Intended meaning
Shahrur sees the Qur’anic text as a fixed entity that does not change, whereas human understanding of it has a changing historical becoming. Therefore, rulings in human consciousness are not final in themselves, but are affected by the conditions of reading and knowledge across time. From here, he calls for a contemporary reading of the Wise Revelation that distinguishes between the text itself and people’s understanding of it.
The atom’s structure in the atlas
- Type of argument: methodological
- Movement of the argument: it affirms the text and makes human understanding historically variable.
- Key terms: the Qur’anic text, fixed, understanding, changeable.
- Degree of centrality: pivotal.
It establishes a decisive distinction between the fixity of the text and the becoming of understanding, and thus does not attribute rigidity to interpretation. This distinction opens the door to a contemporary reading without touching the origin of the text.
Links that help with reading
- Muhammad Shahrur: Toward New Principles for Islamic Jurisprudence
- The method of contemporary reading
Basis
- Supporting text: “He calls for a contemporary reading of the Wise Revelation, while distinguishing between the being of the divine text and the becoming of historical human understanding.”
Place of the basis in the book
- Book: Toward New Principles for Islamic Jurisprudence.
- Location: in the early part of the book
- Type of basis: proximate evidence.
- Verification marker: the Qur’anic text is an entity in itself
- Reading note: the passage explicitly states that the Qur’anic text is fixed in itself, and that understanding is the historically changing element, which is the essence of the atom.
Degree of documentation
- Level: structurally documented
- Meaning of the level: the atom rests on more than one witness, or on a clear composition of close expressions.
- Reason for classification: the witnesses explicitly state the fixity of the text and the becoming of the changing human understanding.
- Limits of reading: the formulation above is an analytical summary, and is not 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 on which Shahrur relies in building the idea.
Editorial note
The atom summarizes the duality between fixity and transformation.