Intended Meaning
The Qur’anic narrative is not presented as reports recounted for their own sake, but as a lesson meant to move from the event to understanding Accordingly, what is meant by narrative here is the extraction of the lesson and meaning, not merely the recounting of events
The Atom’s Structure in the Atlas
- Type of argument: Methodological
- Argument movement: It presents the Qur’anic narrative as material for lesson rather than as mere reports.
- Central terms: Qur’anic narrative, lesson, reports.
- Degree of centrality: Central.
The narrative moves from the domain of storytelling to the domain of understanding, and gives the reader a way of reading that extracts meaning instead of stopping at the events alone.
Links that help with reading
- Muhammad Shahrur The Qur’anic Narratives Vol. 1
- the contemporary reading methodology
- the Qur’anic narrative
- the lesson
Basis
- Supporting text: «and presents them as a “lesson” rather than mere reports».
Place of the basis in the book
- Book: The Qur’anic Narratives Vol. 1.
- Location: At the beginning of the book, within the treatment of the function of narrative
- Type of basis: Close evidence.
- Sign that helps with verification: Knowledge of the human interaction with the unseen
- Reading note: The passage explicitly states that reading the narratives draws inspiration from the lesson and seeks the line of historical development, and therefore it serves as a direct basis for this atom.
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 fixes a meaning or conceptual distinction on which Shahrur relies in building the idea.
Editorial note
The intended meaning here is the function of narrative in understanding.