THE ISSUES AND RELEVANCE OF ISTINBATH IN THE RECONSTRUCTION METHODOLOGY OF ISLAMIC CONTEXTUAL LAWS

Abstract Islamic law as the norm composed by Muslim Jurist in the first three centuries of Islam is examined in this study. Even though extracted from the Qur’an and Hadith, these norms are not the revelations rather than the human interpretations toward such sources. In addition, its compositional process is in a particular context that basically differs from the contemporary context. Hence, it gives the possible way for modern Muslims to make the same process in interpreting and implementing the Qur’an and Hadith by establishing an alternatively and appropriately Islamic Public Law to be applied nowadays. The theories of the contextualization of Islamic Law and the evolutionary principle (inverting the Nasakh process) see the appropriate way to compose the modern Islamic Law derived from the Qur’an and Hadith. A radical reform toward Islamic Law is necessary regardless of those methodologies accepted or refused by the contemporary Muslims