Whose "Maqasid" and "Masalih"?

There are people who, when they say they will act in alignment with fulfilling Islamic maqasid or are thinking in a maslaha-driven capacity, are not necessarily having Islamic objectives and the public interests of the ummah in mind. Such people can have their own personal “maqasid” and “masalih” in mind. It could be the maslaha of that person’s own Islamic organization or masjid that he is acting to fulfill. It could be that of his own sect, his country, and so on.

Sometimes it is selfish and immoral, while it is totally understandable at other times.

For example, it is absolutely haram for an Imam of a Masjid to preach a clearly distorted message of Islam just so that he can keep his residency permit which a specific government agency is threatening to revoke. That is his ‘maslaha’, not the Ummah’s. So unless he is going to get deported to a country where he will plausibly be in danger, we can comfortably dismiss this shallow excuse without the bat of an eye.

Similarly, it is categorically haram for scholars to actively support the tyranny of a dictator in exchange for some promise to bolster those scholars’ sects’ power by promising them more influence (very extreme exceptions might be open to debate).

However, some masalih are understandable. For example, scholars living in a particular country might be severely restricted in terms of what they can say and do. The laws in their country might be excessively draconian as well. In their specific situation, the maslaha might entail that they do certain things, such as being silent in the face of oppression. However, that is only for them, while those with more liberty do not have the same restrictions and would not be afforded the same excuses.

So yes, with all this talk about wanting to fulfill maqasid, it all becomes very vague when no details are provided. We should always probe and ask for details (and ignore and dismiss those who accuse you of being a “Madkhali” for doing your duty). Maqasid and masalih are region-based, time-based, people-based, and circumstances-based.

I can imagine many pious scholars who are coerced into silence because they live in draconian states screaming from the inside about why others have willingly chained themselves to the same restrictions they are in. Those pious scholars sure do have a maslaha for staying silent: survival and freedom! Yet, others are not in the same situation. We need to contextualize these different considerations.

Let us be a more inquisitive Ummah that probes and seeks to understand, rather than blindly accept excuses for things when we all know deep inside that something is terribly wrong.