What is meant
Shahrur distinguishes between the Qur’an and the Mother of the Book in terms of the addressee to whom guidance is directed. For him, the Qur’an is guidance for all people, whereas the Book, or the Mother of the Book, is connected to the guidance of the Godfearing, who enter the domain of obligation and conduct.
The atom’s structure in the atlas
- Type of argument: definitional.
- Movement of the argument: it uses the difference in addressee as evidence for the difference in domain between the Qur’an and the Book.
- Key terms: the Qur’an, the Book, the Mother of the Book, people, the Godfearing.
- Degree of centrality: central.
This atom helps fix the distinction between the Qur’an as a domain of truths and general guidance, and the Mother of the Book as a domain of commands, prohibitions, and limits received by the Godfearing as a moral agent.
Links that help with reading
- Muhammad Shahrur: The Book and the Qur’an
- the Qur’an
- the Mother of the Book
- the Qur’an and the Mother of the Book
Basis
- Supporting text: the passage relies on Shahrur’s comparison between the Qur’an’s guidance for people and the Book’s guidance for the Godfearing in the context of distinguishing between the two terms.
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 the reading: the formulation above is an analytical summary, not to be treated as a verbatim quotation.
Its function in the book
Its function here is terminological; it makes the difference in addressee part of Shahrur’s argument for rejecting synonymy between the Qur’an and the Book.