticism within comparative philosophy. For instance, Arif Jamal does not see a need for imposing a translation requirement on citizens, and argues that shared visions of justice could emerge through unconditional discourse.Footnote ²⁷ However, I believe that the translation proviso is a fair one. If the interaction in the public sphere is to be productive, the doctrine's metaphysical propositions must be contextualized in a language that others can understand. In this way, believers and non-believers can come together to form shared moral intuitions on the social good. The rest of this article attempts to engage in a Habermasian translation experiment. By engaging with the translation requirement, I do not mean to focus on particular words and phrases one at a time. Instead, the aim is to introduce Islamic moral intuitions on the social good in a language that is accessible to modern comparative philosophy without omitting the metaphysical dimensions derived from textual authorities of Islamic doctrine. I show that the positivist origins of the Islamic doctrine do not undermine its enormous content of reason-based notions of the social good. These notions greatly overlap with deontological approaches to morality and can be related to some comparative accounts on human flourishing, as I explain below.

III. THE POSITIVIST STRUCTURE OF ISLAMIC DOCTRINE

Believers and non-believers will be off-target if they attempt to approach Islamic doctrine as one large homogenous positivist enterprise. The sphere of positivist authority is extremely limited. Generally, Islamic doctrine is essentially based on the Qurʾān and the teaching of the Prophet Muhammad known as Sunna. Both of these sources represent a medium of positive law and broad normative values on matters of religion such as prayers and fasting as well as transactions, torts, and criminal conduct. Believers take the content of the scripture as the ultimate authority on good and evil. Whatever is explicitly regulated in the Qurʾān and Sunna are the supreme sources of the law.

Although Muslims believe that the Qurʾān is the text culminating from God's communication with the Prophet Muhammad and is the highest authority on social good, jurists of the different schools of Islamic jurisprudence agree that the positivist sphere of Islamic doctrine is extremely limited. Some contend that only 500 verses come in the form of specific rules requiring certain actions or omissions. Fazlur Raḥmān argues that the number of specific rules in the Qurʾān is even fewer than that.Footnote ²⁸ He estimates the number of legal rules in the Qurʾān to be around eighty verses covering waiting periods for divorced women, inheritance, and corporal punishments (ḥudūd).Footnote ²⁹ Substantial portions of these verses relate to historical accounts of ancient nations in religious, social, and economic contexts. A prominent feature of the Qurʾān's structure is its detailed descriptions of the lives of several earlier Prophets and their missions to carry a message on the existence of one all-knowing and omnipotent deity. It also invites people to obey a divine system of rules to achieve social good and eternal salvation. By and large, these parts of the Qurʾān do not provide positive law in the form of specific behavioural instructions. Yet, they provide rich sources to derive moral values and broad normative signals, as discussed below.

The other important source of positive legal rules in Islamic doctrine is Sunna. The Sunna refers to the exemplary behaviour of the Prophet in acting according to divine commands as demonstrated through his sayings and actions, or the sayings or actions of his companions that he tacitly approved.Footnote ³⁰ The Sunna is recorded in individual texts known as ḥadīth (written reports of the Prophet's sayings and actions). The Sunna is mostly used in Islamic jurisprudence to interpret the Qurʾān, but it is also accepted as an independent source of Islamic law.Footnote ³¹ However, its authoritative significance as an independent source of positive legal rules is widely debated in Islamic jurisprudence.

Unlike the Qurʾān, Sunna was not recorded during the lifetime of the Prophet. The companions of the Prophet did not transmit its content to subsequent generations through collective recording processes known as tawathur. Most of the available texts of Sunna were recorded several generations after the Prophet's death. This made large parts of its content speculative in proof.Footnote ³² In other words, even though there are several textual sources of Sunna with extensive texts addressing legal matters – sometimes in greater detail than the Qurʾān – the authority (ḥujiyya) of these texts as positive law remains debatable. For example, in the Maliki school of Islamic jurisprudence, single narrations of Sunna (what they refer to as ‘khabr al-wahid’) will not be given the priority that is normally assigned to textual sources.

Be it as it may, while revelation has ended since the seventh century CE, social, economic, and political change continued. Islamic doctrine teaches its adherents that its normative values are eternal and meant to apply beyond Arabia to all Muslims anytime and anywhere. Muslim jurists often speak of the maxim that texts are limited and social change is limitless (al-nusus mutanahiyya wa al-waqaeiʿ ghaiyru muntanahiyya). Consequently, since the seventh century, early Muslims started to formulate non-scriptural responses to address their changing social, economic, and political realities.

IV. POST-TEXTUAL NORMATIVITY

Muslims and non-Muslims interested in uncovering Islamic doctrine's contributions to achieving the social good must come to perform the task with a particular mindset. They must approach the textual structure of Islamic doctrine with the understanding that the text itself stopped developing since the seventh century, but its underlying values on the social good are dynamic and evolving. A fundamental feature of Islamic doctrine is in the possibility of developing a contextual understanding of the text to meet social needs while remaining faithful to the authority of its sources. This feature can be traced back to the seventh century. Since the Prophet's death in 632 CE, Muslims faced emerging issues for which there was no textual authority for guidance. The immediate successors of the Prophet, particularly his close companions, began a process of legal reasoning known as Ijtihad to provide textually-inspired solutions for textually unqualified issues.

The companions of the Prophet had to recognize that the text cannot be expected to provide detailed solutions for daily matters they faced, particularly after Islam expanded to include peoples of different geographical and cultural mediums to Arabs. Therefore, they started a process of searching for normative signals within the textual authorities to respond to new challenges. I call this development post-textual/scriptural normativity because at that stage the right thing to do was not identified through a specific textual reference, but through a search for normative values that are compatible with the text. It is important to note that jurists and lawmakers in the pre-modern Islamic era were not only concerned with providing solutions that primarily satisfied the needs and aspirations of Muslims. From the very beginning, the dominant trend in Islamic jurisprudence sought to develop a process of lawmaking where the realities and needs of Muslims were not the exclusive material sources for the law. The modus operandi was to ensure that the lawmaking process was not arbitrary but fundamentally anchored in Scripture. In this sense, lawmaking for new, emerging realities is not extra-scriptural or completely detached from the norms and bounds contained in the textual sources.

There are a few examples of post-scriptural normativity where the source of law is not based on some specific textual authority but rather a search for the social good as an Islamic normative value. One important example is Ijmāʿ, which in a literal sense, means consensus. Ijmāʿ was developed shortly after the Prophet's death to operate as a non-textual source for adapting Islamic law to the textually unregulated, emerging realities of Muslims.Footnote ³³ The immediate successors of the Prophet needed to deal with cases for which there was no specific injunction in the Qurʾān or the Sunna. The process of reaching an Ijmāʿ is described in Islamic jurisprudence as a process of deliberation among Muslims with knowledge of the Islamic scriptures to reach an agreement on a textually unqualified matter. If an agreement is reached stating that the Islamic law on a particular matter will take a certain form, that agreement will be deemed Ijmāʿ, which will become a binding precedent to address similar issues in the future. A frequently used example of Ijmāʿ in Islamic jurisprudence is the rule on assigning shares to the grandchildren in the estate of their grandparents. The companions faced a situation where a person died before his parents and left children of his own. There was no textual authority to address this situation. The Qurʾān only prescribes that shares in the estate pass to the living sons and daughters of the deceased. The companions applied Ijmāʿ, in this case, to make it obligatory for the grandparents to allocate a share of their wealth to their grandchildren.Footnote ³⁴

Another example of post-scriptural normativity is Qiyas. It literally means analogical deduction. Qiyas is a methodology used to extend textual authorities to new cases.Footnote ³⁵ In performing Qiyas, a jurist searches the textual authorities to identify a ratio legis for particular legal rules. The jurist will then proclaim the identified ratio legis as a social good that must be achieved in scenarios similar to the one addressed by the text from which it was derived.Footnote ³⁶ A prominent example is the general prohibition on consuming intoxicating substances under Islamic law. This prohibition is based on the ratio legis stated in the Qurʾān describing drinking alcohol as a catalyst for engaging in unlawful behaviours (ḥarām).Footnote ³⁷

V. MAṢLAḤA AS A PHILOSOPHY OF THE SOCIAL GOOD

The concept of the social good in Islamic doctrine is synonymous to maṣlaḥa. In maqāṣid al-sharīʿa jurisprudence, maṣlaḥa has now settled as the social good which Islamic law must promote when addressing cultural, social, and economic changes. Jurists who wish to undertake the task of promoting the social good from an Islamic perspective in modern realities need to analyze textual authorities to deduce manifestations of the social good that the Lawgiver promotes through commands and prohibitions. The prevailing premise in maqāṣid discourse is that the Lawgiver, through Scripture, systematically acts with a normative vision centred around the promotion of the good life on earth.Footnote ⁵³

In the eleventh century, al-Juwaynī noted that ‘maṣlaḥa [is] an expression of people's well-being that results from the implementation of God's laws in this world whereby people's lives are well-ordered.’Footnote ⁵⁴ His disciple Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī made groundbreaking insights around maṣlaḥa being the social good promoted as an overarching purpose of the textual authorities in Islamic doctrine. For al-Ghazālī, the purpose of Islamic scriptures (maqṣūd al-sharʿ) is to preserve people's interests.Footnote ⁵⁵ He was also the first to construct a taxonomy of the social good emphasized by the scriptures. In al-Mustaṣfā (the Purified Book of Legal Theory), al-Ghazālī argues that God revealed the Scripture to humankind to uphold certain social purposes that are fundamental to the existence of the social order. According to al-Ghazālī, there is a clear pattern in the textual sources showing that God aims to protect and promote five social needs, namely, religion (din), life (nafs), intellect (‘aql), progeny (nasl), and wealth (mal).Footnote ⁵⁶ Al-Ghazālī’s vision on these different manifestations of the social good has become very influential. In fact, all subsequent Islamic scholarship on the normative analysis of emerging issues would speak of the five purposes of Islamic law as a benchmark to determine the morally required choices from an Islamic perspective.Footnote ⁵⁷

Ibn ʿĀshūr maintains that understanding maṣlaḥa as a central concept of maqāṣid is pivotal for law and policymaking from an Islamic perspective. It is the only way to promote the social good for Muslims in changing social, economic, and cultural realities. Maṣlaḥa under maqāṣid would extend limited textual authorities to address emerging challenges while remaining faithful to the textual origins of Islamic law. Policymakers and advisers interested in articulating the normative standards of Islamic law need to learn how to conduct an inductive survey of the textual sources (ie istiqrāʾ), determine categories of public interest (ie maṣsāaliḥ), and use the law to promote the collective social good. Ibn ʿĀshūr maintains that the commands, instructions, and statements in Scripture are associated with underlying wisdom (ḥikam). Through istiqrāʾ, jurists could infer ratio legis that represents an objective intended by the Lawgiver.Footnote ⁵⁸ For instance, al-Ghazālī inferred his classification of the five manifestations of social good in Islamic doctrine from various textual authorities. Texts that promise rewards or warn about punishment to incentivize people to abide by religion, or prevent them from killing, drinking alcohol, stealing, or committing adultery, illustrate that the intended purposes of lawmaking in Islamic doctrine is to promote religion, life, reason, lineage, and property.Footnote ⁵⁹

On the whole, pre-modern jurists who engaged the discourse around the social good through maqāṣid al-sharīʿa followed al-Ghazālī’s classifications of the five manifestations of social good in Islamic doctrine. For example, prominent thirteenth and fourteenth century jurists such as Fakhr al-Din al-Rāzī (d. 1210 CE) and Abū Isḥāq al-Shāṭibī (d. 1388 CE) regularly refer to the five manifestations of the social good which Islamic law seeks to promote. Conversely, contemporary jurisprudence of maqāṣid al-sharīʿa maintains that the scope and list of maqāṣid should not be limited to the five manifestations identified by al-Ghazālī, and that scholars need to approach the process of identifying maqāṣid with an open mind. This may mean that more examples of the social good can be deduced from the texts of the Qurʾān and Sunna. This process should not always require an exhaustive examination of various textual authorities. The process can be simpler than that. Ibn ʿĀshūr argues that ‘facilitation’ (tayysir) is a definitive purpose of the Sharīʿa based on a direct verse from the Qurʾān (2:185) stating that ‘God wills that you shall have ease, and does not want you to suffer hardship.’Footnote ⁶⁰ There is a prevailing trend in Islamic scholarship that seeks to significantly expand on al-Ghazālī’s initial classification in terms of both the scope of social good as well as their numbers.

Muhammad Abū Zahra maintains that preserving life (nafs) goes beyond the mere protection against murder or inflicting bodily harm on human beings to include broad categories of interest attached to human life, such as promoting personal freedoms, freedom of movement, and freedom of expression.Footnote ⁶¹ Ahmad al-Raysuni, in his analysis of various textual authorities, does not accept a limited understanding of promoting the intellect (ʿaql) as an objective of Islamic doctrine.Footnote ⁶² He maintains that promoting the intellect should not only be discussed in the context of the need to prohibit alcohol and intoxicants with similar effects. The Lawgiver's purpose behind promoting intellect should be understood broadly to encompass whatever nourishes the mind, including education, knowledge of logic, and the dissemination of knowledge.Footnote ⁶³ Similarly, other scholars question the soundness of restricting the scope of preserving honour as social good to matters related to progeny. They propose to replace this narrow view with a broader understanding of honour that includes the objectives of Islamic doctrine protecting human dignity and human rights.Footnote ⁶⁴ In the context of expanding the scope of al-Ghazālī’s five objectives, some argue for more developed notions around ‘preservation and promotion of wealth’.Footnote ⁶⁵ This objective should not only be understood in the context of protecting property as a way to achieve social good. The understanding of this objective must evolve to include economic growth and social justice.Footnote ⁶⁶

Moreover, modern views on maqāṣid al-sharīʿa propose to expand al-Ghazālī’s list to include new objectives of Islamic lawmaking. For instance, Muhammad Rashīd Riḍā added reform and the promotion of women's human rights to the maqāṣid. Footnote ⁶⁷ Ibn ʿĀshūr also added freedom of religion (hurriyyat al-ʿaqida) to the list of maqāṣid al-sharīʿa based on direct textual authority from the Qurʾān: ’Let there be no compulsion in religion.’Footnote ⁶⁸ Muhamed al-Ghazālī (d. 1996 CE) and Yūsuf al-Qaraḍāwī called for the construction of a theory of maqāṣid al Sharīʿa that relies on Scripture to enhance and enforce modern universal values and institutions such as justice, freedom, and social collaboration (takaful).Footnote ⁶⁹ In introducing universal freedom, justice, and fairness as overarching social goals in Islamic doctrine, Muhamed al-Ghazālī highlights the need for expanding on the five objectives. He maintains that freedom and justice also represent additional manifestations of the social good, and that the Qurʾān is clear on this matter: ‘We have already sent Our messengers with clear evidence and sent down with them the Scripture and the balance that the people may maintain [their affairs] in justice.’Footnote ⁷⁰ An interpretation of this verse is that justice is an overarching principle of Islamic doctrine; it is the entire purpose of Revelation. In the context of preserving freedoms and human rights, justice requires the establishment of the rule of law to control state power by preventing government from encroaching on the liberties and freedoms of individuals. Accordingly, promoting justice and freedom is maqād Shar'i (objective of Islamic law) that must be upheld as a form of social good, and the law should be mobilized to pursue it.Footnote ⁷¹

VI. UNDERSTANDING THE NORMATIVE NATURE OF THE SOCIAL GOOD IN THE ISLAMIC WORLDVIEW

The nature of social good in Islamic jurisprudence is vague. In modern comparative philosophy, the good thing to do might depend on consequential calculations. The good might be whatever maximizes the greatest good for the greatest number. Or it might depend on conforming with deontological standards. Here, the morally required choice is that which is compliant with a preformed ethical duty regardless of the consequences. If we contextualize Islamic notions of the social good into this language, how should these notions be understood? In other words, should the social good in Islamic doctrine be understood in deontological or consequentialist terms? For instance, it is often claimed that the promotion of life is one of the main objectives of Islamic doctrine. However, it is not clear how we should go about analyzing this statement. Does it mean that the Islamic doctrine promotes a duty to preserve life regardless of the consequences? Or does it mean that it promotes any course of action that maximizes the greatest good for the greatest number?

Part of classic Islamic jurisprudence uses terminologies that may suggest some connection between maṣlaḥa/social good in Islamic doctrine and utilitarianism. For example, according to Fakhr al-Din al-Rāzī, maṣlaḥa as the purpose of God's law means utility (manfaʿa), and manfaʿa means pleasure (ladha).Footnote ⁸¹ Jeremy Bentham, one of the founders of modern utilitarianism, defines utility as pleasure or happiness.Footnote ⁸² Modern jurists such as Muhammad Rashīd Riḍa (d. 1935) discuss maṣlaḥa as a means to promote social good. His vision of maṣlaḥa is a pragmatic one. Riḍa suggests engaging modern reality with heavy reliance on rational analysis as a means to extend the application of Islamic law to textually unqualified situations.Footnote ⁸³ However, it is not clear how Riḍa understood the nature of social good in comparison with modern philosophical accounts of deontological and utilitarian ethics.Footnote ⁸⁴

Mohamed Abū Zahra (d. 1974) explicitly links social good in maqāṣid al-sharīʿa to utilitarianism as developed by Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. He argues that madhab al-manfaʿa (utilitarianism) guides lawmaking in modern society to achieve the greatest good for the greatest number of people. He continues to elaborate that ‘istiqrāʾ from the Qurʾānic principles proves that social systems are promoted through achieving as much material and spiritual happiness as possible for the greatest number of people’.Footnote ⁸⁵ He also understands the five objectives of Islamic law as articulated in classic Islamic scholarship in utilitarian terms, as a means to promote the good for the overwhelming majority.Footnote ⁸⁶

Contemporary Muslim scholars are extremely critical of drawing links between maṣlaḥa as a benchmark for the social good in Islamic doctrine and utilitarianism.Footnote ⁸⁷ The late renowned jurist Muhammed Saʿid al-Buti rejects making any association between maṣlaḥa and utilitarianism. He points to the different characteristics of Western utilitarian philosophy as introduced by Mill and Bentham, and the concept of maṣlaḥa. According to al-Buti, utilitarianism's measures of good and evil are based on calculating the increase and decrease in worldly pleasures. This is not how maṣlaḥa should be defined in the Islamic worldview. For al-Buti, the duties and commands in Scripture are the ultimate authorities on good and evil. Their application does not depend on calculating consequences around worldly pleasures such as property and wealth.Footnote ⁸⁸

I argue that the Islamic conception of social good is not consequentialist. In the paragraphs that follow, I support this claim with a few observations from both textual and non-textual sources showing that the nature of social good in Islamic doctrine should predominantly, though not exclusively, be understood in deontological terms. Overall, istiqrāʾ from the Qurʾān, early ijtihad by the companions of the Prophet, and part of the Islamic jurisprudence on maṣlaḥa collectively indicate that utilitarian analyses of good and evil are not the primary parameters of the Islamic vision of the social good. To be sure, there certainly will be some situations where it might be appropriate to resort to the utilitarian analysis of good and evil. However, utilitarian calculations cannot be the primary normative framework on the right thing to do. Maximizing the aggregate welfare of the majority is only acceptable as a second-order principle. A preliminary normative priority is assigned to a duty to promote a set of fundamental values, including human life, rights, freedom, and justice. Only then will the utilitarian promotion of a good state of affairs be accepted in situations where everyone is left better off, not just the majority. I understand that this claim is a bold one. It would most certainly require additional research and discussions in Islamic jurisprudence. However, as a start, I propose four premises to support it.

First, according to mainstream Islamic jurisprudence, maṣlaḥa is defined by permissions and prohibitions enunciated in the Qurʾān and Sunna. Determining what constitutes ‘the good’ (maṣlaḥa) that the law must promote, or ‘evils’ (mafsada) that the law must prohibit, does not depend on a utilitarian calculation of one course of action against others. The ultimate point of reference for such determination is the normative will of God as depicted in textual sources. In this sense, the good that should be pursued is that which is promoted by Scripture as the right course of action. For instance, the Qurʾān in multiple occasions promotes the right to life as a central objective of Islamic doctrine that should be preserved at all cost. This shows that the right to life has an intrinsic value that is not subject to consequential calculations. According to Ibn ʿĀshūr, the intrinsic value of human life means that, under maqāṣid, euthanasia is not permissible. It is obligatory to protect the right to life of a terminally ill person, irrespective of the consequences in terms of pain or resources. Human life is not a domain for pain and pleasure, or cost-benefit, analysis.Footnote ⁸⁹

Second, a preliminary istiqrāʾ of various verses of the Qurʾān indicates a general orientation towards prioritizing a set of deontological values. This, for instance, is evident from the Qurʾān's treatment of slavery as a complex social construct in the primitive seventh-century economies of Arabia. There is a clear normative pattern in the Qurʾān showing that the Lawgiver sought to gradually promote a duty to free slaves and promote a universal right to freedom. Slavery was a widespread social and cultural practice at the time of Revelation. It was a subject and instrument of trade in the entire region. While the Qurʾān did not explicitly ban slavery, it was clear that abolishing slavery was a top priority in the social changes that the Qur'an sought to make. For instance, various textual sources blocked several paths to slavery, including consensual enslavement, enslavement as a criminal punishment, and slavery in fulfilment of financial obligations. Furthermore, Scripture introduced various incentives to encourage Muslims to free slaves, including making the emancipation of slaves as part of zakāt (obligatory almsgiving) and as a door for kaffāra (atonement) in several situations when Muslims commit sins.Footnote ⁹⁰

Third, the second Caliph, ʿUmar ibn Al-Khattāb, who is widely regarded as a leading authority on interpreting and applying Islamic law, opted for what could be seen as a deontological understanding of the social good. ʿUmar was in charge of the armies that conquered Iraq and Egypt in the seventh century CE. In Iraq, Muslim fighters seized large and versatile agricultural lands known as arḍ al-sawād (the land of greenness). In similar circumstances, Muslim commanders would distribute lands seized among those who took part in securing victory. The Qurʾān was often cited to support this arrangement. Rewarding fighters was seen as a way to encourage them to participate in battles with the hope that they will be allocated shares in the spoils of war. However, ʿUmar rejected to distribute arḍ al-sawād. He declared that the main objective of Islamic law in relation to the distribution of wealth is to ensure that wealth is distributed fairly among the various segments of society. The Qurʾān itself prohibits any form of concentration of wealth among a few members of the society.Footnote ⁹¹ In that particular situation, ʿUmar was of the opinion that the distribution of arḍ al-sawād, massive blocks of rich lands, would benefit some Muslims at the expense of the larger populations and future generations. ʿUmar in this situation did not understand the social good as providing rewards for fighters to encourage them to fight and seize more land for the empire that he controlled. ʿUmar decided to uphold the duty of a fair allocation of resources regardless of the consequences.Footnote ⁹²

Finally, al-Ghazālī, the scholar who led the discussion on maṣlaḥa since the tenth century CE, does not seem to explain it in utilitarian terms. The idea of maximizing the good for the greatest number does not seem to be what he had in mind when he was explaining the scope of the social good in Islamic doctrine. Although it is true that a quick reading of the human shield scenario discussed above might suggest that al-Ghazālī’s model of maṣlaḥa was a utilitarian one, the subsequent examples that he provided clearly show that he was not establishing a utilitarian content of the social good in Islamic doctrine.

The first example that al-Ghazālī used is that of a sinking ship where the passengers agree that if one of them is thrown into the sea, the rest of the passengers will be saved. According to al-Ghazālī, this is not permissible under Islamic law. Even one life is sacred and should not be sacrificed to save the majority.Footnote ⁹³ The other example that he provided, which shows that al-Ghazālī was not interested in a consequential vision of the social good, is about the use of torture to extract information from a person suspected of robbery. Al-Ghazālī argues that it is not permissible under Islamic law to torture individuals to obtain information or secure an admission of guilt. The social good lies in ensuring the safety and respecting the dignity of the alleged thief. In al-Ghazālī’s words, ‘to avoid inflicting physical harm on a person guilty of an offence is less harmful compared to harming an innocent person’.Footnote ⁹⁴

As for al-Ghazālī’s human shield scenario, I argue that it should be understood in the context of the third condition he proposed for considering maṣlaḥa as a valid source of Islamic law, that is, the condition of generality. As discussed above, al-Ghazālī stipulated that an emerging issue must promote a universal or collective benefit (kulliyya) that covers not just the majority of the community but the totality of it. In explaining that condition, al-Ghazālī clearly spoke of ‘protecting all Muslims living in the community from being killed’. This makes it unlikely that al-Ghazālī was theorizing in support of moral choices that promote the greatest good for the greatest number, as a simple utilitarian model would suggest. Footnote ⁹⁵

The overarching deontological framework on social good in Islamic doctrine does not necessarily suggest that considerations of economic efficiency will entirely be excluded from the Islamic vision of the social good. While fundamental human values such as the sanctity of life, freedom, and justice will always enjoy normative priority, the utilitarian promotion of wealth could still be accepted as part of a broader Islamic theory of social justice. Both classic and modern accounts on maqāṣid al-sharīʿa have always emphasized the promotion of wealth as an essential objective of Islamic law. There are situations where achieving efficiency will not necessarily entail an attack on deontological values. Life, after all, is not necessarily a zero-sum game where every increase in the wealth of the society would lead to undermining life, freedom, or dignity. On the contrary, increased wealth has potentially instrumental value in promoting life, freedom, and human dignity. However, economic efficiency is not a first-order principle in Islamic doctrine. The priority is always for a set of duties to promote life, rights, and freedom. Economic efficiency can operate to supplement the deontological framework of the Islamic doctrine, but cannot override it.

VII. MAQĀṢID AS A PHILOSOPHY FOR SOCIAL GOOD AND HUMAN FLOURISHING

Demystifying the nature of social good in Islamic doctrine is an important first step towards framing an accessible theory of the social good from an Islamic perspective. However, it is inadequate to merely state that the Islamic vision of the social good has an overarching deontological framework. The next step is to start formulating an Islamic position on human flourishing that reflects such a framework. A literal reading of the textual authorities in Islamic doctrine would not help. The best place to start looking for an Islamic vision of human flourishing is the jurisprudence on maqāṣid al-sharīʿa. However, the contemporary discourse of maqāṣid does not offer adequate guidance to explain how maqāṣid could be transformed into a general framework for human flourishing. Very little is said about the methodologies that we need to adopt to transform objectives such as the promotion of life, human intellect, justice, and income into implementable normative statements capable of informing contemporary policy-making. A vision of maqāṣid al-sharīʿa as a framework for human flourishing and the social good, from an Islamic perspective, is long overdue. It is inadequate to view maqāṣid through an isolated examination of ratio legis and the purposes of the textual source, and then connect those purposes to novel situations. I argue that it is possible to transform maqāṣid into a standalone Islamic paradigm for the social good and human flourishing. A few considerations can help to start the discussion towards that direction.

To begin with, utilitarian notions of maximizing income or happiness do not define the content of the social good under maqāṣid. If we view such content as principally deontological in nature, this would mean that morally required choices will not necessarily be those that maximize the aggregate happiness of the greatest number of people. Maqāṣid as an instrument for the social good and human flourishing will give an overarching normative priority to satisfying a set of essential needs to enable people to pursue a flourishing life. In this sense, maqāṣid focuses on people themselves as the purpose in making choices about what constitutes socially good outcomes. As I indicated throughout this article, such a proposition is built into the discourse of maqāṣid since the eleventh century CE. It is interesting to note that jurists, who developed maqāṣid, have frequently stressed that people's flourishing is the overarching purpose in the system of rules within the divine scheme. For instance, if you take al-Ghazālī and most of the scholars who developed his ideas of the social good, you would notice that maximizing utility for the majority of people was not part of their understanding of the social good. They often spoke of promoting life, intellect, dignity, and freedom as intrinsically valuable objectives regardless of the consequences.

Additionally, in order for maqāṣid to play a role as a framework for the social good and human flourishing from an Islamic perspective, we should rethink the classic discourse that reduces maqāṣid in scope and number. In other words, we should be able to derive new areas of maqāṣid and expand on the scope of existing maqāṣid. Most modern jurists – as discussed above – agree that Islamic textual sources are rich in normative language about the promotion of life, rights, justice, environment, knowledge, political participation, cooperation, and so on.

We can expand the scope and number of maqāṣid by starting to ask the right questions. For example, why does the Lawgiver stress the need to establish justice as an overarching objective of the Revelation? Why was it that in primitive seventh century Arabia, the emancipation of slaves was a priority in the reform agenda of the Qurʾān and the practice of the Prophet? Why does the Qurʾān repeatedly stress that ‘there is no compulsion in religion’Footnote ⁹⁶ and encourage people to cooperate for the universal good?Footnote ⁹⁷ Why does it promote the distribution of wealth and prohibit monopoly? We need to establish whether these normative signals can be used to promote justice, freedom, and cooperation in modern societies. We will also need to explore pathways to reflect such normative insights within our formal public system of rules.

Another issue to consider is that maqāṣid, as an instrument for the social good in the Islamic worldview, might benefit from comparative scholarship on human flourishing. There is no good religious or normative reason preventing modern Muslim jurists from tapping into comparative economic and social studies on human flourishing. This is particularly needed because prominent trends in comparative secular scholarship on human flourishing broadly converge with maqāṣid on various notions of the social good. For instance, maqāṣid promotes a set of objectives for law and policymaking that are compatible with the Capabilities Approach developed by Martha Nussbaum and the Human Development Paradigm associated with Amartya Sen and Mahbub ul-Haq. As is the case with maqāṣid, which promotes the interests of people as the ultimate purpose of the social order, the Human Development Paradigm and the Capabilities Approach are both centred on enhancing people's lives, freedoms, and opportunities. Similar to maqāṣid, these frameworks of human flourishing constantly emphasize that the morally-required choices in well-ordered societies are not necessarily those which maximize good consequences for the majority. Rather, the goal is to establish a society that promotes life, good health, knowledge, freedom, and opportunities.Footnote ⁹⁸ In this sense, both maqāṣid and these theories on human flourishing subscribe to a pluralist vision of human flourishing. There is no singular merit-based or efficiency-based justification for justice and social good.

Indeed, a good opportunity exists to develop an Islamic notion of the social good and explore common ground with comparative worldviews. In both Muslim-majority and Muslim-minority countries, converging on shared commitments on notions of social good is fundamental to achieving the overlapping consensus that Rawls introduced as a necessary requisite to establish just and stable societies. While going through a detailed comparative analysis of different visions on human flourishing is beyond the scope of this article, I think that giving some examples is necessary to initiate discussion in this context. More research must follow.