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 uses.
This entry belongs to the Shahrur glossary. For reading by theme, one may refer to Shahrur’s major themes and shared concepts.
Meaning in Shahrur
A term used to describe the claim that some verses or rulings are invalidated by others within the Qur’anic text. It is rejected here because it turns revelation into contradictory parts and is used to privilege certain inherited readings over the unity of the Qur’an and its general meaning.
Distinctions
- It does not mean merely the gradual development of legislation or a difference in context, but rather the claim that a ruling is lifted by another text
- It is not equivalent to understanding the interconnection between verses or interpreting them in light of one another; rather, in this view, it is a tool for fragmenting the text and setting parts of it against one another.
Places in his books
- The Qur’anic Narrative, vol. 1: Muhammad Shahrur criticizes it as a tool for fragmenting the text and setting parts of it against one another, not as a neutral description of revelation. In this source, it becomes an ideological means that weakens the coherence of the Qur’an and serves the Salafi reading
What it neighbors and differs from
- The Qur’an
- The Isra’iliyyat and the abrogating and the abrogated corrupt the reading of the text
- The humanistic Qur’anic reading liberates religion from authoritarianism and distorted heritage
- The abrogating and the abrogated as a tool of fragmentation