What is meant
Shahrur sees historical religious fabrication as not merely a development in the understanding of religion, but as part of the formation of a political authority that produced despotism When religion becomes a tool of hegemony, it loses its plurality and becomes a means of abolishing difference
The atom’s structure in the atlas
- Type of argument: critical
- Argument movement: traces despotism back to a historical religious fabrication that abolished pluralism.
- Key terms: authoritarian society, religious fabrication, despotism, pluralism, authority.
- Degree of centrality: original.
It explains how despotism is produced by turning religion into an instrument of hegemony, thereby linking political critique with epistemic and historical critique, and revealing a structural relationship between domination and the abolition of plurality.
Reading aids
- Muhammad Shahrur, the Qur’an in Contemporary Thought
- Critique of Authoritarianism and Unilateralism
- Pluralism
- The plural civil system is the alternative to religious and political unilateralism
Basis
- Supporting text: “It offers a political-social reading that sees historical ‘religious fabrication’ as producing despotism, abolishing pluralism, and turning religion into an instrument of power.”
Related verses
Location of the basis in the book
- Book: The Qur’an in Contemporary Thought.
- Location: in the first section of the book under the law of history in the Qur’an
- Type of basis: close attestation.
- Verification marker: every monistic society carries within it the seeds of its own demise
- Reading note: the location links the monistic society to the seeds of its own demise, which is consistent with the authoritarian society as a producer of despotism.
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 the 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 argumentative; it supports a larger conclusion in the chapter or prepares for it.
Related to
Editorial note
This is a central atom in his critique of the authoritarian religious structure.