The Problematic of Defining the Umma’s Major Interests

Summary

This highly engaging, informative, and important lecture addressed the higher interests of the Muslim nation (al-Ummah), and the problems in apprehending them. Professor Ibrahim El-Bayomi Ghanem, in his lecture, provided depth and thoroughness, reflecting critically and with originality on the numerous sides of each argument. He addressed the majority of aspects, whether related to legal theory, jurisprudential, maqāṣid-based, social, or political, as well as those relating to evidential fields, epistemological categories, or required standards. He finally came to a crucial and beneficial conclusion, in that the general, immutable interests of the al-Ummah and humanity lie in the values of dignity, liberty, justice, and public peace; they are general, innate (fiṭrī), human values, which frame the principles of Islam’s world view. These are intrinsic to the universal message that the al-Ummah was tasked to bear and convey, and in so doing, secure its own and other nations’ interests. This falls within the applied scope of the Qur’ān verse: {We sent you only as mercy to all creation}. These innate values serving the general interest must be the aims which frame the al-Ummah’s beliefs, set within a popular project that it seeks to bring into reality, both internally and externally. Professor Ghanem provided numerous and explanatory examples at all stages of his scientific paper.