The Communal Veto Right: Reconstructing Shuf’ah to Counter Asset Grabbing

Abstrak

This article critiques the insufficiency of the classical concept of shuf’ah, which is traditionally limited to immovable property (‘iqār) and formal partners (sharīk), in responding to the modern phenomenon of asset grabbing that threatens local economic sovereignty. The purpose of this research is to reconstruct shuf’ah from a private civil right into a public-transformative legal instrument capable of protecting collective interests. This study employs a normative-juridical approach using Fazlur Rahman's Double Movement theory to bridge classical jurisprudence with contemporary socio-economic challenges. The findings reveal that the foundational moral idea of shuf’ah is the principle of communal sovereignty and the elimination of systemic harm (structural ḍarar), as evidenced by a critical analysis of the hadith of jiwār and the maxim of al-aqrab fa al-aqrab. In conclusion, this research proposes the transformation of shuf’ah into a Communal Veto Right. This reconstructed framework extends the subject of rights to collective community entities and the object of rights to high-impact productive assets—such as natural resource concessions—within a resource sovereignty paradigm. This model offers a Sharia-based legal defense that provides a pragmatic pathway for institutionalizing community protection within national agrarian regulations to resist external exploitation.