Maqāṣid Al-Mukallaf's Perspective On The Use Of Stem Cells For Beauty Enhancement

Abstract

Procedural bioethics stops at clinical safety and informed consent, while positive law stops at regulatory compliance; Both treat reconstructive interventions and elective cosmetic enhancements equally if formal requirements are met, and neither provides an instrument for assessing the moral purpose of people seeking treatment. This study reconstructs maqāṣid al-mukallaf the second dimension of al-Shāṭibī's Islamic legal purpose theory, which highlights the purpose of the subject of law as an operational evaluation framework for the use of stem cells for aesthetic purposes. This study is qualitative normative legal research, combining conceptual, philosophical, and comparative approaches. The main legal materials include the Qur'an, hadith, legal maxims, and uṣūl al-fiqh literature, especially al-Muwāfaqāt; Secondary materials include contemporary fatwas, stem cell regulation, and the latest bioethical and biomedical studies, which are analyzed through content analysis and maqāṣidī reasoning. The findings of this study are, First, the ethical legitimacy of aesthetic stem cell interventions is not determined only by clinical safety or legal validity, but rather by the correspondence between qaṣd al-mukallaf and qaṣd al-shāriʿ. Second, applying the hierarchies of ḍarūriyyāt, ḥājiyyāt, and taḥsīniyyāt results in tiered assessments: reconstructive applications fall under ḍarūriyyāt, interventions that eliminate true difficulties fall under ḥājiyyāt, while purely cosmetic enhancements fall within taḥsīniyyāt and demand the strictest ethical oversight. Third, patient autonomy cannot be the sole determinant of legitimacy when individual intentions are formed under the pressure of the commercialized beauty industry. The study's main contribution is the Integrative Bioethical Governance Model that connects the four normative dimensions scientific validity, legal legitimacy, bioethical principles, and maqāṣid al-mukallaf along with a three-filter instrument that includes the legitimacy of the cell source, the proportionality of benefits to harms, and the authenticity of intentions. This model shifts the unit of analysis in Islamic bioethics from a technological object to a moral agent and answers the criticism that maqāṣidī reasoning is too abstract to be applied on the patient's side