The idea of expressing the objectives of Islamic, law (al-Shari'ah), the maqasid al-Shari'ah, goes back to works of early prominent Muslim scholars Al-Juwayni (1979), Al-Ghazali (1970) and Al-Shatibi (1302H). However, in the time of these scholars and later, no research was under-taken to explore the potential of maqasid as a tool for the measurement of well-being of a society, while in the West, with the introduction of quantitative methods into human sciences, many indexes were developed to measure the well-being of a society such as the gross domestic production (GDP), Human Development Index (HDI), etc. See OCDE (1982) for more details. Most of these indexes are not comprehensive and do not include the social and psychological dimensions of human life. Moreover, they could not predict the devastating financial and economic crises that occurred in the last decade and before. Therefore, they came under severe critics Stiglitz (2009). In the last decade, Chapra (2009), referring to the work of Ibn Khaldun, pointed out that maqasid al-Shari'ah could be used as the components of a socio-economic system. This work revived the interest of Muslim scholars to explore the theoretical and practical potential of maqasid al-Shari'ah in social sciences.

This paper proposes a maqasid al-Shari'ah based composite index to measure the performance of socio-economic policies of OIC member countries. The paper employs Al-Imam Al-Ghazali and Al-Iman Al-Shatibi's maqasid al-Shari'ah framework which was later further extended to contemporary socio-economic context by Chapra (2009). The paper also presents the findings of proposed composite index using a vast array of 101 variables for 57 OIC members, taking data from over 15 sources. The countries will be ranked according to the performance in terms of their achievement of maqasid al-Shari'ah. The results portray overall composite index ranking, individual maqasid index ranking (d?n index, nafs index, nasl index, mal index and 'aql index). Further, results based on three key OIC member regions (Africa, Asia and Middle East) will be presented. The proposed index offers a new tool for measuring the performance of OIC member countries with respect to socio-economic policies. It also shows the key areas of concern when it comes to the attainment of maqasid al-Shari'ah in Muslim societies. The paper will also highlight the data availability in OIC countries and propose areas for further data collection and data management in order to accurately measure maqasid al-Shari'ah.

The theory of maqasid al-Shari'ah theorizes interrelationships among the five universal maqasid (namely hifzu d?n, hifzu nafs, hifzu nasl, hifzul msl and hifzul 'aql). According to the theory of maqasid al-Shari'ah propounded by Al-Iman Ghazali and Al-Imam Shatibi which was later further extended into contemporary socio-economic context by Chapra (2009), there are interrelationships among the maqasid. Statistical modelling of these relationships to understand the strengths and directions of the relationships will provide new knowledge and will strengthen the theory of maqasid al-Shari'ah with empirical scientific evidence. As of recent times, the discussions on these interrelationships are purely normative in nature. Theory testing based on statistical methods are very limited. Therefore, this paper concentrates on testing the theorized relationships in the theory of maqasid al-Shari'ah using Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). A sample of 325 Muslim respondents is involved in collecting data using a pre-designed questionnaire using the Chapra (2009) framework. The paper proposes a Structural Equation Model of maqasid al-Shari'ah theory will provide useful insights in making socio-economic policies and measuring the performance of those socio-economic policies.