Reading, Language, and Rhetoric
Formulation of the Claim
The Qur’an is understood through a careful differentiation among terms, because rejecting synonymy is the foundation of reading, and language in it is a semantic structure rather than verbal ornamentation.
Why are these elements brought together?
This cluster brings together Shahrur’s principles of reading: rejecting synonymy, distinguishing between bayān (clarification) and balāgh (communication), between inzāl and tanzīl, between letters and syllables, and between the eye and sight. It is an interpretive method that insists every Qur’anic term has a specific function. For this reason, the linguistic and conceptual elements that build his understanding of the text are gathered here. It also includes the view of the Qur’an as a text whose meaning is continually renewed, not read as a dead text.
Elements of the cluster
- Rejecting synonymy is a foundation of reading
- The governing principle is the rejection of synonymy
- Rhetoric is not padding but conveyance
- Clarification is distinct from conveyance
- Inzāl and tanzīl are not synonymous
- Distinguishing between inzāl and tanzīl
- Remembrance is the spoken form of tanzīl
- Al-dhikr is the sonic form of the Book
- The disjointed letters are not letters but phonetic syllables
- The seven oft-repeated are the openings of the surahs
- The seven oft-repeated are not only al-Fatiha
- The seven oft-repeated are not the entire Qur’an
- The seven oft-repeated are associated with the number of 11 sounds
- The seven oft-repeated are associated with a total of 19 surahs
- One verse carries an entire topic
- The separator within a verse indicates a change of topic
- Elaboration explains the decisive
- The older commentaries are not sufficient on their own
- Juristic interpretation is a human production
- Contemporary reading is not an epistemic rupture
- The mushaf is the complete written revelation
- The Book means the gathering of elements into an equation
- The Qur’an is a Book of paired resemblances
- The Qur’an addresses topics, not surahs as a single block
- The Qur’an is not understood through materialism alone
Placement of the cluster in the episodes
In episodes 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12
Summary
This group represents Shahrur’s linguistic-interpretive method, based on a strict differentiation between words, meanings, and Qur’anic structures.