01
Doctrinal Centrality
What is the reference center around which the project’s values, concepts, and fundamental choices are organized?
From Critiquing the Modern State to Examining the Conditions of Foundation
This comparison does not begin by ranking Wael Hallaq against the Intellectual Modeling Methodology, nor by diminishing the value of Hallaq’s project. Rather, it seeks to determine the position of methodological movement in each project: What is the center around which inquiry is organized? What is accepted as a prior framework? Where does the construction of meaning begin, and how are the conditions of the rightness of the path examined?
The comparison is significant because a critique of the modern state can operate within the historical, legal, and ethical field that it describes and critiques, whereas MANHAJ seeks to move one step further: examining the coordinate origin and the coordinates of the conceptual domain before working within its details.
Three Questions That Precede the Detailed Comparison
The comparison is read through the chain: Doctrinal Centrality → Coordinate Origin → Conceptual Domain → Meaning Coordinate → Cognitive Act, after which the project’s movement is examined through the laws of approach.
02
Coordinate Origin and Meaning Coordinate
Where do the coordinates of meaning begin within the conceptual domain? And does meaning change when a concept moves into another domain?
03
Direction of Inquiry and Rightness
Does inquiry begin a priori by examining the foundation of the field and its conditions, or does it move a posteriori within it? What are the conditions for the rightness of this path?
Methodological note: Describing a project as moving a posteriori does not mean judging it weak or dependent. A posteriori movement can produce deep and influential knowledge within its field; the question here concerns the position of foundation and the direction of movement.
Wael Hallaq and MANHAJ: Where Does Inquiry Begin?
Wael Hallaq
Hallaq’s project, according to the material underlying this comparison, begins from a critique of the modern state through history, law, and ethics, highlighting the contradiction between the structure of the modern state and the Islamic ethical system. In this movement, Sharia becomes a reference prior to the state and a constraint on its authority.
Faouzi Messeoud — MANHAJ
MANHAJ shifts the question to another foundational level: What is the coordinate origin from which the conceptual domain is derived? How is the function of the state determined within the network of relations? The state is therefore not read as an isolated element, but as a node whose meaning is determined by its position and relations within the system.
Four Axes of Comparison — MANHAJ
1. Diagnosing the Modern State: Critiquing the Structure and Locating the Problem
Hallaq
In The Impossible State, he critiques the modern state through its legal and ethical structure, arguing that the attempt to construct a modern Islamic state encounters contradictions in the foundations of the modern state and its relationship with Sharia.
MANHAJ
The problem is re-described as a systemic disturbance: an institutional or conceptual structure formed in a domain with a different centrality may be operated within another domain without redefining the coordinate origin and the relations that give its elements meaning.
2. Centrality and Coordinate Origin: Sharia and Doctrinal Reference
Hallaq
Sharia occupies in Hallaq’s project the position of a reference that precedes the state and places limits on its authority, in contrast with a modern conception in which the state becomes the source of law and sovereignty.
MANHAJ
The question is formulated in terms of doctrinal centrality and coordinate origin: What is the higher reference from which the conceptual domain derives? What coordinates cause the concept of sovereignty or the state to acquire its meaning and function within that domain?
3. Direction of Inquiry: Historical and Critical Examination versus Systemic Approach
Hallaq
The project moves historically, analytically, and critically, returning to the roots of modernity to reveal its effects on the human being, ethics, the environment, and the relationship between law and society.
MANHAJ
It does not limit itself to examining historical outcomes, but focuses on structure, relations, and immaterial linkages, as well as the conditions of the domain that allow dependency or sovereignty to emerge. The a priori question therefore precedes detailed work: What makes this field possible in this form?
4. From Critiquing the Alternative to Reconstructing the Domain
Hallaq
Hallaq’s alternative seeks to restore the possibility of ethical life and to rediscover the moral resources of Islamic civilization outside the constraints of the modern conception of the state.
MANHAJ
The alternative is to reconstruct the conditions of mental formation and the system within which the state and institutions operate, allowing the domain’s autonomy to be restored from doctrinal centrality and coordinate origin, rather than merely changing outcomes within the same domain.
Conclusion: A Difference in the Level of Inquiry
The distance between the two projects does not lie simply in one being “ethical” and the other “technical,” but in the level of the methodological question. Hallaq works on critiquing the structure of the modern state and its historical, legal, and ethical conditions, whereas the Intellectual Modeling Methodology pushes the question toward examining the centrality, coordinate origin, meaning coordinates, and domain relations that make that structure possible and operative.
Thus, in the logic of MANHAJ, the comparison becomes a question of direction of inquiry: Is it sufficient to critique the field from within or at its boundaries, or should one first examine the conditions of its foundation and its reference? The distinction is not intended to deny the value of a posteriori inquiry, but to determine its position in relation to a priori inquiry.
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Messeoud, Faouzi. (2026). Wael Hallaq and the Intellectual Modeling Methodology (MANHAJ): A Methodological Comparison. MyPortail.
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