Intended Meaning
This statement does not present freedom as a secondary right; rather, it places it at the head of the hierarchy of objectives: it is “the supreme value” and the proposed first objective. This passage does not establish a comprehensive account of all the implications of this ordering.
What Is Attributed to Shahrur
The cited passage criticizes the concept of “the objectives of the Sharia” as formulated by jurisprudence, maintaining that many of its alleged objectives are “human rights and public freedoms that the state and society must safeguard.” It then makes freedom the supreme value and proposes it as the first objective in place of the traditional preservation objectives, “especially in religion, expression, and choice.”
Elsewhere in the book, he states that faith is not valid unless it arises from “voluntary conviction and consent,” and he asks rhetorically whether enjoining what is right can be done with a stick and forbidding what is wrong with a whip. This establishes a rejection of coercion in this context.
Atlas Explanation
“The first objective” here expresses a hierarchy of values within a critique of the traditional formulation of objectives: the cited passage contrasts freedom with “the traditional preservation objectives” and does not merely include it in a list of rights. The mention of religion, expression, and choice identifies the fields highlighted by the passage, without making them synonymous or defining each independently.
For further discussion: Freedom and Freedom, the Human Being, and Responsibility.
Conclusion
This passage may be read as shifting the center of gravity in discussion of objectives: from the traditional list of preservation objectives to the priority of freedom. This is an inference drawn from the organization of the statement and its connection to its explicit critique, not an account of a complete theory of objectives.
Open Question and Limits of the Reading
The available evidence is insufficient to determine how the remaining objectives are ordered after freedom, or to specify the consequences of this ordering in every area of jurisprudence. Nor does it support the claim that preservation of religion, in his view, is equivalent to safeguarding freedom of belief and the practice of rituals, or that it entails a specific ruling concerning those who leave the religion.
Book context: Muhammad Shahrur: Draining the Sources of Terrorism.