Reframing Legal Transformation in Indonesia: Contemporary Islamic Thought, Maqāṣid al-Sharī’ah, and Responsive Law
Abstract
Legal transformation in Indonesia is not merely a process of revising statutory rules; it is a continuing negotiation among constitutional principles, social change, religious values, customary norms, and institutional practices. This article re-examines that transformation through contemporary Islamic thought, with particular attention to maqāṣid al-sharīʿah, ijtihād, and the interaction between Islamic legal reasoning and Indonesia’s plural legal order. Using qualitative library research and a conceptual-normative approach, the study critically synthesizes Qur’anic and hadith-based principles, classical and contemporary Islamic legal thought, Indonesian legislation, and peer-reviewed scholarship on legal pluralism and Islamic legal reform. The analysis shows that contemporary Islamic thought can contribute to Indonesian legal transformation most productively when Islamic norms are translated into public values, justice, human dignity, welfare, equality, participation, and protection of vulnerable groups, rather than simply transplanted as formal rules. Maqāṣid-based reasoning provides the normative orientation, while progressive, responsive, and systems-oriented legal theories explain how such values can be institutionalized through legislation, adjudication, legal institutions, and legal culture. The article argues that Indonesia’s legal transformation is best understood as a dialogical and multi-actor process rather than a state-driven project of legal engineering. Its principal contribution is an integrated analytical framework linking maqāṣid, responsive law, legal pluralism, and legal-system theory to explain how Islamic values can participate constructively in a democratic and constitutionally plural national legal order.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Mustamin Hafifi, Jamiluddin Jamiluddin, Siti Afiyah, Burhanuddin Burhanuddin, Fatin Jalilah binti Kamaluddin (Author)
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