What is meant
Shahrur holds that each Qur’anic term has a specific connotation that it does not share with others in a synonymous sense Therefore, it is not permissible to treat Qur’anic terms as if they were interchangeable words with the same meaning
The atom’s structure in the atlas
- Type of argument: Distinctive
- Argument movement: Affirming the specificity of each Qur’anic term and preventing the interchange of meanings between it and others.
- Central terms: Qur’anic term, connotation, specific, synonymous, the other.
- Degree of centrality: Central.
This reading prevents equating Qur’anic words, and obliges the reader to look for differences in usage before constructing understanding; this is a basis for controlling concepts and reducing generalization.
Links that help with reading
Reliance
- Supporting text: “Each Qur’anic term has a specific connotation, and therefore it is not correct to treat it as synonymous with others.”
Place of reliance in the book
- Book: Islam and Man.
- Location: In the early part of the book, within the introduction
- Type of reliance: Close witness.
- Marker that helps verification: His saying, the Exalted
- Reading note: The passage works on linguistic construction and the idea of distinguishing between connotations, and it is a close support for the idea that each Qur’anic term has a distinctive meaning.
Degree of documentation
- Level: Directly documented
- Meaning of the level: The atom is based on an explicit witness close to the wording of the claim.
- Limits of reading: The formulation above is an analytical summary, and should not be treated as a verbatim quotation unless the witness is cited textually.
Its function in the book
Its function here is definitional; it sets a meaning or conceptual distinction that Shahrur relies on in building the idea.
Editorial note
It works together with the atom of denying synonymy and confirms the same direction.