This is a lexical entry that gathers the technical meaning of this term in Shahrur across his various books, and connects its multiple uses.
This entry belongs to Shahrur’s glossary. For reading by theme, one may refer to Shahrur’s major themes and shared concepts.
The meaning in Shahrur
The soul is the dimension that Shahrur links to knowledge and legislation in the human being, not merely to biological life. For him, it is what explains the human being’s transition to the rank of consciousness and responsibility, that is, to a station beyond mere humans.
Distinctions
- It is not understood here as the power that merely gives the body life, because that meaning is narrower than what is intended
- It differs from humans as natural human existence, and from the human being as the conscious, responsible rank associated with knowledge and legislation.
Places in his books
- A Guide to Contemporary Reading of the Wise Revelation: Shahrur does not treat it as a mere principle of life, but as something tied to knowledge and legislation in the human being. It therefore plays a role in explaining the human being’s ascent from mere humans to the rank of consciousness and responsibility
What adjoins it and differs from it
- The human being
- Reordering doctrinal and human concepts
- The human being is not humans
- The human being is a conscious rank and the soul is knowledge and legislation
- Contemporary interpretation makes the fixity of the Revelation the basis for a historical ijtihad in understanding, legislation, and doctrine
- The soul is knowledge and legislation