Maqāṣid al-Sharī‘ah and Child Protection in Indonesia and Egypt: ‎A Comparative Normative Legal Analysis

Abstract

This article examines how the principles of Maqāṣid al-Sharī‘ah can be operationalized as an ethical-legal framework for strengthening child protection in Indonesia and Egypt. Although both countries have adopted statutory child-protection regimes, persistent violence, neglect, child labour, early marriage, and unequal access to services indicate that formal legal protection does not automatically produce substantive welfare. Using a comparative normative legal method, this study analyses primary legal materials, including Indonesia’s Child Protection Law and Egypt’s Child Law, together with Islamic legal literature, peer-reviewed scholarship, and institutional reports. The data were examined through doctrinal analysis, comparative legal mapping, and maqāṣid-based thematic coding based on the five essentials: protection of religion (ḥifẓ al-dīn), life (ḥifẓ al-nafs), intellect (ḥifẓ al-‘aql), lineage and dignity (ḥifẓ al-nasl), and property (ḥifẓ al-māl). The findings show that Indonesia represents a rights-based social-policy model that emphasizes administrative protection, child-friendly programs, and decentralised service delivery, while Egypt represents a sharia-integrated family-justice model in which child welfare is strongly linked to family courts, personal status norms, and state-sponsored welfare institutions. Both models partially reflect maqāṣid values, but their effectiveness is constrained by socio-economic inequality, institutional capacity, uneven enforcement, and cultural practices that normalize child vulnerability. The novelty of this study lies in constructing a cross-national maqāṣid-based analytical matrix that connects Islamic legal objectives with contemporary child-rights governance. The study implies that child protection in Muslim-majority societies should not be limited to legal compliance but must integrate moral legitimacy, family resilience, institutional coordination, and welfare-oriented public policy.