What is meant
He argues that the word “the Devil” is used in two senses: one meaning related to human thought as illusion, and another outside human awareness as a strange or remote material existent. Therefore, he insists on distinguishing between the two uses when reading texts.
The Atom’s Structure in the Atlas
- Type of argument: distinguishing
- Argument movement: It distinguishes between two uses of the Devil within the texts.
- Key terms: the Devil, two uses, human thought, awareness.
- Degree of centrality: central.
It prevents gathering the meaning into a single sense and gives the word “the Devil” two distinct domains. This distinction opens the reading to both the mental dimension and the extra-textual dimension.
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 Qur’an and the Mother of the Book
Basis
- Supporting text: “It distinguishes between two meanings of the devils: devils in human thought, and devils outside human awareness, and sees the necessity of distinguishing between them in the texts.”
Place of the basis in the book
- Book: The Book and the Qur’an.
- Location: in the final section of the book within the theory of human knowledge.
- Type of basis: close evidence.
- Verification marker: the term was identified: the Merciful, the Devil
- Reading note: This location is suitable because it mentions defining the term “the Devil” at the levels of human awareness, which is close to the idea of multiple uses.
Degree of documentation
- Level: structurally documented
- Meaning of the level: the atom relies on more than one piece of evidence or on a clear composition of closely related expressions.
- Reason for classification: It was stated explicitly that the Devil has two uses, with a distinction between the meanings.
- Reading limits: The formulation above is an analytical summary and should not be treated as a verbatim quotation unless the evidence is quoted textually.
Its function in the book
Its function here is definitional; it fixes a meaning or conceptual distinction on which Shahrur relies in building the idea.
Related to
Editorial note
The atom is interpretive and remains contingent on reading the two uses.