Submerged Benefit and Incidental Harm and Their Effect on the Construction of Legal Rulings among Usul Scholars: A Foundational and Applied Study

Abstract

This study examines submerged benefit and incidental harm and their effect on the construction of legal rulings in Islamic legal theory. It proceeds from the observation that human acts rarely contain a purely beneficial or purely harmful dimension; rather, legal evaluation frequently follows the dominant aspect while a weaker countervailing aspect remains subordinate. The research problem concerns the criteria by which a benefit is deemed submerged under a greater harm, or a harm is treated as incidental to a dominant benefit, and the point at which the subordinate aspect becomes strong enough to affect the ruling. The study aims to clarify both concepts, relate them to legal purpose, predominance, and subsidiarity, identify criteria of weighting such as rank, evidentiary certainty, generality, intensity, duration, and consequences, and analyze their effects on commands, prohibitions, means, and applied cases. It employs inductive, analytical, comparative, and applied methods. The findings show that submergence and subsidiarity are relational rather than intrinsic descriptions; that predominance is determined by the normative scale of the Sharia rather than by a crude count of advantages and disadvantages; and that the weaker aspect is not independently intended by the command or prohibition, although it may remain relevant to the assessment of means and consequences. The study proposes a three-stage framework: establish both aspects, weigh them, and then determine the legal effect of the dominant and subordinate elements.