Intended Meaning
The Qur’anic legislation is understood here as a flexible framework rather than a rigid system, with upper and lower limits This framework leaves room for human ijtihad in applying rulings according to time and place
The Atom’s Structure in the Atlas
- Type of argument: legislative
- Movement of the argument: presents the Sharia as a flexible framework with upper and lower limits that leaves room for ijtihad.
- Central terms: Sharia, flexible framework, upper and lower limits, ijtihad.
- Degree of centrality: central.
The atom makes clear that the Sharia does not close the door to renewed understanding; rather, it regulates it within limits that grant ijtihad scope and prevent rigidity.
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Reliance
- Supporting text: «The Sharia in the Qur’an is not a rigid system, but a framework with upper and lower limits that leaves room for ijtihad».
Location of the Reliance in the Book
- Book: The Qur’an in Contemporary Thought.
- Location: in the first section of the book
- Type of reliance: close witness.
- Verification cue: a civil law for his community
- Reading note: this passage is suitable as support because it describes the legislative Sunna as ijtihad within a specific temporal context, with no absoluteness in it.
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 establishes a meaning or conceptual distinction that Shahrur relies on in constructing the idea.
Editorial Note
The meaning is clearly and directly legislative.