Plurality and Social History
Formulation of the Claim
For Shahrur, society is founded on plurality: plurality of professions, plurality of authorities, and plurality of confessions, and religious history itself has moved from singularity to organized plurality.
Why are these elements grouped together?
This axis connects the development of social history with the development of religious discourse. Shahrur sees villages as representing a singular stage, then civil society and the city came to initiate institutional plurality. He also links religious plurality to the Constitution of Medina, the pledge of women, and political equality. At the linguistic and social level as well, the idea recurs that society is not complete except through diversity, levels, and functions.
Elements of the collection
- Villages represent a singular stage in history
- Villages = singular systems
- The city shifted society from plurality of professions to plurality of authorities
- Society and law can restrict plurality without religiously prohibiting it
- Plurality is the origin of the messengers and the culmination of singularity
- Plurality is compatible with the oneness of God
- The Qur’an affirms religious plurality
- The Constitution of Medina recognized different confessions
- The pledge of women is evidence of political equality
- Civil society is based on law, not on religion
- Public ethics are determined by society
- Customs are multiple and changing
- Degrees are a condition for the survival of society
- Moral responsibility increases with office
- Numerical majority is not a criterion of truth
- The human majority is not necessarily in the Fire
- Qiwāma is not for males but for competence
- Men and women are functional names in the verse
- The men in the verse are the males in the era of patriarchy
- Righteous women here means those fit for qiwāma
The collection’s location in the episodes
In episodes 2, 3, 4, 8, 9, 10, 11
Conclusion
Shahrur portrays society as a pluralistic system in which functions, authorities, and rights are distributed, not as a closed singular mass.