This is a lexicon entry that gathers the technical meaning of this term in Shahrur’s work across his various books, connecting its different usages.
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
It is an individual religious belonging based on the human being’s relation to his Lord and on the requirements of faith, and it is not understood as political loyalty or subordination to a ruling group. By it is meant to keep religion within the sphere of personal conviction and commitment, while preventing it from being turned into a tool in the struggle for power or partisan belonging.
Distinctions
- It differs from the civil state; the civil state regulates the public sphere by law, whereas this loyalty belongs to individual faith, not to the administration of governance
- It differs from political and collective loyalties; it does not indicate partisan alignment or collective authority.
- It approaches the meaning of Islam as a religious message, but here it is limited to the aspect of individual commitment, not to history or conceptual universality.
Passages from his books
- Islam and the Human Being: communitarian loyalty is understood here as an individual religious conviction based on the relationship between the human being and his Lord, not as political loyalty or collective authority. The source uses this distinction to prevent the mixing of religion with the struggle for rule or with political affiliations
What surrounds it and what differs from it
- Islam is historically and conceptually prior to the specificity of the Muhammadan message
- The civil state regulates the public sphere by law, not by religious prohibition
- Communitarian loyalty is individual religious belonging