Two Faces of Maqāṣid al-Sharīʿah: Reading Polygamy from the Perspectives of Progressives and Revivalists in Indonesia

Abstract

The debate on polygamy in contemporary Indonesian Islamic family law continues without resolution, particularly because both revivalist and progressive groups employ maqāṣid al-sharī‘ah to justify their opposing positions. This article aims to map the use of maqāṣid by both groups, identify the underlying epistemological differences, and demonstrate that maqāṣid is ideologically neutral. This research employs a qualitative approach using critical discourse analysis of progressive works (Siti Musdah Mulia, Husein Muhammad, and Faqihuddin Abdul Kodir) and revivalist works (Khalid 'Abdurraḥman, Abu Salma al-Atsari, and Firanda Andirja). Through systematic analysis of argumentative patterns, textual interpretations, and legal reasoning methods in these works, the findings reveal that progressives utilize maqāṣid inductively-anthropocentrically, making the empirical impact on women and children the basis of their assessment, while revivalists operationalize maqāṣid deductively-theocentrically, treating textual conformity as the measure of maṣlaḥah. This study proposes an epistemological framework for analyzing the use of maqāṣid al-sharī‘ah in contemporary polygamy discourse by identifying five fundamental differences: direction of inference, function of maqāṣid, verification of maṣlaḥah, subject of maṣlaḥah, and the ideal-actual relationship. The academic implication of this framework is shifting the focus of the debate from substantive to epistemological level, which offers a new analytical lens for Islamic family law scholarship and provides a basis for more transparent dialogue between revivalist and progressive approaches regarding the sources and methods of verifying maṣlaḥah.