Fazlur Rahman's Thought and Its Relevance to Family Law Reform in Indonesia

Abstract

Fazlur Rahman's view is different from the legislation in force in Indonesia regarding family law, especially marriage, such as: guardians, polygamy, and the establishment of a minimum age of marriage. Fazur Rahman argues that in Islamic legal discourse at least a set of moral values is taken into consideration in the process of making legal decisions, taking into account the reciprocal relationship between "divine revelation" which boils down to universal moral principles and "human history" which is always developing and dynamic. Meanwhile, legislation in Indonesia still focuses on normative values that are only concerned with the legal-fomal dimension. Furthermore, family law reform in Indonesia has always faced strong resistance, especially from religious authority groups. This is because changing family law is still considered changing the essence of religion. This research uses qualitative research methods with the type of research "library research" or literature study, which is a method of collecting data by understanding and studying theories from various literatures related to the research. This research material or object is obtained by examining the data that the author gets. This research is descriptive analytical, namely research that aims to describe and analyze the subject under study. The result is according to Fazlur Rahman's thinking, that the main task for the formulators of Islamic law is to know and distinguish between "legal" provisions and orders in the "moral" field. It is very important to include the moral dimension in the study of Islamic family law which is not only concerned with legal-formal provisions, but also a source of moral-religious reference in a legal decision. The relevance of Fazlur Rahman's thinking to family law in Indonesia in the context of marriage law, such as: guardians, polygamy, and the determination of the minimum age of marriage is still not in line with the regulations in force in Indonesia. This is because family law regulations in Indonesia are still strongly tied to the legal-fomal dimension and have not touched much on the moral dimension.