Journal of Islamic Studies > Volume 28, No. 1, 2016

Purposive Analysis: Inculcation and Application / Mushref Ahmad Jama'n Al-Zahrani

This paper examines a new type of analysis that has come to attract considerable attention lately, namely Purposive Analysis. It explains what is meant by the newly coined and still unfamiliar idiom with specific reference to the agreed purposes of Sharia law as its ultimate objective. The paper further examines the uses and major disciplines of Purposive Analysis, focusing on the multiple ethical and rhetorical applications of its interpreters. The study comprises an introduction, summarizing the relationship between interpretation and Sharia purposes, followed by three consecutive parts. The first tackles the different aspects of the idiomatic usage then suggests an alternative nominalization it finds more apt for the discipline. The second traces the multiplicity of the semantic significations pertaining to the Sharia purposes involved in the interpretations. Finally, the third concluding part examines Purposive Analysts’ handling of some rhetorical values and methods the Holy Quran had introduced to elucidate the purposes of the venerable Sharia and to persuade others of its validity.