Abstract
The field of Islamic bioethics is currently in development as thinkers delineate its normative content, ethical scope and research methods. Some scholars have offered Islamic bioethical frameworks based on the maqāṣid al-Sharīʿah, the higher objectives of Islamic law, to help advance the field. Accordingly, a recent JBI paper by Ibrahim and colleagues describes a method for using the maqāṣid al-Sharīʿah to provide moral end-goals and deliberative mechanisms for an Islamic bioethics. Herein I highlight critical conceptual and practical gaps in the model with the hopes of fostering greater discussion about how maqāṣid al-Sharīʿah frameworks may fit within Islamic bioethics deliberation.
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Notes
The term maslahah can refer to different ideas within the Islamic ethical tradition. Most generally it refers to human interests or benefits, and this is the way Ibrahim and colleagues use the term. However, in the context of discussing the maqāṣid, the term can take on different meanings. The first is one that the polymath Islamic theologian-jurist Imam al-Ghazālī uses when he states “what we mean by interests (maṣalih) are those interests that conform specifically to the objectives of Islamic law (maqāṣid),” and harms are detriments to these interests (see his al-Mustašfá min ‘ilm al-usúl). In this way, benefits are those human interests that align the higher objectives of Islamic law. The second usage of the term maslahah is to refer to a specific ethico-legal device within Islamic law through which human benefits can ground Islamic legal rulings. This scope of this device as grounds is debated across the Islamic legal schools (see Opwis 2005; al-Būṭī 2000).
The term mafsada refers to human detriments and harms. In the context of the maqāṣid, a harm (mafsada) is that which harms the higher objectives or promotes what is contrary to them (see Ibn ʿAbd al-Salām, al-Izz al-Qawāʿid al-kubrā al-mawsūm bi qawāʿid al-aḥkām fī iṣlāḥ al-anām).
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Acknowledgments
The author’s time for this project was partially supported by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation via The Enhancing Life Project and was carried out partially under the auspices of a visiting fellowship at the International Institute of Islamic Thought in Herndon, Virginia, in 2016. This work was presented in partial form at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies in 2017.
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Padela, A.I. Using the Maqāṣid al-Sharīʿah to Furnish an Islamic Bioethics: Conceptual and Practical Issues. Bioethical Inquiry 16, 347–352 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11673-019-09940-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11673-019-09940-2