What is meant
The separation between religion and authority is intended, so that religion remains a universal moral reference, while the state carries out its legislative, executive, and judicial functions separately. This also means that civil law does not mix with historical jurisprudence.
The Atom’s Structure in the Atlas
- Type of argument: Political
- Movement of the argument: Establishes the independence of religion from the functions of the state
- Central terms: religion, authority, state, moral reference, civil law.
- Degree of centrality: Central.
This atom places religion in the position of moral reference and separates from it the legislative, executive, and judicial functions of the state. It thus forms a basis for understanding civil politics within the atlas without conflating it with historical jurisprudence.
Links that help with reading
- Muhammad Shahrur, Religion and Authority
- The Civil State, Religion, and Authority
- Historical jurisprudence and civil law are separate from it
Basis
- Supporting text: “He affirms the separation between religion and authority, and between the universal moral reference of religion and the legislative, executive, and judicial functions of the state.”
Place of basis in the book
- Book: Religion and Authority.
- Location: In the final section of the book
- Type of basis: Near witness.
- Marker that helps verification: the moral reference for humanity
- Reading note: This location matches the atom because it establishes the reference point of human values and places the functions of the state in their own domain.
Degree of documentation
- Level: Directly documented
- Meaning of the level: The atom relies on an explicit witness close to the wording of the claim.
- Limits of reading: The wording 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 declarative; it establishes a conclusion on which what follows in the progression of the argument depends.
Related to
Editorial note
The separation here protects the two domains from overlap.