Limits Are the Basis of Legislation

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Intended Meaning

Shahrur holds that Muhammadan legislation is not based on internal abrogation, but on a system of “limits” that allows legislation within defined constants. These limits are the framework that organizes rulings and makes them applicable without abrogation within the revelation itself.

The Atom’s Structure in the Atlas

  • Type of argument: legislative
  • Argument movement: it makes the limits the framework within which Muhammadan legislation operates.
  • Key terms: limits, Muhammadan legislation, constants.
  • Degree of centrality: original.

The atom presents a concentrated picture of the structure of legislation, where the text does not eliminate movement but rather sets its ceiling and limits, so rulings remain applicable without turning into internal abrogation.

Basis

  • Supporting text: “rather on a system of ‘limits’ that allows legislation within constants”.

Place of the Basis in the Book

  • Book: The Book and the Qur’an.
  • Location: in the middle section of the book, within the critique of freezing the time of legislation.
  • Type of basis: close evidence.
  • Sign that helps verification: the theory of limits
  • Reading note: this passage serves as evidence because it links legislation to a system that remains valid across ages, and it is close to the idea that limits are the basis of legislation.

Degree of Documentation

  • Level: directly documented
  • Meaning of the level: the atom is based on an explicit witness close to the wording of the claim.
  • Limits of reading: the wording 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.

Editorial Note

This atom is at the heart of his theory of legislation.

Graph View

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Muhammad Shahrur Atlas