This path reads the family in Shahrur’s project from the angle of kinship and family terms, then from the angle of marriage and divorce as rights and responsibilities.
The contractual dimension appears when Shahrur organizes relationships away from the logic of ownership and coercion.
The family appears here as a site in which Shahrur’s reading itself is tested: how he distinguishes between father and male parent, between mother and female parent, and between marriage and procreation.
From this distinction, marriage is read as a solemn covenant, and divorce as a path regulated by rights and safeguards.
Path question
How does Shahrur rebuild family and kinship, moving them from a bond of lineage and authority to a network of care, contract, and mutual rights?
Short answer
Shahrur sees the family as something that cannot be understood through biology alone. For him, fatherhood and motherhood are acts of care and upbringing, and the Qur’an distinguishes among family terms instead of collapsing them into a single meaning.
From this principle he moves to family legislation: marriage is a solemn covenant, and divorce is a right regulated by constraints and rights. Adoption, in his view, becomes a legitimate possibility in specific cases.
Thus, for him, the family is a human contractual institution that changes within the bounds of the text, away from any fixed form of domination in the name of kinship or custom.
In the study of human rights, this path functions as an entry point to consent, contract, and mutual rights within the family. It is therefore connected to the page Women and the Family within Human Rights.
Summary in three points
- Kinship is not reduced to birth, because fatherhood and motherhood are linked to care, upbringing, and responsibility.
- Marriage and divorce are read as a covenant and mutual rights, not as a male privilege or a purely verbal procedure.
- Contractuality frees social relations from the logic of ownership and makes freedom and legal commitment the basis of organization.
Ascent map
| Level | Its place in the path | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Lexicon | Regulates kinship terms and roles of care | father, mother, parents, adoption |
| Atoms | Establishes partial distinctions in lineage, care, marriage, and divorce | fatherhood goes beyond lineage, marriage is a solemn covenant |
| Structures | Combines atoms into a family and legal argument | family distinction, marriage and ownership contractually |
| Path | Links family to state, society, and freedom | from kinship to contract and rights |
Reading triads
- Kinship and care: parents, the two parents, adoption.
- Covenant and contract: marriage, marital union, what the right hands possess.
- Separation and safeguards: divorce, separation, counting the waiting period is a prophetic act of reason.
Path nodes
- father
- mother
- parents
- adoption
- woman
- marriage
- marital union
- divorce
- separation
- bequest
- inheritance
- what the right hands possess
- Family distinction in the Qur’an redefines fatherhood, motherhood, and adoption
- The Qur’an distinguishes among family terms
- Fatherhood goes beyond genetic lineage
- Motherhood goes beyond biological birth
- Adoption is legitimate in specific cases
- Marital union differs from insemination
- The message rebuilds society and family on the basis of equality and contract
- Marriage and property in the sharia are re-understood contractually
- Marriage is a solemn covenant
- Divorce is a mutual right and the house remains with the wife
- Divorce is a mutual right
- Counting the waiting period is a prophetic act of reason
- Discord is a stage preceding separation
- Circles of close relatives in bequest
- Categories of bequest beneficiaries who are not heirs
- Society develops historically through family and property
- Slavery and what the right hands possess are historical phenomena open to dismantling
- What the right hands possess as contractual relations
Inclusive relations
- The family moves from biology to care, contract, and rights
- The Qur’an distinguishes between father and male parent, mother and female parent, and the two parents and the parents
- Adoption is legitimate in specific cases
- The Muhammadan message rebuilds society, family, and women on the basis of equality, contract, and criticism of patriarchal custom
- What the right hands possess is a transitional stage toward freedom
- Women and the Family within Human Rights
Books to read within the path
- Islam and Faith: regulates family terms, distinguishes between father and male parent and mother and female parent, and opens the question of adoption, marital union, and insemination.
- Toward New Foundations for Islamic Jurisprudence: reads marriage, divorce, and guardianship within equality, contract, and mutual rights.
- State and Society: links the family to the history of social life, and re-reads what the right hands possess and slavery within freedom and contracts.
- Drying Up the Sources of Terrorism: helps distinguish between the two parents and the parents as part of expanding the meaning of family and care.
Close verses
Before this path
After this path
This path connects to State and Religion through the dimension of contract and civil law, to Unicity and Plurality through society’s transition from narrow kinship to the state, and to Foundations of Jurisprudence and Critique of Traditional Jurisprudence through objections to inherited jurisprudence on marriage, divorce, and adoption.
Point of dispute
The point of dispute is that Shahrur moves family issues from the authority of custom and settled jurisprudence to a network of linguistic distinctions and civil rights. Supporters see this as restoring to the family the meaning of care, dignity, and contract.
Opponents, however, see him as expanding the meanings of family and kinship terms in a way that alters settled rulings concerning lineage, forbidden degrees of marriage, adoption, divorce, and what the right hands possess.