Intended Meaning
This meaning holds that prohibition is the exclusive prerogative of God alone, and that the Messenger has no right to establish prohibitions on his own. The Messenger’s role here is to convey what God has forbidden, not to engage in independent legislation.
The Atom’s Structure in the Atlas
- Type of argument: Legislative
- Movement of the argument: Restricts prohibition to God and makes the Messenger a conveyer, not an independent legislator.
- Key terms: prohibition, Messenger, conveying, legislation.
- Degree of centrality: Primary.
This atom confines the authority to prohibit to God alone, and prevents the station of messengership from becoming a source of independent legislation, while keeping the Messenger in the function of conveyance.
Links That Help with Reading
- Muhammad Shahrur: The Mother of the Book and Its Elaboration
- Legislation, Limits, and Prohibition
- prohibition
- Messenger
- Reclassifying the Book and the Mother of the Book Organizes the Structure and Functions of the Qur’anic Text
Basis
- Supporting text: “It affirms that prohibition is a purely divine right, and that the Messenger is not an independent legislator but a conveyor of what God has forbidden.”
Location of the Basis in the Book
- Book: The Mother of the Book and Its Elaboration.
- Location: At the beginning of the book, within the response to discussions of the writing of revelation.
- Type of basis: Near witness.
- Mark that helps verification: يملِي عليه
- Reading note: This location is suitable as evidence because the witness focuses on the Messenger’s role in dictation, study, and correction, and is close to being a conveyer rather than an independent legislator.
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 transmitted textually.
Its Function in the Book
Its function here is declarative; it establishes a result on which what follows in the course of the argument depends.
Related to
Editorial Note
This atom serves to define the limits of legislative authority.