English reading is an important component of Islamic law education because it gives students access to international scholarship, legal terminology, and current debates on the subject. This study conducted a cross-sectional needs analysis of 271 students at the Faculty of Sharia of an Indonesian Islamic university. The dataset contained 43 complete four-point Likert items measuring the perceived value of English reading, self-assessed reading ability, career aspirations, preferences for inquiry-based methods, and preferences for online journal-based materials. The five dimensions showed high internal consistency, with Cronbach's alpha values ranging from .908 to .968. Career aspirations received the highest mean score (M = 3.30), whereas self-assessed reading ability received the lowest (M = 2.81), producing a .49-point gap on a four-point scale. Perceived value and journal-based material preferences were positively associated with self-assessed ability, whereas career aspirations showed a small negative association in the multivariable model. Welch’s tests found no significant differences between the English for Islamic Business Law and Literasi Digital classes. Interviews with four purposively selected students provided contextual accounts of journal reading, inquiries, and feedback. The results support an ESP curriculum that treats English reading as a faculty-wide need and uses inquiry, current journal articles, and staged reading support as design responses to that need.
Recent scholarship has clarified Rashīd Riḍā’s maqāṣid- and maṣlaḥah-oriented reformism, the rational and empirical dimensions of individual discussions in Tafsīr al-Manār, and the colonial setting of his political and legal thought. However, it remains unclear whether attention to consequences makes his legal reasoning utilitarian or performs more limited juridical tasks within an Islamic legal framework. This article uses a qualitative, cross-case analysis of six clusters—intoxicants and gambling; zakāt allocation and public finance; ribā under collective need; polygamy; political loyalty and counter-mission funding; and Muslim judges and participation in colonial government. Each cluster is reconstructed through the relation among ḥukm, ʿillah or operative manāṭ, juristic mechanism, authority to establish the relevant facts, and protected maṣlaḥah. The analysis identifies three functions of consequences: corroborating the protective rationale of established prohibitions; establishing and delimiting the conditions of a concession, dispensation, or fiscal priority; and ranking legally available but compromised alternatives under constraint. These findings do not support classifying Riḍā as a utilitarian jurist. Consequences never appear as an autonomous, aggregative, and maximizing criterion of right action; they acquire legal force only after mediation by revelation, legal characterization, domain-specific juristic mechanisms, and authorized competence. The comparison with utilitarianism therefore identifies a limited resemblance in attention to collective effects alongside a decisive difference in normative structure. Colonial institutions changed the objects, thresholds, and stakes of judgment, while Riḍā’s juristic repertoire supplied the forms through which those conditions were legally assessed.
This study examines how canonical qirāʾāt plurality is organized in five Qur’anic manuscripts preserved at the National Library of Malaysia (PNM): MSS 4333, MSS 3590, MSS 3599, MSS 5050, and MSS 3592. The manuscripts form a purposive analytical sample in which Sūrat al-Kahf (Q18) is legible at 16 loci of comparison. Main-text forms, corresponding marginal readings, and relevant visual markings were manually collated and mapped primarily against Abū ʿAmr al-Dānī’s al-Taysīr, with al-Nashr by Ibn al-Jazarī used to check riwāyah-level and ambiguous cases. Of the 80 main-text observations, 76 (95%) are compatible with the reading of ʿĀṣim, usually with a clear inclination toward Ḥafṣ. This stability does not remove other canonical readings. MSS 3590 preserves marginal alternatives at twelve of the sixteen loci, most often readings associated with Nāfiʿ and Abū ʿAmr, while retaining an ʿĀṣim-oriented main text. The sample displays two marked configurations—marginal annotation and in-line visual layering—and a residual category of unmarked main-text variation. This study argues that these pages establish a hierarchy of visibility: the main text privileges one reading, whereas selected alternatives remain available for comparison. The evidence supports comparative consultation but does not prove classroom use, local recitational prevalence, or the chronology of Ḥafṣ consolidation.
The pregnancy of a prospective second wife outside of marriage is not explicitly regulated by law as a valid reason for permitting polygamy, thus creating a legal vacuum and disparities in rulings by religious courts. This study aimed to investigate the causes of these disparities by comparing the Karangasem Religious Court (PA) Decision No. 1/Pdt. G/2018/PA.Kras, which granted the petition, and the Kaimana Religious Court (PA) Decision No. 22/Pdt. G/2019/PA.Kmn, which rejected it. This qualitative study employed a juridical-normative approach. Data collection was conducted through a document analysis of primary legal materials—namely, the two rulings—which were then analyzed using content analysis through the lens of Satjipto Rahardjo’s Progressive Law. The results of the study revealed a sharp divergence in the judges’ legal reasoning. The Karangasem Religious Court judge demonstrated a non-positivist and contextual approach that prioritizes substantive justice by boldly making legal innovations to protect children. The judge applied the fiqh principle of dar’ul mafasid muqaddamun ‘ala jalbil mashalih (preventing harm takes precedence over seeking benefit). In contrast, the judge at the Kaimana Religious Court adopted a rigid, positivistic, and textual approach, strictly adhering to the formal requirements of Law No. 1 of 1974, without considering the sociological urgency of the pregnancy. This study concludes that a progressive legal perspective is highly relevant to this specific case, in which the law serves to protect human beings and prevent greater harm to the legal status of mothers and children.
This study examines Madura bull racing as ancestral cultural heritage with significant historical, social, and economic value. However, from an Islamic perspective, this practice has generated considerable debate within the community. Although the tradition has become an annual event supported by the government, previous practices have, in some respects, inadequately addressed animal welfare. It analyzes animal welfare ethics within the framework of Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh), specifically focusing on ḥuqūq al-ḥayawān, and assesses cultural preservation from the Islamic perspective of al-‘ādah muḥakkamah. A descriptive qualitative method was used to analyze interview data from informants, including youth leaders, religious figures, former practitioners, and current practitioners. The findings indicate that the Madura bull racing tradition previously involved the use of balm, chillies, and sharp objects to hasten the animals, constituting animal cruelty, which is prohibited by Islam. Following criticism from various societal sectors, regulations now prohibit such objects, allowing only the use of whips. Regarding animal welfare, owners provide special care by feeding the bulls herbal remedies made from free-range chicken eggs, housing them in high-quality pens, and ensuring monthly veterinary health checks. However, interviews revealed that some individuals continued to secretly employ old methods, violating the rules. As currently regulated, bull racing aligns with Islamic principles, since acts of violence are no longer permitted; what remains is not a flaw in the tradition itself but the failure of a few participants to comply, indicating a need for firmer oversight and enforcement.
