The layer of conceptual relations brings together the recurring connections among Shahrur’s concepts as they appear in formulations of claims and evidence. The most suitable entry point for reading is through the major families, then moving to individual formulations as needed.
How are the relations read?
This layer is read from the general to the particular. A unifying relation begins by grouping similar formulations, then an individual formulation is opened when a specific piece of evidence or angle is needed. If titles are very similar, it is preferable to read them as one family rather than as entirely separate claims.
Major families
- Unifying Relations: A concise map of similar formulations, bringing together the clearest families concerning Islam, monism and pluralism, the civil state, prohibition, the Wise Revelation, Qur’anic narratives, the Mother of the Book, the Sunna, messengerhood, and semantic distinctions.
Quick entries
- Monism is not a suitable social model
- Pluralism and the civil state
- The civil state, law, and citizenship
- Permitting and prohibiting
- The fixity of the text and the movement of understanding
- Qur’anic narratives and moral lesson
- The Mother of the Book and the definitive verses
- The messengerly Sunna and the prophetic Sunna
- Messengerhood, social life, and equality
Individual relations
Some relations do not yet appear within a broad family, but they are useful as independent reading paths:
- Doing good, work, society, and nature
- Jihad is broader than fighting
- Freedom is the basis of humanity
- Freedom grounds dignity and rights
- Martyrdom is not confined to those killed in battle
- Sin, evil deed, transgression, and error
- National loyalty, language, and identity
Additional relations by field
Other relations are distributed across smaller fields of reading. Some are close to the major families, while others serve as an independent entry point to a particular issue.
Occasions of revelation and direct reading
Tools of the exegetical and jurisprudential tradition
- Turning tradition into authority closes off reading and supports despotism
- Jurisprudential analogy does not apply to Qur’anic narratives
Prohibition, avoidance, and injunction
Prophethood, messengerhood, and the Sunna
- The Messenger exercised civil legislation
- The prophetic Sunna includes the Prophet’s interpretive judgments and historical accounts
- The basic rituals belong to the messengerly Sunna
- The station of messengerhood pertains specifically to legislation and organization
- The station of messengerhood pertains specifically to legislation and organization, and the station of prophethood
- The station of prophethood pertains specifically to the unseen, reports, and knowledge
Society, identity, and freedom
- Striking in the verse on women withdraws guardianship
- Jahiliyya becomes an instrument of political classification
- The family shifts from biology to care, contract, and rights
- Adoption is legitimate in specific cases
- Hanifiyya is movement within limits
- The people encompasses nationality and the nation
- Injustice requires free will
- Citizenship is based on respect for the law and equality among citizens
- Universal loyalty is based on the individual relationship between the human being and their Lord
- Those whom the right hand possesses are a transitional stage toward freedom