Maqasid al-sharia is the argument that the law has reasons and that the reasons can be reasoned about. Al-Shatibi, a fourteenth-century Andalusian, gave it its most systematic form; twentieth-century reformers from Muhammad Abduh to Rashid Rida to Yusuf al-Qaradawi and Jasser Auda used it to argue for banking reform, women's legal capacity, and the reopening of ijtihad. Its critics are not straw men: if a jurist can set aside a clear text because it does not serve a purpose he has identified, the text has stopped governing. The scope is marked as majority rather than shared because a substantial literalist current — and much of the Hanbali and Zahiri inheritance — treats maqasid as a supplement rather than a lever. This is the reform argument in Islam, more than any single question about women or interest.