What is meant
Shahrur sees “Adam” not as the name of a single person, but as a generic noun referring to the Adamic phase in human history Thus, Adam’s story becomes, in his view, a description of a stage in the formation of the human being and its species-level transformation, not the biography of any particular individual
The atom’s structure in the atlas
- Type of argument: interpretive
- Movement of the argument: it shifts Adam from an individual to a generic term for a human phase.
- Key terms: Adam, generic noun, the Adamic phase, the human being.
- Degree of centrality: central.
He reads the story of Adam as one stage in the formation of the human being, not as the biography of an isolated individual. In this way, the story opens onto the meaning of the human species and its history rather than being confined to personalization.
Links that help with reading
- Muhammad Shahrur the Book and the Qur’an
- The Book and the Qur’an and the Mother of the Book
- the human being
- The Qur’an and the Mother of the Book
Basis
- Supporting text: “Adam: a generic term/stage for the human species, not the name of a single person.”
Degree of documentation
- Level: directly documented
- Meaning of the level: the atom rests on an explicit witness close to the formulation of the claim.
- Limits of the reading: the wording above is an analytical summary and should not be treated as a verbatim quotation unless the witness is transmitted verbatim.
Its function in the book
Its function here is definitional; it sets out a meaning or conceptual distinction that Shahrur relies on in building the idea.
Related to
Editorial note
The atom is interpretive and remains within the domain of symbolic/species-level interpretation.