What is meant
Shahrur holds that understanding the Qur’anic text is not sound unless one distinguishes between what is a fixed objective law and what falls within human choice This distinction is the basis of his method in reading the Qur’an and in understanding the relationship of the human being to the world and to the law
The atom’s structure in the atlas
- Type of argument: methodological
- Movement of the argument: makes understanding the text depend on distinguishing between the fixed law and human choice.
- Key terms: objective law, choice, Qur’anic understanding, law.
- Degree of centrality: pivotal.
The Qur’anic reading provides an organizing tool, because distinguishing between what governs the world and what the human being determines allows the construction of an understanding that takes both order and freedom into account.
Links that help with reading
- Muhammad Shahrur The Book and the Qur’an
- the methodology of contemporary reading
- Qur’anic understanding distinguishes between objective law and human choice
Basis
- Supporting text: “Shahrur states that understanding the Qur’anic text requires distinguishing between what is a fixed objective law.”
Place of the basis in the book
- Book: The Book and the Qur’an.
- Location: in the early part of the book
- Type of basis: close evidence.
- Marker that helps verification: it reads the fixed text
- Reading note: the location presents the idea of the growth of knowledge and the reading of the fixed text in a manner consistent with it; it is close to the atom in terms of distinguishing between the fixed and the changing.
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 wording above is an analytical summary, and is not treated as a verbatim quotation unless the witness is transmitted textually.
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 atom represents a methodological principle in reading.