Al-Juwaini's Ideas and the Development of Islamic Law: A Shifting Paradigm from the Inadequacy of Qiyas as a Method of Ijtihad to Mashlahah
Abstract
This article examines the emergence of maslahah in the legal thought of Imām al-Haramayn al-Juwaynī and argues that it constitutes a critical methodological intervention in the development of Shāfiʿī legal theory. While remaining committed to textual universalism and the supremacy of revelation, al-Juwaynī identified structural limitations in conventional qiyās in addressing increasingly complex socio-political realities. Employing a philosophical-historical hermeneutic approach and drawing on Thomas Kuhn’s theory of paradigm shift, this study interprets maslahah as an instance of extraordinary science that recalibrates established methods to address epistemic anomalies. Focusing on al-Burhān fī Uṣūl al-Fiqh, the article shows how qiyās maʿnā and munāsabah reformulated ʿillah as an intelligible indicator of divine legislative intent, enabling purposive legal expansion without endorsing autonomous ethical rationalism. The study positions al-Juwaynī as a decisive methodological link between al-Shāfiʿī and the later systematization of maqāṣid al-sharīʿah, contributing to contemporary debates on legal change in Islamic law.
Downloads
References
Ahmad, and Ahmad Alif. Structural Interrelation of Theory and Practice in Islamic Law: A Study of Six Works of Medieval Islamic Jurisprudence. T.t.p.: T.p., t.t.
Anand, Gopesh, Eric C. Larson, and Joseph T. Mahoney. “Thomas Kuhn on Paradigms.” Production and Operations Management 29, no. 7 (2020): 1650–57. https://doi.org/10.1111/poms.13188.
Anjum, Ovamir. “Political Metaphors and Concepts in the Writings of an Eleventh-Century Sunnī Scholar, Abū al-Maʿālī al-Juwaynī (419–478/1028–1085).” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 26, no. 1–2 (2016): 7–18. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1356186315000711.
Auda, Jasser. Maqasid Asy-Syari’ah Wa Al-Falsafah Li at-Tasyri’ Al-Islami. Cetakan ke-1. USA: al-Ma’had al-Alami li al-Fikr al-Islami, 2012.
———. Maqāsid al-Shariah as Philosophy of Islamic Law: A Systems Approach. London: International Institute of Islamic Thought, 2008.
Bunyamin, Muhammad Taufik, Hendri Tanjung, and Mahbuby Ali. “Pajak Menurut Imām Al-Juwaynī: Studi Literatur Kitab Ghiyâthi al-Umam fi Iltiyāth al-Ẓulam.” Reslaj: Religion Education Social Laa Roiba Journal 6, no. 3 (2023): 2057–68. https://doi.org/10.47467/reslaj.v6i3.5941.
Drønen, Tomas Sundnes. “Scientific Revolution and Religious Conversion: A Closer Look at Thomas Kuhn’s Theory of Paradigm-Shift.” Method & Theory in the Study of Religion 18, no. 3 (2006): 232–53. https://doi.org/10.1163/157006806778553561.
Eissa, Mohamed Abdelrahman. The Jurist and the Theologian: Speculative Theology in Shāfiʿī Legal Theory. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2017.
Fadel, Mohammad. “‘Istihsan Is Nine-Tenths of the Law’: The Puzzling Relationship of Usūl to Furu in the Mālikī Madhhab.” Dalam Studies in Islamic Legal Theory, diedit oleh Bernard G. Weiss, 161–76. Leiden: Brill, 2002.
Fekry, Ahmed. Pragmatism in Islamic Law: A Social and Intellectual History. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2015.
Gilliot, Claude. “Quand la théologie s’allie à l’histoire: triomphe et échec du rationalisme musulman à travers l’œuvre d’al-Ǧuwaynī.” Arabica 39 (1992): 241–60. https://hal.science/halshs-00644625/.
Gleave, Robert. Islam and Literalism: Literal Meaning and Interpretation in Islamic Legal Theory. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2012.
Hakim, Abdul Hamid. Al-Bayan. Vol. 3. Jakarta: Maktabah al-Sa’adiyyah Putra, t.t.
Hallaq, Wael B. A History of Islamic Legal Theories: An Introduction to Sunnī Uṣūl al-Fiqh. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
———. “Caliphs, Jurists and the Saljūqs in the Political Thought of Juwaynī.” Muslim World 74, no. 1 (1984): 26–41. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1478-1913.1984.tb03447.x.
———. “Uṣūl Al-Fiqh and Shafi'i's Risala Revisited.” Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies 19, no. 1 (2019): 134–48. https://doi.org/10.561/jais.7749.
Hasan, Ahmad. “The Principle of Qiyas in Islamic Law: An Historical Perspective.” Islamic Studies 15, no. 3 (1976): 201–19.
———. “Subject Matter of Qiyas.” Islamic Studies 21 (1982).
Hodgson, Marshall G. S. The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization. Vol. 1. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974.
Juwaynī (Al-), ʻAbd al-Malik ibn ʻAbd Allāh Imām al-Ḥaramayn. A Guide to Conclusive Proofs for the Principles of Belief (Terjemahan dari Kitāb al-Irshād ilā Qawāṭiʿ al-Adilla fī Usūl al-Iʿtiqād). Diterjemahkan oleh Paul Ernest Walker. Reading, UK: Garnet / Centre for Muslim Contribution to Civilization, 2000.
———. Al-Burhān fī Uṣūl al-Fiqh. Diedit oleh Abd al-ʿAzim Deib. Vol. 1 & 2. Cetakan ke-1. Qatar: Khalifah Ibnu Hamdal at-Tsani, 1978.
Kamali, Mohammad Hashim. Principles of Islamic Jurisprudence. Edisi Revisi. Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society, 2003.
Khir, Bustami. “Who Applies Islamic Law in Non-Muslim Countries? A Study of the Sunnī Principle of the Governance of the Scholars (wilāyat al-ʿulamā’).” Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 27, no. 1 (2007): 79–91. https://doi.org/10.1080/13602000701308897.
Kiswati, Tsuroya. Al-Juwaini: Peletak Dasar Teologi Rasional dalam Islam. Jakarta: Erlangga, 2014.
Kuhn, Thomas S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Edisi ke-3. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.
Marcum, James A. Thomas Kuhn’s Revolution: An Historical Philosophy of Science. London: Continuum, 2005.
Masud, Muhammad Khalid. “Shātibi’s Philosophy of Islamic Law: An Analytical Study of Shātibi’s Concept of Maslaha in Relation to His Doctrine of Maqāsid al-Sharīʿah with Particular Reference to the Problem of the Adaptability of Islamic Legal Theory to Social Change.” Disertasi PhD, McGill University, 1973. https://escholarship.mcgill.ca/concern/theses/ht24wp29h.
Meguid, Ahmed Abdel. “Reversing Schmitt: The Sovereign as a Guardian of Rational Pluralism and the Peculiarity of the Islamic State of Exception in Al-Juwayni’s Dialectical Theology.” European Journal of Political Theory 19, no. 4 (2020): 489–511. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474885117730672.
Mensia, Mokdad Arfa. “Regards d’Ibn Rushd sur al-Juwaynī: Questions de méthode.” Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 22, no. 2 (2012): 199–216. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0957423912000021.
Nagel, Tilman. Die Festung des Glaubens: Triumph und Scheitern des islamischen Rationalismus im 11. Jahrhundert. Munich: C.H. Beck, 1988.
Opwis, Felicitas. “Preliminary Material.” In Maṣlaḥa and the Purpose of the Law: Islamic Discourse on Legal Change from the 4th/10th to 8th/14th Century, edited by Ruud Peters and A. Kevin Reinhart, i–xiv. Leiden: Brill, 2010.
———. “The Ethical Turn in Legal Analogy: Imbuing the Ratio Legis with Maṣlaḥa.” Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies 21, no. 2 (2021): 159–82. https://journals.uio.no/JAIS/article/view/9374.
Prihantoro, Hijrian Angga. “Hasan Hanafī and Islamic Legal Theory: From Phenomenology to Critique of the Slogan ‘Going Back to the Qur'an and Sunna’.” Mazahib: Jurnal Pemikiran Hukum Islam 20, no. 2 (2021): 192–223. https://doi.org/10.21093/mj.v20i2.3750.
Sevgili, Mehmet Macit. “Al-Juwaynī’s Understanding of Maqāsid.” ULUM 4, no. 1 (2021): 25–49. https://doi.org/10.54659/ulum.974354.
Siddiqui, Sohaira. “Jadal and Qiyās in the Fifth/Eleventh Century: Two Debates between al-Juwaynī and al-Shīrāzī.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 139, no. 4 (2022): 923. https://doi.org/10.7817/jameroriesoci.139.4.0923.
———. Law and Politics under the Abbasids: An Intellectual Portrait of Juwaynī. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108654784.
Sulaiman, Hassan D., Alwi Alatas, Abdul Bari Awang, and Mahamed Fathy El-eletrebi. “The Objectives and Principles of Islamic Governance: Perspective of Imām Al-Juwaynī (Tujuan dan Prinsip Tadbir Urus Islam: Perspektif Imām Al-Juwaynī).” Journal of Islamic Administration 17, no. 1 (2020): 222–48. https://doi.org/10.31436/JIA.V17I1.924.
Syāṭibī (Al-), Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm bin Mūsā. Al-Muwāfaqāt fī Uṣūl al-Sharīʿah. Vol. 5. Riyadh: Dār Ibn ʿAffān, 1997.
Thiele, Jan. “Al-Juwayni.” Dalam Encyclopedia of Medieval Philosophy: Philosophy between 500 and 1500, diedit oleh Henrik Lagerlund, 1–5. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, 2018.
Timmins, Adam. “Normal and Extraordinary History? Thomas Kuhn and Historiography.” Eras 12, no. 1 (2010): 1–20.
Watson, Alan. Society and Legal Change. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2001.
Widigdo, Mohammad Syifa Amin. “Imām al-Ḥaramayn al-Juwaynī and Jadal Theory in the Eleventh Century: A Critical Analysis of Imām al-Ḥaramayn’s al-Kāfīya fī al-jadal.” Qudus International Journal of Islamic Studies 6, no. 2 (2018): 306–7. https://doi.org/10.21043/qijis.v6i2.3695.
———. “Imām al-Ḥaramayn al-Juwaynī’s Mobility and the Saljūq’s Project of Sunnī Political Unity.” In Professional Mobility in Islamic Societies (700–1750): New Concepts and Approaches, edited by Mohamad El-Merheb and Mehdi Berriah, 159–81. Leiden: Brill, 2021.
Yavuz, Abdullah Ömer. “Eşarî Akāid Literatüründe Selçuklu ve Osmanlı Medreseleriyle Özdeşleşen İki Eserin Karşılaştırılması (Cüveynî ve Îcî’nin Akāid Metinleri Üzerine Bir Tahlil).” Tasavvur – Tekirdağ İlahiyat Dergisi 8, no. 1 (2022): 387–412. https://doi.org/10.47424/tasavvur.1092916.
Zuhaili (Al-), Muhammad. Al-Imam Al-Juwayni. Damaskus: Dar al-Qalam, 1986.
Zuhaili (Al-), Wahbah. Uṣūl al-Fiqh al-Islami. Vol. 2. Damaskus: Dar al-Fikr, 1986.
Zyzow, Aron. The Economy of Certainty: An Introduction to the Typology of Islamic Legal Theory. Atlanta: Lockwood Press, 2013.
Copyright (c) 2025 Ulumuna
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
