A CLASSICAL PARADIGM OF SOCIAL HARMONY IN ASIA THE CASE OF ‘URF (LOCAL CULTURE) IN ISLAMIC LEGAL PHILOSOPHY

ALPARSLAN AÇIKGENÇ

ABSTRACT

Social harmony endows the society with peace and tolerance. For this reason it is very
important especially in our world today with global influences and speedy movement
of people with different cultures. This paper is an attempt first to elucidate the concept
of “social harmony”, and then try to see how this was achieved in Asian communities
with an example chosen from the Islamic legal doctrine based on the concept of ‘urf.
I would like to translate this concept as “local culture”. I would like to argue that
because Islamic legal philosophy developed a concept of local culture as a source for
legal pronouncements beyond the primary sources of Islamic legal doctrine, it was able
to preserve local cultures through establishing a social harmony. The concept of local
culture provides a legal and conceptual background for social harmony both culturally
and philosophically. It is through such a background that Islamic legal philosophy was
able to develop a paradigm of social harmony for all Muslim communities which may be
a new model in the glocal world of ours today.