<![CDATA[Contemporary maqāṣidī exegesis has flourished as a paradigm for interpreting the Quran; however, it has developed without establishing the most fundamental demarcation line: the scope of authority within which maqāṣid (objectives) operate. This research aims to establish this missing demarcation line as a benchmark and subsequently use it to evaluate the validity of maqāṣidapplications in contemporary discourse. Employing a qualitative approach with a comparative case-study design and “close reading” methodology, the study reveals that the uṣūl al-fiqh tradition—from al-Juwainī to al-Syāṭibī—consistently positions maqāṣid as a guide for application (muwajjih li al-taṭbīq) rather than as a determinant of meaning (muḥaddid li al-ma‘nā). Consequently, maqāṣidare situated at the downstream stage of the interpretive process—a boundary consistently maintained within the ‘ulūm al-Qur’ān. The study finds that contemporary maqāṣidī exegesis does not represent a natural continuation of this tradition but rather an epistemological rupture. The safeguard rules (ḍawābiṭ) formulated by Waṣfī ‘Āsyūr Abū Zaid and Aḥmad al-Raisūnī fail structurally because they undermine their own authority by shifting maqāṣid from the downstream to the upstream stage of meaning. However, this failure is not an inherent consequence of the methodological structure itself; the model proposed by ‘Abd al-Karīm Ḥāmidīdemonstrates that the maqāṣid approach remains coherent provided it is applied to legal verses where the indication of meaning is clear.]]>
