Sustainable Development Section 29 Week 2 Digest

 UNGS 1201 Section 29 Second Class Brief Abstract

السَّلاَمُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَرَحْمَةُ اللهِ وَبَرَكَاتُهُ

Bonjour people! Here we meet again in my lovely post. Today I would like to share my thoughts on UNGS 1201 class in week 2. So far as I felt, the topics in this course became more specific and a little bit harder as it is such a complicated thing to understand. One of the reasons was there were the comparation parts between the Sustainable Development Goals by the United Nations and the Sustainable concepts in Islamic Perspective. The lecture in this second class began with the Maqasid al-Shariah, which is a very significant term when it comes to discussion about sustainability in Islam. 

As most of us already know, the objectives of Maqasid al-Shariah are preservation of order, achievement of benefit and prevention of harm or corruption, establishment of equality among people, causing the law to be revered, obeyed and effective, as well as enabling the ummah to become powerful, respected and confident according to Ibn Ashur. There are three levels of maslahah based on the traditional classification of Maqasid al-Shariah. They are Daruriyyah (necessities), Hajiyyat (complementary) and Tahsiniyyat (embellishment) as I learnt in the previous class. 

17 Sustainable Development Goals

If we arrange accordingly based on the seriousness of the necessity, it would be like the picture below:

The Pyramid of Maslahah

It is clear that the importance level of the Maslahah's parts is based on pyramid column size. For my own example, if I follow the pyramid order above, it would be:

 

1. Tahsiniyyat: Big house

2. Hajiyyat: Proper education

3. Daruriyyah: The issue of the use of Allah word by non-Muslim

 

So here, we can conclude that Daruriyyah is the most essential part as it comprises the preservation of 5 basic necessities of human needs which are religion, life, intellectual, progeny and wealth. 

 

In brief, Maqasid al-Shariah is to promote and protect the wellbeing of the people and nature, which is based on the protection of five essential necessities by improving the benefit (maslahah) and preventing harm (mafsadah). So, if the preservation combines with the protection of Maqasid al-Shariah, there will be sustainability.

 

If we refer to the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015, it focused on the 5P's which are Prosperity, People, Planet, Peace and Partnership. We were informed during the lecture that we can trace the Maqasid al-Shariah that existed in the 5P's. Basically, our lecturer, Dr. Razinah, also explained the relationship between Maqasid al-Shariah and those 5P's of SDGs together came with relevant Quranic verse. Lastly, we were also being taught about the relationship between Al-Ruhiyyah and sustainability and the incorporation of Maqasid al-Shariah and Sustainable Development Goals into the University.

 

That's all for the digest of the UNGS 1201 week 2 class. Thank you very much for spending your time reading my recent post!