al-Fawaid fi Ikhtisar al-Maqasid
- Author died
- 660 AH
- Editions
- Dār al-Fikr al-Mu‘āṣir, Dār al-Fikr
al-Fawaid fi Ikhtisar al-Maqasid (The Benefits in Abridging the Objectives), also known as al-Qawa'id al-Sughra (The Minor Maxims), is a treatise on legal maxims (qawa'id fiqhiyya) and the objectives of Islamic law (maqasid al-shari'ah) by the Shafi'i jurist Izz al-Din ibn Abd al-Salam (d. 660 AH / 1262 CE).
Overview and Relationship to Major Work
The work serves as a concise synthesis of the principles expounded in Ibn Abd al-Salam's larger treatise, Qawaid al-Ahkam fi Masalih al-Anam (also known as al-Qawa'id al-Kubra). In both works, the author systematically reduces the whole of Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) to a single overarching foundational principle: the consideration and procurement of benefits (jalb al-masalih) and the repelling of harms (dar' al-mafasid).
Content and Themes
The text opens by stating that God sent messengers and revealed divine scriptures specifically to establish worldly and otherworldly benefits and to prevent worldly and otherworldly harms. Ibn Abd al-Salam defines benefit (maslahah) as pleasure, joy, or the causes leading to them, and defines harm (mafsadah) as pain, grief, or the causes leading to them. He emphasizes that the sacred law does not distinguish between subtle and major manifestations of either, citing the Quranic verse: فَمَن يَعْمَلْ مِثْقَالَ ذَرَّةٍ خَيْرًا يَرَهُ وَمَن يَعْمَلْ مِثْقَالَ ذَرَّةٍ شَرًّا يَرَهُ ("So whoever does an atom's weight of good will see it, and whoever does an atom's weight of evil will see it" [al-Zalzalah: 7–8]).
Key areas treated in the work include:
- Hierarchies of Interests: Benefits and harms are categorized into three levels: essentials (daruri), needs (haji), and complementaries (takmili). In religious acts, essentials entail performing obligatory duties and avoiding prohibitions; needs encompass emphasized prophetic practices (sunan mu'akkadah) and manifest rites; and complementaries encompass supererogatory devotions.
- Balancing Conflicting Interests and Harms: The work outlines precise rules of precedence when duties and prohibitions conflict. When two equal benefits can be combined, both must be realized; if they cannot be combined, the actor may choose between them. If one benefit outweighs another, the superior benefit takes precedence. Similarly, when two harms cannot both be avoided, the greater harm must be repelled by enduring the lesser one; and when a benefit outweighs a concurrent harm, the benefit is pursued despite the associated harm.
Transmission and Printed Editions
The work was transmitted directly from the author by his students. The North African scholar al-Qasim ibn Yusuf al-Tujibi documented receiving the work in Bejaia from the judge Nasir al-Din Abu Ali Mansur ibn Ahmad al-Mashaddali, who had recited the entire text from memory to Ibn Abd al-Salam in 657 AH.
The text has been published in modern scholarly editions, including:
- An edition edited by Jalal al-Din Abd al-Rahman, published by Matba'at al-Sa'adah in Cairo (1409 AH).
- An edition edited by Iyad Khalid al-Tabba', published by Dar al-Fikr in Damascus (1416 AH / 1996 CE).
Answer updated