In this lecture, the eminent Sheikh and Professor Abdullah bin Bayyah, former Vice-President and Minister of Justice of Mauritania, took a critical approach to a number of fatwas (legal edicts) related to the Islamic financial law, which were issued by a number of shariah committees and fiqh academies in various countries. He pointed out the lack of consideration of the purposes (maqasid) of the Islamic law in these transactional edicts and called for a new ijtihad (reasoning), in which, the purposes and higher objectives of the Islamic law play a more primary role.
The lecture was presented in the Faculty of Law at University of Alexandria in Egypt, on the 21st of February 2008. Hundreds of Alexandria University faculty members and students attended this lecture, in addition to a number of scholars and researchers from outside the University.