This locus brings together 1 instance of the use of this verse in the books of Muhammad Shahrur, linking it to the concepts and arguments that appear around it.
Text of the Verse as Cited
He created the human being from a clinging substance.
Reader’s Answer
Question
How does Muhammad Shahrur employ God’s statement, “He created the human being from a clinging substance,” in his discussion of knowledge and nature?
Shahrur employs the verse to advance a philosophical reading in which “objective existence” is a network of interwoven relations. He holds that human knowledge advances when we distinguish these relations and analytically separate them, which he calls “pruning.”
Shahrur explicitly states that God’s statement, “He created the human being from a clinging substance,” explains, in his reading, that objective existence consists of relations interwoven with one another. On the basis of this connection, Shahrur calls for an epistemic distinction among qualities, quantities, and relations, calling this analytical separation “pruning.”
Citation and Location
The Book and the Qur’an — p. 297.
Limits of the Reading
- This is evidence of Shahrur’s use of the verse in constructing an epistemic conception, not independent proof that the verse’s agreed-upon linguistic or exegetical meaning is “interwoven relations.”
- The evidence does not establish that the verse itself founds a scientific theory of quantity and quality; this is a conclusion within the philosophical framework presented by Shahrur.
- The phrase “existence requires epistemic approximation” is imprecise: what Shahrur states is that humans separate relations epistemically, not that existence itself requires this separation.
Continue From Here
Brief Reading
The verse establishes the idea that existence requires an epistemic approximation that distinguishes interwoven relations.
Axes
- Methodological
- Linguistic and semantic
Related Concepts
- Approximation: 2
- Relations: 1
- Epistemic distinction: 1
Its Place in the Conceptual Network
It is connected to the method of separating relations in order to understand them.
Role of the Verse in the Argument
- Foundational: 1
Instances of Use
- The Book and the Qur’an, p. 297: He takes it as the basis for the idea that existence consists of interwoven relations requiring epistemic pruning in order to separate them.
- Concept: approximation
- Function of the verse here: foundational
- Textual citation: “This is the most advanced kind of pruning … and this is what I explained in God’s statement, {He created the human being from a clinging substance} (The Clinging Substance 2): that objective existence consists of relations interwoven with one another.”
Related Books
This page is presented within the general atlas construction methodology.