Operationalising Qawāʿid Fiqhiyyah as a Normative–Operational Framework for Contemporary Public Governance

This article examines the normative–operational role of Qawāʿid Fiqhiyyah (Islamic legal maxims) in shaping contemporary public governance within Muslim-majority contexts. While Islamic governance has been extensively discussed through the frameworks of fiqh siyāsah and maqāṣid al-sharīʿah, the systematic operationalisation of legal maxims as instruments of public governance remains under-theorised. Adopting a qualitative document-based conceptual and policy analysis, this study analyses classical juristic works alongside contemporary governance and public policy literature through a deductive thematic approach. The findings demonstrate that the five major legal maxims—al-umūr bi maqāṣidihā, al-yaqīn lā yazūlu bi al-shakk, al-mashaqqah tajlib al-taysīr, al-ḍarar yuzāl, and al-ʿādah muḥakkamah—collectively constitute a coherent normative–operational governance framework. This framework encompasses policy teleology, legal certainty, adaptive regulation, preventive risk governance, and socially embedded behavioural governance. This study repositions Qawāʿid Fiqhiyyah as actionable macro-level governance instruments and highlights their potential to strengthen regulatory ethics, enhance public trust, and reinforce institutional legitimacy. Furthermore, the integration of these maxims offers a normative corrective to technocratic governance models by ensuring legal legitimacy is inseparable from religious and ethical conformity. The maxims provide a calibrated model of administrative discretion, balancing the need for flexibility (facilitation under hardship) with the imperative for legal certainty and harm prevention (risk governance). The article concludes by outlining key policy implications and proposing directions for future empirical research on Sharīʿah-based public governance.

Qawāʿid Fiqhiyyah; Islamic governance

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