A maqasid al-shari’ah based composite index to measure socioeconomic prosperity in OIC countries

Abstract

This paper proposes a Maqāsid Al-Shari’ah based Composite Index to measure the performance of Socio-economic policies of OIC member countries. The paper employs Al-Imām Al-Ghazāli and AlImām Al-Shātibī’s Maqāsid Al-Shari’ah framework which was later further extended to contemporary socio-economic context by Chapra (2009). The paper also presents the findings of proposed composite index using a vast array of 101 variables for 57 OIC members, taking data from over 15 sources. The countries will be ranked according to the performance in terms of their achievement of Maqāsid Al-Shari’ah. The results portray overall composite index ranking, individual maqāsid index ranking (dīn index, nafs index, nasl index, māl index and ‘aql index). Further, results based on three key OIC member regions (Africa, Asia and Middle East) will be presented. The proposed index offers a new tool for measuring the performance of OIC member countries with respect to socio economic policies. It also shows the key areas of concern when it comes to the attainment of Maqāsid Al-Shari’ah in Muslim societies. The paper will also highlight the data availability in OIC countries and propose areas for further data collection and data management in order to accurately measure Maqāsid Al-Shari’ah.