Imam Shatibi's Theory of the Higher Objectives and Intents of Islamic Law (Imam ash-Shatibi)

ISBN: 1565644123
Author: Imam Shatibi; Ahmed al-Raysuni (translator)
Publisher: International Institute of Islamic Thought IIIT (2006, 1426 AH)
Pages: 478 Binding: Paperback

Description from the publisher:

With the end of the early Islamic period, Muslim scholarscame to sense that a rift had begun to emergebetween the teachings and principles of Islam andMuslims’ daily reality and practices. The most importantmeans by which scholars sought to restore theintimate contact between Muslims and the Qur’an wasto study the objectives of Islam, the causes behindIslamic legal rulings and the intentions and goalsunderlying the Shari’ah, or Islamic Law. They made itclear that every legal ruling in Islam has a functionwhich it performs, an aim which it realizes, a cause,be it explicit or implicit, and an intention which itseeks to fulfill, and all of this in order to realize benefitto human beings or to ward off harm or corruption.

This book represents a pioneering contributionpresenting a comprehensive theory of theobjectives of Islamic Law in its various aspects, as well as a painstaking study of objectives-based thought as pioneered by the father of objectives-based jurisprudence, Imam Abu Ishaq al-Shatibi; in addition, the author presents us with an important study of al-Shatibi himself which offers a wealth of new, beneficial information about the life, thought and method of this venerable imam.