This is a lexicon entry that gathers the technical meaning of this term in Shahrur’s work across his various books, and connects its multiple usages.
This entry belongs to the Shahrur lexicon. For reading by thematic axis, see Shahrur’s major themes and shared concepts.
Meaning in Shahrur
The Prophetic Sunna is what issues from the station of prophethood in the form of narratives, reports, questions, and stories connected to the Muhammadan biography, and it is understood as a specific historical and social practice, not as a general, binding legislation in the same absolute sense by which the messengerly is binding.
Distinctions
- It differs from the messengerly Sunna because it is connected to the station of messengership and legislation, not to the domain of prophethood and narrative reporting
- It is not treated as a parallel source to revelation, nor is it assigned an absolute authority that transcends its historical and social context.
Places in his books
- The messengerly Sunna and the prophetic Sunna: This is what is connected to the station of prophethood and to the Muhammadan narrative, stories, questions, and reports. Muhammad Shahrur links it to a specific historical and social context, and therefore holds that obedience to it is separate and constrained, and is not binding in the same absolute sense by which the messengerly is binding
What is adjacent to it and different from it
- The station of prophethood
- The messengerly Sunna is binding because it is connected to messengership and legislation
- The messengerly Sunna and the prophetic Sunna
- The prophetic Sunna is historical and ijtihad-based
- The prophetic Sunna is historical and circumstantial and is not to be followed as permanent legislation
- The prophetic Sunna, political history, and hadith are a human domain open to criticism
- The prophetic Sunna and the domain of narrative
- The Sunna is divided into messengerly and prophetic according to the station
- The Sunna is not a parallel source to revelation
- The authority of the Sunna and its limits are built on the primacy of the Qur’an, criticism of hadith, and distinguishing between the two stations