The Intended Meaning
Shahrur distinguishes between the final divine prohibition, which human beings have no power to alter, and prohibition, which does not necessarily mean proscription. So matters that are forbidden may leave the question of whether to prevent or permit them to human ijtihad and legislative authority.
The Atom’s Structure in the Atlas
- Type of argument: Distinguishing
- Movement of the argument: It differentiates between final prohibition and prohibition left to the judgment of ijtihad.
- Key terms: prohibition, proscription, ijtihad.
- Degree of centrality: Central.
The atom prevents equating prohibition with proscription, and opens space for assessing interest in prohibited matters, thereby reducing the expansion of proscription and returning it to its textual limits.
Links that help with reading
- Muhammad Shahrur: Religion and Authority
- Legislation, Limits, and Prohibition
- Prohibition
- Qur’anic prohibitions are fixed, while prohibition is left to human ijtihad
Basis
- Supporting text: «Shahrur distinguishes between what God has prohibited with a final prohibition into which human beings may not intervene, and what He has forbidden and left the assessment of its prevention or permission to human ijtihad and legislative authority».
Place of the basis in the book
- Book: Religion and Authority.
- Location: in the final section of the book
- Type of basis: close evidence.
- Verification cue: divine prohibition does not imply any proscription
- Reading note: The passage explicitly distinguishes between divine prohibition and proscription, and confirms that proscription belongs to God alone, which matches the atom’s meaning.
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 definitional; it fixes a meaning or conceptual distinction that Shahrur relies on in building the idea.
Related to
Editorial note
Read together with the atom Human legislation does not add prohibitions.