INTEGRATIVE MAQASID– HERMENEUTIC FRAMEWORK(IMHF): RECONSTRUCTING THE METHODOLOGY OF QUR'ANIC LEGAL INTERPRETATION IN THE CONTEMPORARY ERA

Abstract

The rapid transformation of twenty-first-century society, driven by artificial intelligence (AI), digital economies, biotechnology, blockchain technology, and globalization, has generated a wide range of legal challenges that cannot be adequately addressed through literal interpretations of Qur'anic legal verses alone. While contemporary hermeneutics offers a contextual approach by emphasizing linguistic, historical, and socio-cultural analyses, it has been criticized for lacking a normative mechanism capable of safeguarding the Qur'an's authority as the primary source of Islamic law. Addressing this methodological gap, this study aims to reconstruct the methodology of interpreting Qur'anic legal verses by developing the Integrative Maqāṣid–Hermeneutic Framework (IMHF), an interpretive model that integrates the normative orientation of maqāṣid al-sharī'ah with contemporary hermeneutics. This research employs a qualitative library-based conceptual approach. Data were collected through a critical review of recent books and scholarly articles on Qur'anic exegesis, uṣūl al-fiqh, maqāṣid al-sharī'ah, and hermeneutics published between 2019 and 2026. The data were analyzed using content analysis, comparative analysis, and conceptual synthesis. The findings reveal that maqāṣid al-sharī'ah and contemporary hermeneutics are epistemologically complementary rather than contradictory. Hermeneutics provides analytical tools for examining the linguistic, historical, and contextual dimensions of Qur'anic texts, whereas maqāṣid al-sharī'ah functions as a normative controller that directs the interpretive process toward the universal objectives of Islamic law. Based on this synthesis, the study proposes the Integrative Maqāṣid–Hermeneutic Framework (IMHF), consisting of eight sequential stages: linguistic analysis, historical analysis, contextual analysis of revelation, extraction of universal Qur'anic values, identification of maqāṣid al-sharī'ah, contemporary social-context analysis, contextual legal formulation, and normative validation. The novelty of this research lies in introducing IMHF as a systematic, operational, and replicable methodology of Qur'anic legal interpretation while positioning maqāṣid al-sharī'ah as the normative controller throughout the entire hermeneutic process. This framework is expected to bridge fidelity to the Qur'anic text with the contextualization of Islamic law in responding to technological innovation, digital transformation, and the increasing complexity of contemporary society.

Keywords: maqāṣid al-sharī'ah; contemporary hermeneutics; Qur'anic legal interpretation; methodology of Qur'anic exegesis; Islamic law; Artificial Intelligence; Integrative Maqāṣid–Hermeneutic Framework (IMHF).