What is meant
Muhammad Shahrur holds that the two sciences of the circumstances of revelation and of the abrogating and abrogated are not among the original sciences of the Qur’an, but rather later historical sciences that entered into exegesis. He considers them a cause of turning the Qur’anic text into a gradual, phase-bound text and of reducing its universality.
The atom’s structure in the atlas
- Type of argument: critical
- Movement of the argument: it treats the circumstances of revelation and the abrogating and abrogated as historical additions, not as a Qur’anic basis.
- Key terms: circumstances of revelation, the abrogating and the abrogated, alien historical sciences, the universality of the text.
- Degree of centrality: central.
This atom works to strip sanctity from later interpretive tools and returns the text to its universality instead of confining it within a limited historical circumstance.
Links that help with reading
- Muhammad Shahrur: Toward New Foundations for Islamic Jurisprudence
- Critique of heritage, jurisprudence, and exegesis
- Circumstances of revelation
- The abrogating and the abrogated
- Avoidance is not equivalent to prohibition
Basis
- Supporting text: “What are called ‘circumstances of revelation’ and ‘the abrogating and the abrogated’ are presented as alien historical sciences that contributed to turning the Qur’anic text into a phase-bound text and weakening its universality.”
Location of the basis in the book
- Book: Toward New Foundations for Islamic Jurisprudence.
- Location: early in the book, within his discussion of the abrogating and the abrogated and the occasions of revelation.
- Type of basis: close witness.
- Marker that helps verification: alien historical science
- Reading note: the passage is suitable as support because it describes these discussions as alien historical sciences and explains their effect on understanding.
Degree of documentation
- Level: directly documented
- Meaning of the level: the atom relies on an explicit witness close to the wording of the claim.
- Limits of reading: the formulation 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 establishes a meaning or conceptual distinction that Shahrur relies on in building the idea.
Related to
Editorial note
The atom is a critique of the method of exegesis, not of the existence of history itself.