What is meant
Muhammad Shahrur argues that tanzil is an objective material transmission that occurs outside human consciousness and beyond direct perception. and he distinguishes it from inzal, because for him inzal is the entry of something into human cognition and its acquisition of the quality of knowledge.
The atom’s structure in the atlas
- Type of argument: Distinguishing
- Movement of the argument: It makes tanzil an objective event outside consciousness, different from inzal.
- Central terms: tanzil, inzal, objectivity, consciousness.
- Degree of centrality: Primary.
This atom establishes a conceptual duality that forms a basis in the author’s theoretical construction; it distinguishes between the act of consciousness and the act of the object, and between direct knowledge and the movement of the text in the external world.
Links helpful for reading
- Muhammad Shahrur al-Kitab wa al-Qur’an
- the contemporary reading methodology
- The Qur’an and the Mother of the Book
Basis
- Supporting text: «الإنزال: دخول الشيء في مدركات الإنسان واكتسابه صفة المعرفة. التنزيل: انتقال موضوعي مادي خارج الوعي الإنساني أو خارج الإدراك المباشر».
Place of support in the book
- Book: al-Kitab wa al-Qur’an.
- Location: In the early part of the book, within the distinction between the Mother of the Book and the message
- Type of support: Nearby witness.
- Marker that helps verification: أحكام أم الكتاب
- Reading note: The text states that the rulings of the Mother of the Book are not among the laws of existence and that they may be taken up or left aside, and this is consistent with the 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 textually.
Its function in the book
Its function here is definitional; it sets out a meaning or conceptual distinction on which Shahrur relies in building the idea.
Related to
Editorial note
The atom serves to fix the terminology before argumentation.