Two Important Questions

First Question:
Whatever Allah, exalted be He, has legislated for His servants He has legislated solely for their own benefit: to bring them whatever is good and to repel from them whatever is harmful. This is the wisdom that underlies the enactment of the rulings, for Allah is self-sufficient, independent of the worlds, and—by virtue of His absolute perfection—utterly beyond receiving any benefit or harm.

The motive that prompts a given ruling may, at times, be concealed; for that reason the touchstone is the duty to follow, submit, and yield to Allah’s command. At the practical level, rulings are linked to outward, well-defined attributes whose presence is thought to coincide with the underlying wisdom. These attributes are termed the legal causes (ʿilal). A cause, therefore, is an apparent, regulated attribute that most often signals the presence of the wisdom that led to the legislation.

Accordingly, letting a ruling “turn with its cause”—applying or suspending the ruling whenever the cause is present or absent—is the surest way to avoid inconsistency or disorder. Hence the maxim: “Legal rulings hinge upon their broad, presumptive indicators.”

Second Question:
The Lawgiver’s objectives in instituting the Sacred Law fall into three categories:

1. Essential objectives. These are the preservation of religion, intellect, life, honor, lineage, and property. Their preservation requires establishing their foundations, guaranteeing their continuance, remedying any actual defect, and averting any anticipated defect in the future. Thus, fighting (jihād) was prescribed to safeguard religion and ensure its propagation; retaliation (qiṣāṣ) to preserve life; amputation to protect property; the prescribed penalty for fornication (ḥadd al-zinā) to guard honor and safeguard lineage; and the penalty for intoxicants (ḥadd al-muskir) to preserve the intellect.

2. Complementary needs (ḥājiyyāt): matters that people require, but which do not rise to the level of