What is meant
Shahrur argues that Islamic legislation does not rest on a rigid text so much as on limits defined by the text, including what sets an upper limit within which ijtihad moves. In this way, understanding rulings becomes grounded in the field drawn by the limits, not in the literal wording alone
The Atom’s Structure in the Atlas
- Type of argument: methodological
- Argument movement: makes legislation grounded in the limits of the text, not in its literal wording alone.
- Key terms: boundary-oriented reading, legislation, limits.
- Degree of centrality: primary.
This atom shifts the center of understanding from the apparent sense of the wording to the field drawn by the limits, making ijtihad an internally disciplined movement, neither exceeding the text nor suspending it.
Links that help with reading
- Muhammad Shahrur, The Book and the Qur’an
- the methodology of contemporary reading
- Legal rulings have lower and upper limits
Basis
- Supporting text: «Shahrur presents the boundary-oriented reading of legislation: some texts set an upper limit».
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 is not treated as a verbatim quotation unless the witness is quoted word for word.
Its function in the book
Its function here is definitional; it establishes a meaning or conceptual distinction that Shahrur relies on in constructing the idea.
Related to
Editorial note
This is one of the atoms that most closely represents his overall method.