What is meant
The author divides Muhammad’s station into the station of messengership and the station of prophethood The station of messengership concerns legislation and organization, whereas the station of prophethood is concerned with the unseen, knowledge, and reports
The Atom’s Structure in the Atlas
- Type of argument: interpretive
- Movement of the argument: it makes prophethood a domain of the unseen and knowledge.
- Key terms: prophethood, the unseen, reports.
- Degree of centrality: secondary.
This atom assigns the meaning of prophethood to the realm of reports and hidden knowledge, thereby preventing its direct transfer to the authority of legislation or organization.
Links that help with reading
- Muhammad Shahrur Toward New Foundations for Islamic Jurisprudence
- The Sunna between Messengership and Prophethood
- Prophethood
- Distinguishing between the Station of Messengership and the Station of Prophethood
Basis
- Supporting text: “It divides Muhammad’s station into the station of messengership and the station of prophethood: messengership for legislation and organization, and prophethood for the unseen and knowledge.”
Place of the basis in the book
- Book: Toward New Foundations for Islamic Jurisprudence.
- Location: in the first section of the book
- Type of basis: nearby evidence.
- Mark that helps verification: the verses of prophethood and the verses of messengership
- Reading note: this location is suitable as evidence because it distinguishes between the verses of prophethood and the verses of messengership in terms of function and meaning.
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 wording 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 sets the meaning of a concept or distinction on which Shahrur relies in constructing the idea.
Related to
Editorial note
The atom complements the previous atom in distinguishing between the two stations.