What is meant
Shahrur understands the stories of the Qur’an as historical laws, not merely as accounts of the past And these laws may be open or closed, that is, repeatable or confined to their own context; therefore they can be used in reading the present Pharaoh, Haman, and Qarun appear not only as historical figures, but as models of structures that recur across time
The atom’s structure in the atlas
- Type of argument: historical
- Argument movement: it reads the Qur’anic narratives as historical laws that can be understood in the present.
- Key terms: the Qur’anic narratives, historical laws, the present, models.
- Degree of centrality: original.
The atom makes the Qur’anic narratives a tool for understanding historical movement, not just a past narrative, and links the Qur’anic character to the recurring structure within human time.
Links that help with reading
- Muhammad Shahrur Religion and Power
- History, Development, and Laws
- the Qur’anic narratives
- The Qur’anic narratives are read as historical laws
Basis
- Supporting text: «The stories of the Qur’an as open or closed historical laws».
Location of the basis in the book
- Book: Religion and Power.
- Location: in the middle section of the book when discussing the Qur’anic narratives, death, and resurrection.
- Type of basis: near evidence.
- Marker that helps verification: the Qur’anic narratives
- Reading note: the location is appropriate because it moves directly to the Qur’anic narratives as a field of historical laws and Sunan.
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 formulation above is an analytical summary and should not be treated as a verbatim quotation unless the witness is cited word for word.
Its function in the book
Its function here is definitional; it fixes a meaning or conceptual distinction that Shahrur relies on in building the idea.
Related to
Editorial note
The treatment here is historical because it understands the narratives within recurring laws.