In acts of worship this appears in the dispensations granted for purification—such as dry ablution (tayammum) and wiping over footwear—and in prayer, such as shortening and combining the prayers for a traveller, and in Hajj, such as performing the pilgrimage on behalf of one who is physically unable.
In the sphere of customary practices it includes activities like hunting and enjoying wholesome foods.
In transactions it takes the form of loans and gratuitous loans for use (ʿāriyah).
In criminal law it includes adjudicating cases of presumed homicide (luwath) and assigning the blood money (diyah) to the paternal relatives (ʿāqila).
As for refinements and embellishments (taḥsīniyyāt), they consist in adopting commendable customs and shunning defiling conditions; taken together, they form the domain of noble character. Thus:
• In acts of worship: removing impurities.
• In customary practices: table etiquette.
• In transactions: forbidding the sale of surplus water.
• In criminal law: prohibiting retaliation against a free man for the life of a slave.
These matters are additional virtues that stand above the essential and complementary interests; their absence neither disrupts an essential purpose nor undermines a complementary one, but serves merely as adornment and perfection.
Issue Two: The objectives are universal across all legal duties, times, and circumstances.
Once it is established that the Lawgiver’s aim in legislation is to secure benefits for the Hereafter and for this world in a manner that leaves their order intact, the arrangement must necessarily be perpetual, comprehensive, and all-embracing with respect to every category of obligation and every situation—and such, praise be to Allah, is exactly what we find.
Issue Three: The objectives recognized by the Sharia.
An objective (maqsad) is to procure a benefit or perfect it, and to repel a harm or diminish it. The benefits sought and the harms averted by the Sharia are considered only insofar as they establish worldly life for the sake of the life to come, not insofar as they cater to ordinary human appetites in gaining everyday advantages or warding off everyday inconveniences. Indeed, the Sharia has come to lift people out of the dictates of their whims so that they may be servants of Allah. The Exalted says, “Had the Truth followed their desires, the heavens and the earth and all who are in them would surely have been corrupted” (Qur’an 23:71).