Issue Four: The evidence for acknowledging the Sharia’s overarching objectives

The proof that the Lawgiver meant to safeguard the three classes—necessities (ḍarūriyyāt), needs (ḥājiyyāt), and embellishments (taḥsīniyyāt)—is obtained through an inductive survey of the Sharia and a consideration of its universal and particular proofs. These proofs reinforce one another until, taken together, they reach the level of tawātur maʿnawī (massively recurrent corroboration in meaning). Hence, scholars did not base the establishment of the Lawgiver’s intent concerning these maxims on any single, specific text, for individual proofs, in the view of some specialists in uṣūl, provide only probabilistic knowledge. Rather, they found that all the evidences of the Sharia revolve around the critical importance of these maxims, so that anyone who bears the mantle of the Sharia can readily demonstrate the Lawgiver’s objectives through these three categories.