Maṣlaḥa and Rachid al-Ghannushi’s reformist project

Abstract

Maṣlaḥa, or human interest and well-being, as the embodiment of maqāṣid al-sharī‘a (the higher objectives of Islamic law) is one of the principles in uṣūl al-fiqh (the origins or fundamentals of jurisprudence) that entered Islamic legal theory as early as the tenth century.1 In the modern period, there has been an increasing reliance on maṣlaḥa as a tool for legal change,2 and, as this volume demonstrates, a wide range of contemporary Islamic reformists have resorted to a maqāṣidi (purposive) approach to find solutions internal to Islam for a variety of challenges that Muslims face. In this respect, Rachid al-Ghannushi, the Tunisian Islamic thinker and leader of ḥizb al-nahda (The Renaissance Party), is no exception. To be sure, there is a great deal of diversity in how Islamic thinkers and jurists have understood maqāṣid al-sharī‘a and how they have incorporated maṣlaḥa in their overall legal, ethical, social, and political theories. In this chapter I critically assess Ghannushi’s employment of maṣlaḥa in his sociopolitical reformist project.