SHARĪʿA AS STATE LAW: AN ANALYSIS OF ʿALLĀL AL-FĀSĪ’S CONCEPT OF THE OBJECTIVES OF ISLAMIC LAW

Abstract

AbstractThis article presents and evaluates the legal thought of Muhammad ʿAllāl al-Fāsī (1910–1974) with a focus on his discourse on the objectives of Sharīʿa and the motives behind his reformulation of these objectives within the broader context of his political agenda. Al-Fāsī's concerns were not purely academic. As a political leader who struggled for the independence of his country and as a decision maker within the newly established Moroccan state, his theorization of Islamic law departed from traditional and modern efforts to negotiate the supposed status of Sharīʿa within the institutional structures of postcolonial Muslim states. The questions engaged in this article are to what extent did al-Fāsī's contribution to Maqāṣid go beyond its classical reformulations as represented by the Andalusian Māliki jurist Ibrāhīm Ibn Mūsā Abū Isḥāq al-Shāṭibī (d. AH 790/1388 CE) in his seminal work, Al-Muwāfaqāt fī Uṣūl al-Sharīʿa, and whether al-Fāsī's work represents a turn in the field of Maqāṣid when compared with that of other modern Muslim jurists, among them Muhammad al-Ṭāhir Ibn ʿĀshūr (1886–1970). This article focuses on al-Fāsī's book on Maqāṣid al-Sharīʿa, Maqāṣid al-Sharīʿa al-Islāmiyya wa Makārimuhā, and its contribution to the ongoing efforts to accommodate Islamic law within the corpus of modern secular laws.