The spirit of Islamic law and modern religious reform: Maqas&dotbelow;id al-shari`a in Muh&dotbelow;ammad `Abduh and Rashid Rid&dotbelow;a's legal thought (Egypt, Muhammad Rashid Rida, Syria)

This dissertation presents an analysis of the legal thinking of two modern Muslim religious reformers, particularly their usage of a concept in Sunnī Islamic legal theory known in Arabic as maqās&dotbelow;id al-sharī`a . The religious reformers who are the subjects of this dissertation, the Egyptian Muh&dotbelow;ammad `Abduh (d. 1905) and his Syrian student Muh&dotbelow;ammad Rashīd Rid&dotbelow;ā (d. 1935), consider this term to mean the “true” aims or spirit of Islamic law in contrast to a tradition of strict literal interpretation. `Abduh can be regarded as the founder of this movement of religious and legal reform which continued throughout the twentieth century. By focusing on the maqās&dotbelow;id, the reformist ‘ulamā’ (religious scholars) hope to bring about broader social and legal reforms in the Islamic world. I focus on the development of the maqās&dotbelow;id movement through its first modern conceptualization by `Abduh. Since this mode of religious and legal reform has largely been ignored or dismissed by existing scholarship, my methodology will consist in presenting the reformers' thought in light of the critique they faced. This critique comes from certain traditionalist religious scholars, especially neo-H&dotbelow;anbalites associated with the Wahhabi movement in Saudi Arabia and certain scholars affiliated with the famous al-Azhar university in Egypt in which `Abduh studied and attempted to reform. However, certain scholars of Islam in the West who studied `Abduh and Rid&dotbelow;ā's reform movement also offer a critique of their legal thought. In the dissertation I mostly refer to Malcolm Kerr, Albert Hourani, and Wael Hallaq's assessments of `Abduh and Rid&dotbelow;ā's projects of legal reform. After an introduction that aims to define maqās&dotbelow;id al-sharī`a and the role this concept plays in classical and modern Islamic legal theorization, chapter one addresses the connection between “natural law” and “divine law” in `Abduh's legal thought and considers Kerr's claim that `Abduh's theological views, which are different from the Ash'arite Sunnī ones, influenced his legal thought. Chapter two focuses on the maqās&dotbelow;id thought of `Abduh through the analysis of his theoretical writings and some of his fatāwā (religious edicts). Chapter three examines the religious and legal reform espoused by `Abduh's disciple Rashīd Rid&dotbelow;ā and analyzes his maqās&dotbelow;id thought.