The Higher Objectives of Islamic Finance

The Research Center for Islamic Legislation and Ethics (CILE) is pleased to place into the hands of readers this series of booklets, which contain a collection of research papers that have been presented at events organized by the Center. Through these booklets, we are seeking to build a methodological platform that will contribute to the CILE’s key objective, namely promoting radical reform. The type of radical reform that we are calling for is based on a fundamental concept: transformational renovation. This concept transcends traditional renovation and a posteriori diligence, which tends to maintain reality and adapt to it, assessing and judging its components through the system of five categories of laws in Islam: Wajeb (required, obligatory); Mandoob (recommended); Mubah (permitted but morally indifferent); Makrooh (discouraged or abominable); and Haram (forbidden or prohibited); in other words, it is rather an evaluative type of jurisprudence. Transformational renovation goes beyond this intellectual space to
create a kind of renovation and jurisprudence that addresses facts critically and explores reality intellectually so as to reform it, or even reconstruct it if necessary. Moreover, this transformational renovation process puts forward alternative solutions for the shortcomings of the current reality, seeking to establish new means, models, and paradigms at all levels that would achieve ethical objectives. Therefore, radical reform purports to go beyond superficial issues and directly into the crux of objectives and ethics, beyond minor details into theoretical foundations and frames of reference.