What is meant
Shahrur holds that the Wise Revelation, that is, the Qur’an, is the highest referent by which all other forms of knowledge and rulings are measured. Therefore, jurisprudential inheritances are not granted authority equal to its authority, because they are a historical human construction. For him, the Qur’an is the governing criterion, not merely a religious text among other texts.
The atom’s structure in the atlas
- Type of argument: definitional
- Movement of the argument: it makes the Qur’an a higher criterion for all forms of knowledge and rulings.
- Central terms: the Wise Revelation, the Qur’an, the highest referent, the criterion.
- Degree of centrality: foundational.
It lays the theoretical foundation for the whole method, because choosing the highest referent determines how religion, jurisprudence, and history are understood within a single hierarchy of knowledge.
Links that help reading
- Muhammad Shahrur al-Quran fi al-Fikr al-Mu’asir
- the Book, the Qur’an, and the Mother of the Book
- the Wise Revelation
- the Qur’an
- Inherited jurisprudence is a historical human construction that does not possess authority equal to the Qur’an
Grounding
- Supporting text: «The Wise Revelation: the Qur’an as Shahrur presents it as the highest referent».
Degree of documentation
- Level: directly documented
- Meaning of the level: the atom rests 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 quoted verbatim.
Its function in the book
Its function here is definitional; it sets the meaning or conceptual distinction on which Shahrur relies in building the idea.
Related to
Editorial note
This atom lies at the heart of the epistemic structure; most of the other rulings branch out from it.