Books-in-Brief: Public Policy

Beyond Traditional Jurisprudence: A Maqasid Approach

By: Basma I. Abdelgafar

Narrated by: Michael G.

IIIT Books-In-Brief Series is a valuable collection of the Institute’s key publications written in condensed form to give listeners a core understanding of the main contents of the original.

This work charts new territory in Islamic scholarship by attempting to address the field of public policy from a maqasid (higher objectives of the Shariah) perspective. Public Policy is an independent discipline from both law and politics. Thus, Public Policy in Islam is introduced here as a qualitatively different enterprise from both fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) and siyasah shar’iyyah (Shariah-oriented politics).

The audiobook deals with a number of critical topics that include methodology, governance, human rights, ethics, political power, and reform and renewal. It highlights how the maqasid approach is indispensable to the theory and practice of public policy in Islam, how it could resolve some of the most persistent governance dilemmas throughout Muslim history, but more significantly, how it forces a re-conceptualisation of the wealth of knowledge available in Islam’s primary sources to introduce Public Policy in Islam to mainstream policy studies.

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