This page explains a conceptual relationship between two poles within Shahrur’s thought, and how this relationship operates in the construction of meaning.
Within a broader family
This formulation is part of a field that distinguishes Islam from particular faith. Its witness opens a specific angle, while the encompassing family places it within a conception of Islam as a human ethical horizon that predates the mission and is broader than ritual belonging.
The meaning of the relationship
This relationship means that Islam is not understood here as a fixed inherited meaning, but is rebuilt starting from the Qur’an. This Qur’anic grounding makes it a human value-based framework that distinguishes between Islam and faith, distances religion from the logic of authoritarian prohibition, and places freedom, citizenship, and righteous action at the center of religious meaning.
The two poles of the relationship
- First pole: Islam
- Relationship: its understanding is re-founded
- Second pole: from the Qur’an as a human value-based framework that distinguishes between Islam and faith, separates religion from the authority of prohibition, and makes freedom, citizenship, and righteous action central criteria
Evidence
- Islam and the human being through Human Islam is re-founded Qur’anically as a system of values, freedom, and citizenship that transcends closed identity
- Witness: Human Islam is re-founded Qur’anically as a system of values, freedom, and citizenship that transcends closed identity. The book’s argument is organized around the idea that understanding Islam requires beginning from the Qur’an with a recitational method that establishes the distinctness of expressions; this is the necessary entry point for rebuilding religious concepts away from accumulated tradition
Its effect on the knowledge map
This relationship gains its importance because it links Islam to a comprehensive concept that reorganizes the entire religious field around the Qur’an and human values rather than accumulated tradition. In this way, it helps map Islam’s position within a broader conceptual chart, where religion becomes tied to freedom, citizenship, and righteous action, not merely to closed identity or the authority of prohibition and banning.