Publication Details
Abstract
This study examines the relationship between lexical polysemy in the vocabulary of the Qur'an and the derivation of the objectives of Islamic law (maqasid al-shari'a), taking the terminology of marriage as its applied field. It opens with a concise account of the objectives — their definition, kinds and divisions — as established by al-Ghazali, al-Shatibi and Ibn 'Ashur, and then applies a uniform five-step procedure to the principal marriage terms: nikah, zawj, saduqat together with nihla, ujur, ihsan, and al-mithaq al-ghaliz. For each term it cites the Qur'anic verse, establishes its meaning from the classical Arabic lexicons, consults the commentaries that attend to the objectives of the law — chiefly Ibn 'Ashur's al-Tahrir wa al-Tanwir — derives the legal objective and states the rank of its establishment, and concludes by setting out the effect of polysemy upon that objective and upon the juristic ruling founded on it.The study concludes that polysemy in the terminology of marriage is not a defect of expression but a resource for purposive derivation. Its effect follows four patterns: a complementary polysemy that constructs a composite objective, as in saduqat with nihla and in al-mithaq al-ghaliz; a contested polysemy settled by the clarification of the Sunna, as in nikah and ujur; a dual polysemy, contested in its particular rulings yet complementary at the level of the overarching objective, which is then derived from what the senses share, as in ihsan; and a polysemy whose two senses realise the objective equally, so that preference falls outside the competence of the objective and reverts to linguistic and transmitted indicators, as in qur'. It further establishes that the derivation of objectives from terms proceeds along a three-stage path that may not be reordered — lexical, contextual, then purposive — and that preference by the objective is conditional upon the two senses differing in realising it and upon its being supported by context or by the Sunna.