Meaning
Muhammad Shahrur holds that the disciplines of the occasions of revelation and the abrogating and abrogated are not among the original sciences of the Qur’an, but rather later historical disciplines that entered Qur’anic exegesis. He regards them as having transformed the Qur’anic text into a time-bound text and curtailed its universality.
The Atom’s Structure in the Atlas
- Type of argument: critical.
- Argument movement: He regards the occasions of revelation and abrogation as historical additions rather than Qur’anic foundations.
- Central terms: occasions of revelation, the abrogating and abrogated, extraneous historical disciplines, universality of the text.
- Degree of centrality: central.
This atom works to deprive later exegetical tools of their sacral status and restores the text to its universality rather than confining it to a limited historical circumstance.
Links That Aid Reading
- Muhammad Shahrur: Toward New Foundations of Islamic Jurisprudence
- Critique of Heritage, Jurisprudence, and Exegesis
- Occasions of Revelation
- The Abrogating and Abrogated
- Avoidance Does Not Equal Prohibition
Evidence
- Supporting text: “What are called the ‘occasions of revelation’ and the ‘abrogating and abrogated’ are presented as extraneous historical disciplines that contributed to transforming the Qur’anic text into a time-bound text and weakening its universality.”
Location of Evidence in the Book
- Book: Toward New Foundations of Islamic Jurisprudence.
- Location: At the beginning of the book, in his discussion of the abrogating and abrogated and the circumstances of revelation.
- Type of evidence: close textual witness.
- Verification aid: extraneous historical discipline
- Reading note: This passage serves as evidence because it characterizes these fields as extraneous historical disciplines and explains their effect on understanding.
Degree of Documentation
- Level: directly documented
- Meaning of the level: The atom rests on an explicit textual witness close to the formulation 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 directly.
Its Function in the Book
Its function here is definitional: it establishes a meaning or conceptual distinction on which Shahrur relies in developing the idea.
Related To
Note to the Reader
The atom is a critique of the methodology of exegesis, not of the existence of history itself.