20/12/2022, 12:28 A Muslim Declaration of Human Rights?

- Article - Renovatio

A Muslim Declaration of
Human Rights?

A destroyed mosque in Rafah, Gaza, 2009 / Wikimedia Commons

We have ennobled the Children of Adam.

Qur’an, 17:70

To deny people their human rights is to challenge their very humanity.

Nelson Mandela

The idea of human rights evolved in parallel with the rise of the nation-state in nineteenth-
century Europe. For our purposes, we can define the state as a merger between a group of
people sharing a common characteristic—such as language, tribe, a sense of shared history,
or the perception of a common destiny—and a demarcated territory. Owing to the
heterogeneity of the population of most geographical regions that became a state, an
immediate problem, still evident today, arose: because most states contain more than one
national group, the most populous one comprises a majority while smaller groups become
minorities, creating a tension as the majority usually seeks to impose its language, history,
religion, or culture on the minorities, sometimes with genocidal vigor.1 Western human
rights were conceived as an effort to resolve that tension by conferring upon racial, religious,
and national minorities rights deemed to accrue to every human being by virtue of a shared
humanity.

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Some consider it folly to speak of human rights as universal because of their European
origin, history, and philosophical foundations. Yet the culmination of Western human rights
thought, codified in the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), does
just that. Is there something deficient in the UDHR due to its origin? And what might a
corrective rooted in Islamic teachings look like? Such a corrective might be seen as more
legitimate by Muslims while still addressing the same concerns that motivated the creation
of European human rights laws and regimes. We can begin by looking to the past and how
the challenge of ethnic and religious minorities was addressed in the Islamic tradition.

Islam and the Question of Minorities

We live in an age when the past, to use a common idiom, is “a foreign country”—the
implication being that history has little to teach us. The twentieth-century historian and
social critic Christopher Lasch identified this problem succinctly:

A society that has made “nostalgia” a marketable commodity on the cultural exchange
quickly repudiates the suggestion that life in the past was in any important way better than
life today. Having trivialized the past by equating it with outmoded styles of consumption,
discarded fashions and attitudes, people today resent anyone who draws on the past in
serious discussions of contemporary conditions or attempts to use the past as a standard by
which to judge the present.2

Besides “having trivialized the past,” we face other modern trends that also result in the
failure of Western states to effectively address the challenge of ethnic and religious
minorities, including the rise of white nationalism in the United States, the United Kingdom,
France, and other de facto Western multicultural states and the attractiveness of potentially
divisive ideologies, such as critical race theory,3 to racial minorities in those states. If
international human rights instruments, such as the UDHR, sought to protect minority
populations, our current failures should prompt us to consider that perhaps an alternative
ethical vision from the past—or some elements of one—may prove more effective toward
this goal. Historically, minorities in Muslim-majority societies rarely experienced significant
problems, despite anomalous examples of systematic intolerance and, in rare instances,
organized violence.
From the outset of Islam, prophetic teachings and practices, both personal and societal, set
the tone for nondiscriminatory treatment of minorities. During Prophet Muĥammad’s time,
several eminent representatives of non-Arab groups—e.g., Bilāl the Ethiopian, Salmān the
Persian, and Śuhayb the Roman (European)—were held in high esteem by the majority Arab
Muslim population. Praise from the Prophet Muĥammad ‫ ﷺ‬for non-Arab people further
enhanced their stature. He stated, for example, “The call to prayer is for the Ethiopians.”4
“Were faith in the Pleiades the Persians would attain it.”5 “The Europeans are best in the
treatment of their poor and downtrodden.”6 On two occasions, he sent contingents of his
followers to seek asylum in Abyssinia, an African kingdom, led by a just king whom he
praised.7

In addition, the Prophet’s relationship with many of his black companions highlights—in
stark contrast with most societies past and present—the social cohesion and efforts to
eradicate race consciousness during the prophetic era. For example, the Prophet ‫ ﷺ‬adopted

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a black Arab youth, Zayd b. Ĥārithah,8 as his son and attached him to his lineage before the
Qur’an prohibited the latter practice. He referred to an African woman, Barakah al-
Ĥabashiyyah (Umm Ayman), as his mother. Zayd and Umm Ayman married, and their son,
Usāmah, described as having a dark complexion,9 became known as the beloved of the
beloved of the Messenger of God. The Prophet ‫ ﷺ‬was known to send his dark-skinned
companions to the homes of light-skinned aristocratic Arabs to ask for the hands of their
daughters in marriage.10 He also appointed individuals of African descent to high offices in
the fledgling Muslim polity.11 Such prophetic decisions and directives served as a model for
the achievement of social integration and cohesion in Muslim realms, especially because
Muslims seek to emulate the prophetic character. Much of this came to an end with the
advent of European colonization and the dismantling of the institutional structures
buttressing the shariah as a viable civilizational force.12

Respectful treatment of non-Muslim minorities living in Muslim lands became a reality

because the Prophet ‫ﷺ‬ extended protection to all those living under Muslim rule. He stated,
“Whoever oppresses a person granted a covenant of protection, violates his rights, burdens
him with an unbearable workload, or takes something from him without his consent, I will
prosecute him [the transgressor] on the Day of Resurrection.”13 He also declared that anyone
who unjustly kills someone under the protection of the Muslim polity would be banned from
paradise.14

The importance—and the impact—of Islam, through prophetic teachings, can be witnessed
in the history of all major Muslim population centers where Arabs, Persians, Turks, Africans,
and Europeans created dynamic, ethnically mixed societies. These centers included Baghdad;
Cairo; Mecca; Medina; Hyderabad; Istanbul; Fes; Marrakesh; Sarajevo; Timbuktu; and during
the time Muslim rule prevailed in the Iberian Peninsula, the entirety of Andalusia. 

While not without some faults, the striking ethnic and social harmony of Muslim lands
inspired the renowned twentieth-century historian Arnold J. Toynbee to write:

The extinction of race consciousness as between Muslims is one of the outstanding moral
achievements of Islam, and in the contemporary world there is, as it happens, a crying need
for the propagation of this Islamic virtue; for, although the record of history would seem on
the whole to show that race consciousness has been the exception and not the rule in the
constant interbreeding of the human species, it is a fatality of the present situation that this
consciousness is felt—and felt strongly—by the very peoples which, in the competition of
the last four centuries between several Western powers, have won—at least for the moment
—the lion’s share of the inheritance of the Earth.

As things are now, the exponents of racial intolerance are in the ascendant, and, if their
attitude towards “the race question” prevails, it may eventually provoke a general
catastrophe. Yet the forces of racial toleration, which at present seem to be fighting a losing
battle in a spiritual struggle of immense importance to mankind, might still regain the upper
hand if any strong influence militating against race consciousness that has hitherto been
held in reserve were now to be thrown into the scales. It is conceivable that the spirit of
Islam might be the timely reinforcement which would decide this issue in favor of tolerance
and peace.15

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Toynbee’s assessment that “the spirit of Islam” could promote “tolerance and peace” in
matters of race can be extended to matters of religion as well. The confessional nature of the
premodern world made the attainment of peaceful relations in this realm particularly
challenging, but here too Islam fostered models of success. Premodern Muslims generally
permitted every human being, regardless of their faith, to participate in unrestricted worship.
During the Ottoman epoch, this freedom evolved into a sophisticated system of minority
religious rights known as the millet system. The influential historian Bernard Lewis recognized
the religious freedom afforded to all under Ottoman rule:

Surely, the Ottomans did not offer equal rights to their subjects—a meaningless
anachronism in the context of that time and place. They did however offer a degree of
tolerance without precedence or parallel in Christian Europe. Each community—the Ottoman
term was Millet—was allowed the free practice of its religion. More remarkably, they had
their own communal organizations, subject to the authority of their own religious chiefs,
controlling their own education and social life, and enforcing their own laws, to the extent
that they did not conflict with the basic laws of the Empire.16
As Lewis states, it is meaningless to measure the ways premodern Muslim societies protected
ethnic and religious minorities, using a modern yardstick based on how those protections
unfold, at least in theory, in contemporary pluralistic states. It is more appropriate to
compare outcomes, especially the historical reality that those Muslim societies, as a rule,
prevented the kinds of persistent ghettoization, violence, and insecurity that ethnic and
religious minorities still experience in many modern states. 

Sanctified Beings and the Rights They

Deserve
From the advent of Western human rights discourse in Muslim societies, scholars and
thinkers have endeavored to craft a modern human rights declaration rooted in the Islamic
tradition. That effort culminated in 1990 with the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam
(CDHRI), formulated through a collaborative effort between member states of the
Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). But even though many Muslims view the CDHRI
as an Islamic corrective to the UDHR, it still reflects the structure and content of its Western
predecessor, with the notable exception of making the shariah its foundation and the basis
for its interpretation.  

Despite the “Islamic” label of the CDHRI—a descriptor many Muslims may also apply to the
overwhelming majority of articles in the UDHR—the materialistic nature of these seminal
human rights declarations limits their ability to address human beings as spiritual creatures
and to capture the complex array of rights Islam affords to humans as integrated spiritual
and material beings.17 What Islam can contribute in this regard cannot be overstated: it
provides a more robust and formidable foundation for a universal approach to human rights
by including in the definition of human the sanctified spiritual (and material) being that
applies to all of humanity. 

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In this sense, both the UDHR and the CDHRI represent thoroughly modern declarations that
accept the Darwinian divorce of the spiritual and the intellectual essence of humans.
Contemporary legal theorist Shaykh Abdullah Bin Bayyah says concerning this divorce:

As for Darwinism, which today has become a reference point for most intellectual circles, a
human being does not transcend the designation of a primate from the animal kingdom, of
the hominoid family, distinguished by its brain, crescent shaped nails, and full set of teeth. In
doing so, Darwinism has nullified its own rationality, which includes human rationality with
all its attributes, extraordinary perceptions, marvelous intellectual faculties, and unique gifts,
reducing man to nothing more than an offspring of a monkey that once walked on all fours
only to evolve into a biped. In this way, they were satisfied with the form of man forgetting
the essence. They put forth a scientifically unsound explanation that those who claim
knowledge fell over one another to support.18
As Shaykh Bin Bayyah suggests, the Islamic tradition does not regard humanity as a mere
biological advancement of lower life forms. Were this the case, there would be little
fundamental distinction between human and animal rights, other than those arising from the
advancement and complexity of the human brain. Rather, Islam categorizes human life as a
biological reality that has been sanctified by a special quality, the spirit (rūĥ), instilled into the
human being. We read in the Qur’an: “He then fashioned [the human being] and breathed
into him of His spirit” (32:9).19

Interestingly, all humans by virtue of their being—regardless of which nation, tribe, or

religious group they belong to—share this spiritual quality. A well-known prophetic tradition
illustrates this unifying spiritual bond: a funeral procession was passing by, and the Prophet
‫ ﷺ‬rose in respect, prompting one of his companions to remark that the deceased was a Jew,
and the Prophet ‫ ﷺ‬responded, “Is he not a human soul?”20 God refers to this shared spiritual
quality when He says: “We have truly ennobled the human being” (17:70). 

The manifold ennoblement of humans in creation highlights the ascendancy of their spiritual
and intellectual faculties21 and forbids their belittlement or debasement, a prohibition that
extends far beyond the mere preservation of worldly life. Their ennobled status guarantees,
for example, rights before birth, by forbidding abortion, except in certain well-defined
instances; by mandating the proper washing, shrouding, and burial of a stillborn baby over
the age of four months;22 and by urging, as an affirmation of their personhood in utero, the
naming of stillborn babies.23 After their death, humans possess the right for their bodies to
be properly washed, shrouded, and buried. In addition, the intentional mutilation of a
cadaver, even in times of war, is forbidden, as is insulting or verbally abusing the dead,
whether Muslim or not. These ordainments and practices remind us that all aspects of
human life are sanctified, a necessary basis for extending formally legalized rights to their
theoretical possessors.

Meanwhile, neither the UDHR nor the CDHRI defines the terms human and rights. The
absence of the definitions leads to ambiguity, which in turn creates significant controversy
around emotionally and politically charged issues such as abortion. The topic of abortion, or
the fetus, receives no mention in the UDHR or the CDHRI. All the arguments put forth in
favor of including abortion as a universal human right assume that a fetus cannot be defined
as a human at any stage of development, leaving it bereft of rights.

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A faithful Muslim human rights declaration must define a human and when its life begins
with great clarity and precision so it can afford humans the right to life, both physical and
spiritual, at every stage of their existence on earth.

A truly Islamic corrective to the UDHR would also root itself in the intellectual heritage of
Islam, one that acknowledges the rights that humans possess in their relations with each
other, the rights that societies possess over individuals and those of individuals over society,
and the rights of God over humans and the rights God grants humans over Him. Further, the
definition of a human being would include both the spiritual and material natures of the
human. The Islamic tradition, in other words, furnishes a broad base for crafting a universal
declaration of human rights.

The mural at the United Nations Security Council / Wikimedia Commons

Translating the ideas, principles, and underlying ethos of that base into a viable legal
structure reflecting a truly Islamic human rights declaration requires a methodology rooted
in the maqāśid al-sharī¢ah (the overarching objectives of the shariah). The maqāśid are more
than a system of legal philosophy and ethics. In some cases, they identify the inapplicability
of a particular ruling in certain contexts. More importantly, for our purposes, they provide a
framework for establishing Islamic rulings for novel contingencies, such as the need for an
Islamically informed conception of human rights that arises from the modern state and its
imposition on the global Muslim community. Such a corrective would augment and enrich
the UDHR and the CDHRI to make them more universal and acceptable to religious
communities around the world.

During the formative period of Muslim law, legal scholars largely ignored the maqāśid; later,
some scholars began to theorize the approach, a practice that continues into the modern
era.24 Collectively, the premodern scholars identified five definitive objectives (đarūriyyāt), or
essentials: the preservation of life, the preservation of intellect, the preservation of the family,
the preservation of religion, and the preservation of wealth or private property. The brilliant
Maliki legal theorist Shihāb al-Dīn al-Qarāfī added a sixth: the preservation of honor or

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human dignity.25 These six essentials of the divine law readily constitute a foundation for a
viable, principled human rights scheme. They also facilitate expansion into areas neglected
by contemporary Western human rights declarations, which would require the ad hoc
introduction of novel categories of rights to include those areas.

How Rights Flow from the Essentials

The preservation of life as a divinely sanctioned human right illustrates how building on the
essentials can facilitate a principled expansion of human rights protections. This divine
objective demands the prohibition of murder; the prohibition of weapons of mass
destruction; and a ban on the current acceptance of “collateral damage,” whereby innocent
civilians are killed in the pursuit of targeting enemies. It also demands environmental
protection and the maintenance of biodiversity,26 including diverse and variegated seed
stocks of food crops necessary for perpetuating and expanding the production of fruits and
vegetables; the right to clean water, air, and soil; and the preservation of wildlife. Hence, in a
maqāśid scheme, with the objective of preserving the life of future generations,
environmental protections become human rights, with clear policy implications for both
international and domestic law. 

Because losing these protections does not immediately threaten human life, they constitute
a lower level of rights in relation to the essentials. A maqāśid-based hierarchy would
categorize them as pressing needs (ĥājāt). While the level of any right flowing from an
essential might be debatable, in the case of environmental protections, considering the
future implications of the loss of biodiversity, we might argue that the essential of preserving
life logically subsumes biodiversity, even as a pressing need. Hence, expanding a Muslim
human rights declaration to include the preservation of biodiversity would not be an ad hoc
or a politically motivated move; it would flow naturally from the foundational essential of
preserving human life.
While a maqāśid-based supplement to the UDHR should be readily attractive to Muslims,
one might question its legitimacy with other groups, such as staunch secularists who may be
more concerned about its theological origins than its content. It would be a misplaced
concern, however; as Imam al-Ghazālī states:

It is impossible for any way of life or religious dispensation through which the greater good
of humanity is desired to allow the prohibition or eradication of these five Essentials
[preserving religion, life, intellect, family, private wealth, and human dignity—a sixth Essential
added after Imam al-Ghazālī’s time].27

Imam al-Ghazālī’s insight remains true today because most of the global opposition to the
UDHR originates from religious communities, both Muslims and others, thus demonstrating
a pressing need for a scheme that is rooted in universally recognized religious principles but
whose categories are broad enough to include many concerns addressed by existing
materialist human rights declarations. Contemporary scholar of maqāśid Jasser Auda predicts
that the need for a religiously sound corrective will only grow with the increasing
polarization between “traditionalists” and “progressives”:

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However, some members of the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights
(UNHCHR) expressed concerns over the Islamic Declaration of human rights [sic] because
they think that it “gravely threatens the intercultural consensus on which the international
human rights instruments were based.” Other members believe that the declaration “adds
new positive dimension to human rights, since, unlike international instruments, it attributes
them to a divine source thereby adding a new moral motivation for complying with them.”28

I end where I began, with a brief discussion of nationalism. As mentioned, the modern state
involves a merger of a state and a nation. In terms of a nation, Article 15 of the UDHR
declares that everyone has a right to a nationality, and no one shall be denied the right to
change their nationality. This article illustrates how closely the UDHR is tied to the rise of the
modern European state. Were it not for the emergence of the state within the European
political context, we would not be speaking of this right at all, let alone its “universality.” In
other words, the state is not a transcendent, timeless reality; therefore, the right to
membership within a state or nationality cannot be described as a fixed, universal right. It is
amenable to change or eradication with the changing nature or eventual demise of the state.

In contrast, the six essentials lying at the heart of the maqāśid are transcendent and timeless.
Indeed, they are frequently referred to as the six universals. Two hundred years ago, talk of
nationality as a universal human right was meaningless, and one hundred years from now,
that may again be the case. This is not to deny the benefits derived from the imposition of
the state on the world’s peoples and from the associated rise of human rights as an aspect of
international law. But if we examine the harm associated with nationalism, including two
world wars that culminated with the atomic bombing of Japan, along with the inconsistent
embrace of national aspirations by the “global powers” (now illustrated in stark relief by the
contrast in the level of support for the Ukrainian and Palestinian national struggles), we can
see the defects inherent in a regime rooted in two amoral institutions: the nation and the
state. An alternate system rooted in the morality of world religions may prove to be more
than just a supplement to the UDHR.

Endnotes
1 There are many instances, such as apartheid in South Africa and British India, where
a minority imposed its rule on a majority. The opposite, however, is usually the case.
2 Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing
Expectations (New York: Warner Books, 1979), 23–24.
3 I am not positing that critical race theory lacks benefit in terms of helping non-
European minorities to identify sources of their oppression, alienation, discrimination,
or marginalization in European or European-settler societies. I claim that it is divisive
and works against creating the social solidarity and political consciousness necessary
to move all ethnic groups in those societies beyond racist and racializing histories.
Here, Islam, which has historically proven capable of unifying people, offers a lot more
help, as recognized by Malcolm X in his famous “Letter from Mecca.” See Malcolm X

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with Alex Haley, The Autobiography of Malcolm X (New York: Ballantine Books, 1993),
390–92.
4 Al-Tirmidhī, 3936.
5 Al-Bukhārī, 4897.
6 Muslim, 2878.
7 For a detailed account of the migration of Muslims to Ethiopia during the prophetic
epoch, see Imam Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūţī, Raf¢ sha’n al-Ĥabash (Elevating the status of
the Ethiopians), trans. Adeyinka Muhammad Mendes (Cincinnati, OH: CelebrateMercy,
2021) 49–75.
8 Abū al-Faraj b. al-Jawzī mentions Zayd b. Ĥārithah as being among the black
companions, contrary to what some allege. See Abū al-Faraj b. al-Jawzī, Tanwīr al-
ghabash fī fađl al-Sūdān wa al-Ĥabash (Illuminating the darkness: The virtues of Blacks
and Abyssinians), trans. Adnan Karim (Birmingham, UK: Dar al-Arqam, 2019), 139.
9 Tanwīr al-ghabash, 139–40.
10 Tanwīr al-ghabash, 146–56.
11 For a lengthier list of African companions of the Prophet Muĥammad ‫ﷺ‬, along
with brief biographical sketches, see Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūţī, Raf¢ sha’n al-Ĥabash; also
Abū al-Faraj b. al-Jawzī, Tanwīr al-ghabash as well as Habeeb Akande, Illuminating the
Darkness: Blacks and North Africans in Islam (London: Ta Ha Publishers, 2012).
12 Wael Hallaq, among others, views the dismantling of the institutional structure of
the shariah as the effective end of Islam as a viable civilizational force. The total
acceptance of the modern state, with its demand for ultimate allegiance, along with its
institutional weight, led to the Muslim world becoming an appendage of Western
civilization. See Wael Hallaq, The Impossible State (New York: Columbia University
Press, 2014). Especially relevant here is the first chapter, “Premises.”
13 Abū Dāwūd, 3052.
14 Al-Bukhārī, 6403.
15 Arnold J. Toynbee, Civilization on Trial (New York: Oxford University Press, 1948),
205–6.
16 Bernard Lewis, What Went Wrong: The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the
Middle East (New York: Perennial, 2003), 33–34.
17 Saying this does not deny the benefit of both the UDHR and the CDHRI in terms of
providing a legal framework for protecting Muslims from the unspeakable abuses and
undeniable oppression visited upon them by the states of the modern Muslim world.
It also is not to deny that traditional bases of political legitimacy in the Muslim world
have been radically transformed by the almost universal acceptance of the modern
state system by the world’s Muslims. Ann Elizabeth Mayer, a leading expert on human
rights in the Muslim world, mentions in this regard, while responding to the idea of
Muslim exemption from prevailing Western human rights regimes based on claims of
cultural relativism: “Thus when one compares Islamic human rights concepts with
international law, one is not judging an institution of an intact traditional culture by
alien Western standards but examining Muslim reactions to concepts already
influencing their national legal systems. It should be borne in mind that elements of
Western rights adopted in these legal systems are institutions that independent
Muslim countries have freely chosen. Thus, to maintain at this stage in history that
[human] rights are somehow external to Islamic culture is to accept the notion that

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Islamic culture froze in its premodern formulations and taking the position that Islam
rejects both the political changes wrought by modernization and the adoption of the
new political ideas and legal institutions that accompanied the process.” Ann Elizabeth
Mayer, Islam and Human Rights: Tradition and Politics (Boulder, CO: Westview Press,
1999), 10.
18 Shaykh Abdullah Bin Bayyah, Ĥiwār ¢an bu¢d ĥawla ĥuqūq al-insān fī al-Islām (A
conversation at a distance around human rights in Islam) (Riyad: Maktabat Obeikan,
2007), 28.
19 Muslim scholars have defined the spirit (rūĥ) in various ways. Perhaps the best
translation is “the humanizing spirit.” Some translate it as “life spirit”; however, many
scholars, such as Imam al-Ghazālī, view it as a divinely gifted subtlety that does more
than animate the physical body. Although that is one of its functions, it also contains
those qualities that animate the physical heart, allowing it to yearn for and know God,
which is the essence of our humanity. Hence, my preference for the humanizing spirit.
Its true nature is unknown to any human being, although there has been much
speculation as to what exactly it is. See Abū Ĥāmid Muĥammad al-Ghazālī, Iĥyā’ ¢ulūm
al-dīn (Vivifying the sciences of religion) (Jiddah, Saudi Arabia: Dār al-Minhāj, 2011),
5:9–15.
20 Al-Bukhārī, 1312; Muslim, 2222; al-Nasā’ī, 1920.
21 Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī listed twenty examples that support the superiority of the
metaphysical composition of humans over their animal composition, with a
comparison of the realizations possible via physical vision to those possible via the
inner vision of the mind and heart. A summary of several of the points he made is that
physical vision cannot realize the existence of abstractions, while the inner vision of
the heart and mind can. Furthermore, in that God is beyond physicality, physical
vision, unaided by the inner vision of the heart and mind, cannot realize the existence
of God (“There is nothing like unto Him” [42:11]), whereas the inner vision of the heart
and mind, unaided by any physical reality, can. Hence, its superiority. See Fakhr al-Dīn
al-Rāzī, Al-Tafsīr al-kabīr (Beirut: Dār Iĥyā’ al-Turāth al-¢Arabī, 1997), 8:380–82.
22 Aĥmad b. Naqīb al-Misrī, ¢Umdat al-sālik (Reliance of the traveler), trans. Nuh Ha
Mim Keller (Beltsville, MD: Amana Publications, 1994), 236.
23 Not all Sunni schools of law urge conferring a name on the stillborn. The soundest
opinion is that a name should be conferred “by way of honoring the child of Adam.”
See Wahbah al-Zuĥaylī, Al-Fiqh al-Islāmī wa adillatuh (Islamic jurisprudence and its
proofs) (Damascus: Dār al-Fikr, 1997), 2:1491.
24 The great Shafi‘i jurist and legal theorist al-Juwaynī perhaps was the first to provide
a systematic categorization of the maqāśid. Al-Juwaynī’s student Imam Abū Ĥāmid
Muĥammad al-Ghazālī advanced his teacher’s work in this area, particularly in
examining the role the maqāśid plays in advancing public interest (maślaĥah). Abū
Ĥāmid Muĥammad al-Ghazālī, Al-Mustaśfā fī ¢ilm al-uśūl (Beirut: Dār al-Śadr, 1995),
1:257–66. Subsequent Shafi‘i scholars, particularly Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī and Sayf al-Dīn
al-Āmidī, built on al-Ghazālī’s works; however, the most thorough and far-reaching
insights into the nature and role of the maqāśid are found in the works of Maliki
scholar Abū Isĥāq al-Shāţibī. During the twentieth century, the great Tunisian scholar
Ţāhir b. ¢ Āshūr continued to advance the work of al-Shāţibī, while contemporarily, the
erudite Mauritanian scholar Shaykh Abdullah Bin Bayyah is recognized as not only the

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leading scholar of maqāśid but also the most innovative in terms of using the maqāśid
in conjunction with jurisprudential principles to restore the relevance and flexibility of
Islamic law. In terms of the specific application of the maqāśid to the issue of human
rights, we must mention the work of the prolific legal scholar Mohammad Hashim
Kamali. Another contemporary scholar, Jasser Auda, conducts research with the
maqāśid at the heart of an effort to develop a systems approach to Islamic law.
25 For a concise overview of the evolution, methodology, and application of the
maqāśid, see Mohammad Hashim Kamali, Shari’ah Law: An Introduction (Oxford, UK:
Oneworld Publications, 2008), 123–40. Also, Jasser Auda, Maqasid al-Shariah as
Philosophy of Islamic Law (London: The International Institute of Islamic Thought,
2021), 13–25.
26 In terms of biodiversity being essential for the perpetuation of life, the rapidly
shrinking strains of bees and various food crops are exposing these animals and crops
to heightened threats of extinction. The problem is especially acute among bee
populations.
27 Al-Ghazālī, Al-Mustaśfā, 1:258.
28 Auda, Maqasid al-Shariah, 23.

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