Shi'a

In the wake of the social and scientific developments of the modern era in Europe, Muslim thinkers have been seeking a new method of ijtihad (independent reasoning) in order to adapt Islam to the changes of the time or to produce new Islamic jurisprudential rulings for the emerging social transformations. Attention to the objectives (Maqaṣid) of Shariʻah in ijtihad has been a way for the flourishing and dynamism of jurisprudence and providing appropriate responses to new issues. Attention to the objectives (Maqaṣid) of Shariʻah is more prominent in the views of jurists who have had a social and governmental approach to the religion of Islam. Imam Khomeini and Sayyid Muhammad Baqir Sadr are among these jurists. In this research, using the descriptive method and library data collection, the following questions have been addressed: ‘What position the objectives (Maqaṣid) of Shariʻah have in the thought of Imam Khomeini and Sadr?’ and ‘What are the differences and similarities with the views of Sunni jurists?’ The result indicated that Imam Khomeini has presented novel views with regard to the objectives (Maqaṣid) of Shariʻah, and his attention to the objectives of Shariʻah in the process of inference has been effective both in the expansion and deepening of jurisprudence. Sadr, too, based on definitive rational methods, seeks to find and uncover the ultimate goals of Shariʻah, and for this purpose, he distinguishes the objectives of Shariʻah from its aims. The common point between the views of Sunni jurists and Imam Khomeini and Sadr in enumerating the objectives of Shariʻah is the establishment of social justice and the preservation of the social system, and the difference is in the attention to the preservation of religion as one of the objectives of Shariʻah in the view of Shi'a jurists.