Reviewer - Assessment of the Malaysian Islamic Financial Services Act 2013 from the Managerialism and Maqāṣid al-Sharīʿah Perspectives

The Maqāṣid (objective) hierarchy is a triple-tiered conceptualisation of individual and social needs that is grounded in the five objectives of Sharīʿah (Islamic Law).
Managerialism is the ideological representation of human interaction based on managerial doctrines and practices. This article explores the tension between the Maqāṣid hierarchy and managerialism by evaluating the Islamic Financial Services Act (IFSA) 2013 of Malaysia from
the Maqāṣid al-Sharīʿah perspective. This qualitative study employs an inductive approach to review the sources of Sharīʿah and classical literature of Islamic jurists to present Shariah rulings on managerialism and Maqāṣid al-Sharīʿah. The Maqāṣid hierarchy promotes a vision of human life that is the opposite of managerialism. In the case of IFSA 2013, the Maqāṣid hierarchy, which is supposed to be the bedrock for Islamic finance, is replaced by a managerial hierarchy closer to Maslow’s hierarchy than it is to Imam Shatibi’s concept of human life. A process of fitting the Maqāṣid hierarchy into a narrow managerial mould occurs in IFSA 2013, meaning that many of the unique aspects of the Maqāṣid al-Sharīʿah are lost. This study will serve as a guideline for Sharīʿah scholars, policymakers and Islamic financial institutions to improve the financial system and properly implement the Maqāṣid al-Sharīʿah in developing macro policy and structuring Islamic organizations. This is a pioneer study that develops a bridge between the Islamic Maqāṣid and conventional managerial hierarchies, which will encourage academics and practitioners to enrich the literature by conducting more in-depth studies on this topic.