Intended Meaning
What is meant is that the legislations that preceded the Qur’an were not general and permanent, but rather concrete rulings tied to a specific historical stage. They were laws directed to their own particular circumstances, not a final formula for all people in every time.
The Atom’s Structure in the Atlas
- Type of argument: Historical
- Argument movement: Describes the earlier legislations as transitional and concrete.
- Key terms: earlier legislations, transitional, concrete.
- Degree of centrality: Central.
The historicity of the earlier legislations is understood here as being tied to their circumstances, not as a final and permanent ruling. This opens the way to distinguishing between the legislative time and later reality.
Links to Help with Reading
- Muhammad Shahrur, the Book and the Qur’an
- The Book and the Qur’an and the Mother of the Book
- The previous legislations are transitional and concrete
Basis
- Supporting text: «In contrast to the transitional concrete legislations in the previous books».
Location of the Basis in the Book
- Book: The Book and the Qur’an.
- Location: within the middle section of the book in the discussion of the earlier legislations
- Type of basis: Close evidence.
- Mark to help verification: concrete, specified legislations
- Reading note: This passage is suitable as evidence because it describes Moses’ legislations as specified, concrete, and tied to a particular community.
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 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 assertive; it establishes a result on which what follows depends in the course of the argument.
Related to
Editorial Note
The atom links the ruling to its historical circumstance.