Intended Meaning
The author understands shahada in the Qur’an as not having a single meaning, but rather as being divided into a presentational shahada and a cognitive shahada. On that basis, he redefines the shahid and the witness, moving away from the common understanding that links the shahid to death.
The Atom’s Structure in the Atlas
- Type of argument: interpretive
- Argument movement: breaking down the meaning of shahada into presentational and cognitive, and redefining the shahid.
- Key terms: shahada, presentational, cognitive, shahid, death.
- Degree of centrality: central.
It expands the meaning of shahada from its common signification into a dual cognitive structure, and thus rearranges the Qur’anic concepts associated with the witness, the dead, and the attribute, not merely the event itself.
Links to help with reading
- Muhammad Shahrur Islam and the Human Being
- Islam, faith, and righteous action
- shahada
- shahid
- Islam precedes the particularity of the Muhammadan message historically and conceptually
Basis
- Supporting text: “It proposes that shahada in the Qur’an does not have a single meaning; rather, there is a presentational shahada and a cognitive shahada, and it redefines ‘the shahid’ away from the common meaning associated with death.”
Where this is grounded in the book
- Book: Islam and the Human Being.
- Location: in the final section of the book, within the distinction between the witness and the shahid.
- Type of grounding: close witness.
- Marker that helps verification: presentational and cognitive shahada
- Reading note: the text explains the difference between the witness and the shahid and mentions presentational and cognitive shahada, which matches the atom at its core.
Degree of documentation
- Level: directly documented
- Meaning of level: the atom rests on an explicit witness close to the wording of the claim.
- Limits of the reading: the formulation above is an analytical summary and should not be treated as a verbatim quotation unless the witness is quoted textually.
Its function in the book
Its function here is definitional; it fixes a meaning or conceptual distinction on which Shahrur relies in building the idea.
Related to
Editorial note
This atom is important because it represents a transition from received understanding to a new semantic construction.