Jun
3
Why study maqasid shariah?
June 3, 2008 |
In the same lecture as mentioned in previous post Imam Suhaib presented why it would be important for Muslim layman or activists to study the topic at a basic level:
[Fatwa maqasid] has no implication in your daily life but what we want to talk about is how you can make your understanding of maqasid relevent to your life as a person and most importantly in your relationship with Allah (swt). Dr. Ahmad Raysuni said for the common Muslims and the Muslim activists studying the objectives of shariah, it has many objectives:
1. One of them is al-najb, maturity. Somebody who studies these maqasid will have an Islamic outlook that will come very quickly. Somebody who studies this topic will become attune with the feel of Islam.
2. You have a correct understanding. A sound understanding is built on the constructs of the objectives of shariah. The proof of this is the sahabah. Only about 23-30 sahabah could make fatwa out of around 140,000. There are others who could do it but not on a regular basis (like Ayesha (ra), Umar (ra), etc.). Most of the sahabah were not scholars of shariah but they had an understanding of Islam based on these objectives found in the Qur’an and sunnah.
He only listed two before he jumped into other things so not sure if he meant to list more but these are good enough reasons.
Additionally later in the lecture he said that we (the non-scholars) should concentrate on learning the objectives of our ibadah such as dhikr, salah, sawn, etc. It will give us a greater appreciation of why we do it and we can make our intention to achieve that benefit or avoid the harms.