The Principles and Controls of Objective-Based Tafsīr: Between Openness and Discipline

By Dr. Ahmed Mohamed Ali Abouseif, President of the American Imams Academy.

Objective-based tafsīr is a great door of good, but — like any method — it is misused if it is unfastened from its controls. One may use "the objective" as a pretext to suspend an explicit ruling, or to load onto a verse what it cannot bear. Hence the establishing of controls is the safety valve that preserves the method from sliding into deviant interpretation.

First: Regard for the Word and the Context First

The objective is not built upon other than a sound meaning; objective-based inquiry must set out from the signification of the word, the context of the verse, and the circumstances of its revelation. Whoever leaps to "the objective," overstepping the linguistic and contextual meaning, has built upon no foundation and is on the verge of attributing to God what He did not intend. The word is the root, and the objective is its fruit; the fruit is not gathered by cutting the root. This control is the greatest dividing line between the disciplined objective-based interpreter and the one who interprets by whim.

Second: Returning to Recognized Objectives, Not Imagined Ones

The objectives to be relied upon are those indicated by the Sharia and surveyed from the totality of its texts, not those that the reader imagines as interests according to his whim, the custom of his age, or the pressure of reality. A legally recognized interest is one thing, and an imagined, illusory interest is another. The balance is to present the claimed interest to the Sharia: if it testifies to its recognition, it is accepted; if it testifies to its nullification, it is rejected; and if it is silent, its conformity to the genus of the Sharia's objectives is examined. By this the method is preserved from arbitrating whims in the name of objectives.

Third: The Conformity of the Particular to the Universal

The particular objective derived from a verse or a ruling must conform to the universal objectives of the Qur'an and the Sharia; no objective is to be derived that clashes with a fixed universal principle. If a contradiction appears between a particular and a universal, know that the flaw is in the understanding of the one deriving, not in the Sharia, and the particular is returned to the universal, not the reverse. The universals govern the particulars, and the Qur'an confirms itself and does not contradict itself.

Fourth: Not Opposing the Definitive

It is not permissible to use objectives to nullify a ruling established by a definitive proof; objectives came to serve rulings and deepen their understanding, not to demolish them and break free from them. Whoever drops a prescribed punishment, an obligation, or a definitive ruling under the claim of "the objective" has made objectives a pickaxe of demolition — and this is a deviation from their reality and an inversion of their function; for the true objective deepens adherence to the ruling because it uncovers its wisdom, it does not abolish it. Whoever understands why wine was forbidden grows more distant from it, not the reverse.

Fifth: Distinguishing the Objective from the Means

Among the subtleties of the method is distinguishing the fixed objective from the changing means that leads to it. Justice, consultation, and mutual mercy are fixed objectives, while the forms of realizing them and their means may change with the change of conditions and ages within the framework of the Sharia. Two opposing parties fall into confusing the two: one who freezes the means and supposes it the objective, so he stagnates upon a historical form; and one who dissolves the objective under the pretext of the change of the means, so he loses the fixed. Moderation is to safeguard the objectives and to choose well the legitimate means that realize them.

A beneficial contemporary application: the objective of conveying knowledge is fixed, while its means are renewed; the pulpit and the book are two means, and likewise today the video clip and the digital platform. Whoever freezes the old means alone, supposing it the objective, has narrowed what is wide; and whoever uses the modern means realizing the objective of conveyance with the controls of the Sharia has hit the mark. This distinction preserves us from rejecting everything new and from accepting everything new alike.

An Example of the Flaw

One who reads the verses of inheritance and then calls for abolishing the disparity in them under the claim that "the objective of the Sharia is justice and equality" has committed two errors together: he suspended a definitive, explicit text, and he imagined an objective (arithmetic equality) other than the recognized legal objective (the justice that takes into account the responsibilities and financial burdens placed upon the man). Justice does not mean identicalness, but giving each holder of a right his right according to his position and his obligations. The correct objective is understood in light of the text and increases its firmness, rather than being set against it and used as a lever upon it.

A necessary word to the enthusiastic reader: deriving the universal objectives and applying them to rulings is a delicate door, whose primary function belongs to those firmly grounded in knowledge among the people of ijtihād, not to everyone who has read this series. The aim of this article is for you to understand the objectives, live them, and distinguish the disciplined from the unruly — not for you to independently derive rulings yourself; for between understanding the objective and exercising ijtihād in it lies a distance of knowledge and qualification.

This is followed by the seventh article: "The Fruit of Studying the Qur'an upon the Basis of Objectives."

| A takeaway for life: Make for every objective-based derivation a balance of three questions: Does it rest upon the meaning of the word and the context? Does it conform to the universal objectives? And is it free of opposing a definitive? If the derivation answers all three with yes, it is disciplined; and if it stumbles in one of them, stop and review before attributing it to what God intended. | |---|