Al-Juwaini's Ideas and the Development of Islamic Law: A Shifting Paradigm from the Inadequacy of Qiyas as a Method of Ijtihad to Mashlahah

This article examines the emergence of maslahah in the legal thought of Imām al-Haramayn al-Juwaynī and argues that it constitutes a critical methodological intervention in the development of Shāfiʿī legal theory. While remaining committed to textual universalism and the supremacy of revelation, al-Juwaynī identified structural limitations in conventional qiyās in addressing increasingly complex socio-political realities. Employing a philosophical-historical hermeneutic approach and drawing on Thomas Kuhn’s theory of paradigm shift, this study interprets maslahah as an instance of extraordinary science that recalibrates established methods to address epistemic anomalies. Focusing on al-Burhān fī Uṣūl al-Fiqh, the article shows how qiyās maʿnā and munāsabah reformulated ʿillah as an intelligible indicator of divine legislative intent, enabling purposive legal expansion without endorsing autonomous ethical rationalism. The study positions al-Juwaynī as a decisive methodological link between al-Shāfiʿī and the later systematization of maqāṣid al-sharīʿah, contributing to contemporary debates on legal change in Islamic law.