Reconstructing Legal Protection for Vulnerable Families through Maqāṣid al-Sharī'ah

Abstract

The growing complexity of contemporary social life has exposed vulnerable families to multidimensional legal, economic, and institutional challenges that cannot be adequately addressed through conventional legal protection mechanisms. Existing legal systems remain predominantly procedural, fragmented, and litigation-oriented, limiting their capacity to ensure substantive justice and sustainable rights protection. This study aims to reconstruct a legal protection model for vulnerable families through the perspective of Maqāṣid al-Sharī'ah. Employing normative legal research with a qualitative and library-based approach, the study examines contemporary literature on legal protection, family vulnerability, human rights, Islamic legal theory, and Maqāṣid al-Sharī'ah. Data were analyzed using doctrinal, conceptual, and thematic approaches to evaluate the relationship between Islamic legal objectives and modern rights-based legal protection. The findings demonstrate that contemporary legal protection remains constrained by procedural formalism, institutional fragmentation, reactive intervention, and limited coordination among legal and social institutions. The study further argues that contemporary interpretations of Maqāṣid al-Sharī'ah, particularly those advanced by Ibn 'Āshūr, Ahmad al-Raysuni, Mohammad Hashim Kamali, and Jasser Auda, reposition maqāṣid from a doctrinal method of legal interpretation toward a comprehensive paradigm of human welfare, justice, and rights protection. Building upon this reinterpretation, the article proposes the Integrated Maqāṣid-Based Legal Protection Framework (IMLPF), consisting of five interconnected dimensions: rights protection, institutional integration, preventive protection, responsive legal governance, and maqāṣid-based outcomes. The framework offers a holistic model that integrates legal institutions, social protection mechanisms, and ethical principles into a unified system for safeguarding vulnerable families. The study contributes to Islamic legal scholarship by expanding the application of Maqāṣid al-Sharī'ah beyond normative legal reasoning toward an operational framework for evaluating and reconstructing contemporary legal protection systems, while providing a conceptual reference for future family law reform in Muslim societies.