The Search for Originality within Established Boundaries-Rereading Najm al-Din al-Tufi (d. 716/1316) on Public Interest (maslaha) and the Purpose of the Law

With the arrival of the twentieth century, in their legal theory, Muslim scholars began emphasizing public interest (maslaha) and the objectives (maqasid) of the Sharia. This stood often in contrast to the standards of traditional legal theory. To overcome this gap, scholars searched for concepts of premodern scholars, interpreted them in a way that allowed focusing on abstract categories like maslaha. An often-quoted figure in this regard is Najm al-Din al-Tufi (d. 716/1316). In his hadith commentary entitled al-Tayin, al-Tufi developed a legal framework in which he gave precedence to maslaha over the Quran, Sunna, and Consensus in cases where there are conflicts between these sources concerning the ruling for a given matter. Many contemporary scholars interpret al-Tufi's concept from a modern perspective. This approach either leads to overemphasizing al-Tufi's theory or rejecting it entirely. The present study will analyze al-Tufi's theory of maslaha within the established premodern epistemological and hermeneutical boundaries that al-Tufi himself accepted. In doing so, it will locate al-Tufi's conception of maslaha in its historical context and in relation to al-Tufi's biography. The study will show that al-Tufi's theory, regardless of its modern reception, and with all its pitfalls, is an original attempt to find new ways for deriving norms within the boundaries of a well-established legal theory and in a specific historical context.