MAQASID AL-SHARI’AH AND THE OBJECTIVES OF DEMOCRACY: A THEOLOGICAL AND COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THEIR FOUNDATIONS, SCOPE, AND IRRECONCILABLE DISTINCTIONS

Abstract

Abstract Maqasid al-Shari'ah has occupied the centre of Islamic legal and theological scholarship since at least the fifth century of the Hijrah and has received renewed attention in the modern period. Democratic theory, meanwhile, proposes its own objectives for political organisation, including protection of individual rights, popular sovereignty, freedom, equality, and human welfare as defined by consensus. This work investigates whether these two frameworks are comparable, compatible, or fundamentally distinct, arguing that despite surface-level similarities in certain goals, such as protecting human life and welfare, the two are rooted in entirely different sources of authority, serve different ultimate purposes, and rest on irreconcilable philosophical and theological foundations. The methodology is qualitative and analytical, drawing on primary Islamic sources (the Qur'an and authentic Hadith) alongside classical and contemporary scholarship in Islamic jurisprudence, legal theory, and political philosophy, as well as documented legislative and judicial data from democratic States. The findings confirm that Maqasid al-Shari'ah is divinely ordained, hierarchically structured, and oriented toward the pleasure of Allah (SWT) and human success in both this world and the Hereafter, while democratic objectives are humanly constructed, horizontally structured, and oriented exclusively toward worldly welfare as defined by majority consensus, making the two systems irreconcilables in source, method, structure, and ultimate aim. The paper concludes that Maqasid al-Shari'ah cannot be reduced to or replaced by democratic objectives without fundamentally distorting their theological meaning, and recommends that Muslim