This is a lexical entry that gathers the conceptual meaning of this term in Shahrur across his various books, linking together its multiple uses.
This entry belongs to the Shahrur lexicon. For reading by theme, one may refer to Shahrur’s major themes and shared concepts.
The meaning according to Shahrur
History, for Shahrur, is the field of free human action in time, formed by people’s choices and planning from the present. It is not subject to a closed determinism and cannot be programmed in advance as natural phenomena are programmed. For this reason, it is open to change and transcendence, and is understood as a human making, not an automatic retrieval of the past.
Distinctions
- It is not equivalent to natural laws or fixed determinisms; its course remains open to change through human agency
- It does not merge with the Qur’anic narratives or the Wise Revelation; these are fields of knowledge and admonition, not merely a chronological recording of events.
Places in his books
- The Qur’anic Narratives, vol. 2: Shahrur understands it as an open field that is not subject to a determinism resembling the laws of nature, and cannot be programmed in advance. It is a domain of free human action and planning from the present, not merely a retrieval of closed models from the past
What it neighbors and differs from
- The human being participates in making history
- Human history is not subject to determinism
- Human history and the messages are open to freedom, not compulsion
- History resists programming
- The Wise Revelation presents transcendent knowledge, not a historical narrative
- The Wise Revelation reads the narratives critically to establish coexistence and freedom
- Historical Sunna is linked to human freedom
- The unseen future is not known with certainty
- Qur’anic narratives are tidings for admonition
- Qur’anic narratives are not for prediction
- Qur’anic narratives are historical admonitory knowledge interpreted rationally to reveal the laws of freedom and the human being
- Qur’anic narratives record the development of the messages