The Role of Intention and Its Effect on Legal Rulings in Islamic Jurisprudence: A Comparative Juristic Study Saleh Abdulrahman

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Taif University, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Abstract

 This study aims to clarify the extent to which intention is considered in the validity of acts of worship and transactions in Islamic law. Given the significance of intention in juristic reasoning, the research is devoted to examining its legal impact within the framework of Islamic jurisprudence.
To achieve this, the study addresses the meaning of key terms including validation, intention, and invalidation in juristic usage, and reviews practical legal applications. The research adopts both analytical and comparative methods.
Among the principal findings: validation, according to jurists, consists in removing or eliminating that which invalidates a ritual act or contract. It refers to the process of rendering something previously invalid to be legally valid by addressing the reason for its deficiency. Intention, in the juristic sense, is the determination directed toward initiating an act. It differs from the concept of niyyah in two ways: first, intention may relate to a person’s own act or another’s, whereas niyyah pertains only to one’s own act; second, intention is concerned with acts within one’s capacity, while niyyah may involve both what one can and cannot perform.
Invalidation refers to rendering an act void, whether by the person directly performing it in the context of religious obligations, or by someone legally authorized to do so in transactional matters. Invalidation differs from nullity in that nullity is a legal effect resulting from invalidation; thus, a ruling of nullity only follows a ruling of invalidation.
The study also addresses applied issues, such as the ruling on entering the state of pilgrimage (iḥrām) before reaching the designated point, which is unanimously permitted, though jurists differ on its evaluative ruling, with the preponderant view being that it is disliked. Another example is the ruling on contracting a marriage with the concealed intention of divorce, which is deemed invalid due to its contradiction with the essential purpose of marriage—permanence, tranquility, and mutual compassion. The study further confirms the invalidity and greater prohibition of marriage entered with the intention of legalizing a woman for a former husband, which is considered more severe than temporary marriage (mutʿah), given that mutʿah was at one point permitted and debated among early scholars, while taḥlīl was never lawful, and its prohibition was never disputed.
The study recommends further research on other legal issues where the presence or absence of intention affects the ruling, and emphasizes the importance of distinguishing between cases where the role of intention is essential and those where it is not.

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