What Is Meant Here
In the Shahrur Glossary, knowledge in this entry means human knowledge, not God’s knowledge. The available evidence is sufficient to state that it is presented as relative and evolving, and that its advancement is connected to differentiation and scientific classification.
What Is Attributed to Shahrur
One cited passage states: “He affirms that human knowledge is relative and evolving, whereas God’s knowledge is all-encompassing and absolute, and that humans move cognitively from contingency to necessity.” This establishes a difference in description between human knowledge and God’s knowledge, without this entry extending to other unstated judgments.
Another passage states: “Human knowledge advances through differentiation and scientific classification, not through imitation and repetition.” Differentiation and classification are thus the two descriptions established in this passage for the advancement of knowledge.
In the context of distinguishing messengerhood from jurisprudence, it is stated that jurisprudence and historical human ijtihads “also change with changes in the cognitive system.” This evidence is qualified by its jurisprudential context and does not by itself establish a general judgment across all fields of knowledge.
Atlas Explanation
The entry brings together two established boundaries: the relativity and evolution of human knowledge, on the one hand, and its advancement through differentiation and classification, on the other. It therefore does not equate human knowledge with God’s knowledge, nor does it make imitation and repetition criteria for the advancement of knowledge.
For further context on the concept, see interpretation, existence, knowledge, and history, and interpretation and reality.
Qualified Inference
The change in the cognitive system may be understood, in the jurisprudential context in which the evidence appears, as a factor in the change of human ijtihad. Extending this connection to all knowledge or to all interpretation, however, is not sufficiently supported by the current evidence.
Open Question and Limits of the Evidence
The evidence attached to this page does not establish a detailed account of the course of knowledge from sensation to abstraction or mathematics. Nor does it establish a specific definitional connection that makes interpretation a test of knowledge in reality. These points require direct textual evidence before being added to the definition of the entry.
Foundational evidence links: Human knowledge is relative and evolving, Human knowledge is relative and progresses from sensation to mathematics, Knowledge begins with sensation and ends with differentiation, Knowledge advances through differentiation and classification, Rulings change with the cognitive system.