Measuring Well-Being by the Islamic System of Purpose: The Maqasid Al Shari'ah

Societies rely on indicators of well-being to measure, evaluate, and assess its efficiency and effectiveness. Well-being indicators are interpreted and used in policy design. The emergence of well-being systems and the associated literature have largely focused on economic activities and hence the design of economic policies. The predominant trend has therefore been to emphasize for economic purpose. As well-being is known for enhancing human development, nations rely on indices to measure their human development in comparison to other nations. An analysis of these indices, however, points to their limitations in measuring health, education, happiness, and raising income within a more inclusive and comprehensive view of human needs and activities. This raises the question of whether real human well-being can be realized and sustained by merely a rise in income and wealth and the satisfaction of merely the material needs of the human personality. Limiting well-being indices to economic and social factors, and in turn the effect of the economic level based on rising income, have an impact on the identification of other problems in the society. The needs of human beings are not limited to merely higher income and health, but include psychological, spiritual, social, and other needs. The need to introduce a methodology that could be applied in developing well-being indicators is required. The Islamic system of objectives considers different dimensions of human needs. Responding to the limitations of the well-being indices, this study provides a preliminary attempt to consider different dimensions in measuring well-being.