Intended meaning
Muhammad Shahrur distinguishes the form “do not approach” from others according to the distance from the forbidden act. For him, it indicates a prohibition against direct approach to something that can be reached, not merely leaving it from afar.
The atom’s structure in the atlas
- Type of argument: interpretive
- Movement of the argument: distinguishing the meaning of the prohibition according to whether the prohibited matter is near or far.
- Key terms: do not approach, nearness, distance.
- Degree of centrality: central.
An interpretation of the prohibitive form from within language, not from outside it; in this way, the meaning is tied to the act’s distance from prohibition. This opens the way to a more precise understanding of forms of prohibition.
Links that help with reading
- Muhammad Shahrur Toward New Foundations for Islamic Jurisprudence
- Legislation, limits, and prohibition
- Avoidance is not equal to prohibition
Basis
- Supporting text: “He يرى that the difference between them is subtle and linked to the nearness of the prohibited matter or its distance.”
Where the basis appears in the book
- Book: Toward New Foundations for Islamic Jurisprudence.
- Location: in the first section of the book
- Type of basis: close evidence.
- Verification cue: the proximity of qāf, rāʾ, and bāʾ
- Reading note: the passage explains the meaning of approach and distance in the wording, thus serving the atom concerned with the meaning of direct proximity.
Degree of documentation
- Level: directly documented
- Meaning of the level: the atom is based 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 verbatim.
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.
Related to
Editorial note
The atom reorders linguistic meaning in an analytical manner.