What is meant
For him, the report is unseen and concise, and it may relate to the past or the future. As for the account, it is present and detailed, and therefore he does not consider them synonymous.
The atom’s structure in the atlas
- Type of argument: Distinctive
- Argument movement: It distinguishes between the report and the account in terms of the unseen and the present.
- Key terms: report, account, the unseen, the present.
- Degree of centrality: Primary.
It draws a line between two terms that are often confused, and links each of them to a different nature in transmission and knowledge, thereby supporting the rejection of synonymy in revelation.
Links that help with reading
- Muhammad Shahrur: The Book and the Qur’an
- the contemporary reading method
- the report
- the account
- rejection of synonymy among the words of revelation
Basis
- Supporting text: “It explains the difference between “the report” and “the account”: the report is unseen, and may concern the past or the future, and it usually comes in concise form, whereas the account is present and detailed.”
Related verses
Place of the basis in the book
- Book: The Book and the Qur’an.
- Location: Near the beginning of the book, within the distinction between the unseen and what is witnessed.
- Type of basis: Close evidence.
- Marker that helps verification: What happened with Abraham’s guests is unseen.
- Reading note: This passage is suitable as support because the witness explains the report as relating to the unseen and to what has happened or will happen, which is close to the distinction between the report and the account.
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 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 fixes a meaning or conceptual distinction that Shahrur relies on in building the idea.
Related to
Editorial note
An important terminological distinction in the project’s linguistic structure.