CILE seeks to build a methodological platform that will contribute to its key objective of promoting radical reform. The type of radical reform that we are calling for is based on a fundamental concept: transformational renewal. 
What is transformational renewal? 

Transformational renewal is the idea of going beyond the intellectual space of traditional renovation to create a kind of renovation and jurisprudence that addresses facts critically and explores reality intellectually so as to reform it, or even rebuild it if necessary. 

  • Traditional renovation: tends to maintain reality and adapt to it, assessing and judging its components through the system of the five categories of laws in Islam: wājib (required, obligatory); mandūb (recommended); mubāḥ (permitted but morally indifferent); makrūh (discouraged or abominable); and ḥarām (forbidden or prohibited); in other words, it is rather an evaluative type of jurisprudence. 
  • Transformational renewal: puts forward alternative solutions for the shortcomings of the current reality, seeking to establish new means, models, and paradigms at all levels that would achieve ethical objectives. Therefore, radical reform purports to go beyond superficial issues and directly into the crux of objectives and ethics, beyond minor details into theoretical foundations and frames of reference. 
    To implement radical reform by means of transformational renovation, religious scholars and scientists should share the responsibility. 
  • Religious scholars: whilst religious scholars, in many cases, have been capable of judging reality based on specific facts provided by scientists, the task is different when it comes to diligence and transformational renovation. This is because an endeavor such as this requires an advanced and comprehensive understanding of both religion and reality. Being well-versed in Islamic Sharia sciences and being formally and partially aware of reality alone will not help bring about transformational reform unless it is accompanied with similar knowledge of our reality, and with today’s scientific advancement, this is only possible by involving those specialist scientists and practitioners.
  •  Modern scientists: Modern science alone has failed to focus on ethics, as it has not addressed ethics as a fundamental issue. Rather, science relegates ethics to a secondary position. This raises the issue of the division of sciences into religious or secular sciences, and of their tendency to focus excessively on highly specialized topics without associating them with greater universal themes. Undoubtedly, this undermines the communication between scientists from various disciplines and thwarts their efforts to work together to develop an epistemological approach that combines their knowledge to serve the important purpose of promoting ethics. Therefore, the challenge set before us is not to persuade scientists belonging to various disciplines and backgrounds to work together. Rather, it is to shake them in their scientific safe havens and drive them to push through the epistemological paradigms governing their own knowledge in order to set up a new system and outline methods toward achieving renewal. 
  • While the combined work of religious scholars and scientists constitutes a fundamental methodological basis for transformational renovation, it should be coupled with many other elements pertaining to the methods, theories, and objectives of science. The process of building reality on the foundation of proper Islamic ethics and values should be based on a deep and comprehensive understanding that will help analyze the reasons behind malice, which drive people to engage in substandard activities. This understanding may lead to the introduction of alternative solutions and new practices, which are more deeply founded on scientific knowledge. Not to dismiss the sound efforts and evaluative diligence of religious scholars, neither Islamic Sharia scholars nor scientists alone should monopolize knowledge or assume sole responsibility for undertaking reforms in society. 

CILE has developed the following methodological approaches to guide its work:

  1. Reconciling spirituality and science, legislation and ethics, laws and objectives and emphasizing their complimentary relationship so as to revive the role of Islamic ethics in contemporary knowledge and practice. 
  2. A broad and positive view of the Islamic sources of legislation and ethics, recognizing the necessity to enrich our understanding of them with the fruits of human thought and values common to all people. 
  3. A practical spirit that transforms the science of Maqāṣid al- S̲h̲arīʿah (higher objectives of Islam) from theory to practice in all spheres of life, contributing to the establishment of an Islamic legislative and ethical framework. 
  4. A trans-disciplinary assessment of contemporary legal and ethical challenges that considers the complexities of reality with the diversity of visions and means to address them.
  5.  A holistic synthesizing approach whereby scholars of the Text from diverse Islamic traditions and scholars of the context from various natural and human sciences engage in an intellectual exercise that infuses the insights from one field to another. 
  6. Critical self-assessment and reasoning that goes beyond short-term crisis management in favor of creative, long-term transformative solutions to world problems. It is only with this approach that the interests of people everywhere can be served, fulfilling the vision of Islam, its higher ethical objectives and its liberating mission.