What is meant
What is meant by distortion here is that it does not always affect the entire text; rather, it may come through skewing the wording away from its meaning, or by altering the meaning and context, and sometimes only certain words. Therefore, in the earlier scriptures there remain parts of the truth that can be accepted, and distortion does not necessarily require discarding them all.
The atom’s structure in the atlas
- Type of argument: critical
- Argument movement: distortion may occur in meaning and context, not in the entire text.
- Central terms: distortion, meaning, context, earlier scriptures.
- Degree of centrality: pivotal.
It prevents the sweeping conception that discards everything in the earlier scriptures, and establishes the survival of a measure of truth with the possibility of deviation in meaning, context, or some wording.
Links that help with reading
- Muhammad Shahrur, Qur’anic Narrative, vol. 1
- Critique of the Heritage, Jurisprudence, and Exegesis
- Islam is a Universal Human Message
Grounding
- Supporting text: “Distortion in the earlier scriptures is not total distortion; rather, it may be in meaning and context or in some wording, while a truth remains that can be accepted.”
Place of grounding in the book
- Book: Qur’anic Narrative, vol. 1.
- Location: early in the book, within the treatment of rereading the narratives according to a contemporary vision.
- Type of grounding: close witness.
- Verifying marker: rereading the overall philosophy of the narratives.
- Reading note: the passage speaks of a new reading of the earlier texts away from inherited understanding, and it supports the idea that distortion may lie in meaning and context rather than in the entire text.
Degree of documentation
- Level: structurally documented
- Meaning of the level: the atom rests on more than one witness, or on a clear synthesis of closely related phrases.
- Reason for classification: there are two witnesses specifying distortion in meaning and context rather than in the entire text.
- Limits of reading: the formulation 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 on which Shahrur relies in building the idea.
Related to
Editorial note
An important atom in the critique of the exegetical heritage and the critique of a totalizing understanding of distortion.