Shahrur’s Statement
“He links polytheism and unbelief to two different stances: polytheism is the conviction or conception that what is mutable is fixed, while unbelief is a declaration, an adversarial stance, or a covering up of the truth.”
The Distinguishing Criterion
This account does not treat polytheism and unbelief as synonyms; the cited passage assigns a different description to each. Shahrur says: “Accordingly, no one has the right to judge anyone to be a polytheist in God or an unbeliever in God unless that person has declared it himself.”
Reading Links
- Muhammad Shahrur Islam and Humanity
- Islam, faith, and righteous action
- Polytheism
- Unbelief
- Islam is historically and conceptually prior to the specificity of the Muhammadan message
Islam is historically and conceptually prior to the specificity of the Muhammadan message