Mirror for the Muslim Prince: Islam and the Theory of Statecraft

2. Maslahah as a Political Concept

16 2 Maslahah as a Political Concept A s m a A f s a r u d d i n The Arabic term Maslahah is usually translated as “welfare,” “public interest or utility,” and “common good” in various contexts. A single, concise definition is not possible in English, but all the above meanings may be encompassed by the Arabic term. At the basic semantic level, maslahah connotes being the source of what is sound, beneficial, and conducive to peace (sulh). In premodern Islamic thought, maslahah was considered primarily a juridical term. In the early centuries of Islam, the term istislah appears to have been more common than maslahah. Istislah was a procedure common among the Medinese jurists, including Malik b. Anas (d. 795), and among the Iraqi Hanafis of the eighth century. These jurists relied heavily on reasoning and discretionary opinion (ra’y) in order to devise legal rulings that promoted the public interest in the absence of specific scriptural injunctions (Hallaq 2005, 145). Early sources confirm widespread recourse to istislah to derive legal rulings in the second and third centuries of Islam. Thus Muhammad b. Ahmad al-Khwarazmi (d. after 997) lists istislah in his well-known work Mafatih al-ulum as one of the sources of law for the Maliki school (1895, 9). The gifted belletrist and secretary Ibn al-Muqaffa‘ (d. ca. 757) recommends the use of istislah by jurists in the absence of specific textual prescriptions to derive legal rulings (1966, 360). By the eleventh century, maslahah appears to have become the preferred term to connote public interest or good and became foregrounded as a juridical principle in relation to the “objectives of the law” (maqasid al-shari‘a). The impetus for this further development of the principle Maslahah as a Political Concept • 17 of maslahah was provided by the Shafi‘i jurist Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali (d. 1111) in his work al-Mustasfa min ilm al-usul. Al-Ghazali divides the objectives of the law into two types: religious (dini) and worldly (dunyawi). Both types of objectives are concerned with securing (tahsil) and preserving (ibqa’) the public interest or maslahah. Maslahah is thus ultimately what allows for the acquisition of benefit (manfa‘ah) and the avoidance of harm or injury (madarrah) (al-Ghazali 1877, 1:286). The worldly objectives of the shari‘a are distilled by al-Ghazali into “five necessities” (al-daruriyat al-khamsah), which guarantee, for each individual, preservation of religion (din), life (nafs), progeny (nasl), intellect (aql), and property (mal). These primary objectives of the law are followed by supplementary objectives in descending order of importance: “needs” (hajat) and “ease” (tawassu‘ and taysir) (al-Ghazali 1877, 1:161–62). Al-Ghazali’s concept of maslahah and its link to the maqasid al-shari‘a proved to be seminal and was discussed by practically every major jurist afterward, especially al-Tufi (d. 1316) and al-Shatibi (d. 1388). These concepts have enjoyed a resurgence in the contemporary period as the notion of the shari‘a and its objectives are revisited, particularly by modernists and reformists. Maslahah as a Political Concept in the Early Period In comparison with its use as a juridical term, maslahah as a political concept per se receives scant discussion in the early literature. Its pervasiveness as a political concept has to be inferred from various genres of works that discuss the early caliphate as a historical phenomenon and conceptualize legitimate political leadership. The term maslahah or istislah need not be explicitly used for us to be able to assert that it was a principle broadly recognized in the early period in the sense that al-Ghazali had defined it in the legal context in the eleventh century, that is, as a principle that allowed for the acquisition of benefit (manfa‘ah) and the avoidance of harm or injury (madarrah). Three primary types of literature have been consulted in this chapter to determine the importance of maslahah as a general political and social organizational principle in the premodern period: historical works, 18 • Asma Afsaruddin Qur’an exegetical works, and political treatises. Some of these works are now discussed in greater detail below. Historical and Exegetical Works: Sunni Views Most Sunni historical works present the institution of the office of the caliph as a pragmatic response to the special circumstances that ensued after the sudden death of the Prophet Muhammad in Medina in 632 CE. As the...