Reframing ʿUrf and Istiṣlāḥ in Biocultural Governance: Indonesian Halal-Health Movements

This study examines how classical Islamic legal concepts are rearticulated within contemporary Indonesian halal-health governance. Focusing on the concepts of ʿurf (custom) and istiṣlāḥ (public interest), the research investigates how normative traditions are integrated into biomedical regulation and institutional decision-making. Using qualitative textual and discursive analysis, the study analyzes fatwa documents, regulatory guidelines, policy statements, and scholarly writings related to halal pharmaceuticals, vaccination, and health certification. The findings indicate that ʿurf is increasingly mediated through administrative and certification frameworks, while istiṣlāḥ is progressively proceduralized through technical evaluation and performance indicators. Religious authority is reconfigured through interdisciplinary expert networks that combine juristic reasoning with scientific and bureaucratic validation. At the discursive level, Islamic ethical vocabulary is systematically integrated with public health rationality, producing hybrid forms of moral-technical legitimacy. These transformations suggest that halal-health governance operates through negotiated continuity rather than epistemic rupture. Classical legal concepts are neither abandoned nor preserved unchanged; rather, they function as discursive interfaces between tradition and institutional governance. By highlighting the infrastructural conditions of ethical adaptation, this study contributes to a more nuanced understanding of Islamic normativity under contemporary biocultural and regulatory regimes.