Evidence location: Muhammad Shahrur, Islam and the Human Being; section المواطنة والولاء للإسلام؛ OCR line 1530. Arabic source witness: «وبما أنّ الولاء للإسلام ولاء للقيم الإنسانية، فهو أوّل الولاءات»
What Is Meant
What is meant here is not a comprehensive definition of Islam, but rather an explanation of the meaning of “allegiance to Islam” in a specific formulation: allegiance to it, in its value-based meaning, is allegiance to human values.
What Is Attributed to Shahrur
In Islam and the Human Being, it is stated: “Allegiance to Islam, in its value-based meaning, is allegiance to human values.”
In another passage addressing the relationship among religious communities, he says that this relationship rests on “mutual respect founded on respect for the religious and intellectual freedom of every religious community.”
Atlas Explanation
The phrase “in its value-based meaning” delimits the scope of the claim: it speaks of allegiance from the perspective of human values, not of all the meanings of the term Islam in the book. The mention of freedom in the other passage also establishes the presence of religious and intellectual freedom in his discussion of relations among religious communities, but it does not make freedom, without clearer evidence, the foremost value in the definition cited.
Conclusion
The two passages may be connected cautiously: the first presents a value-based criterion for allegiance, while the second presents respect for religious and intellectual freedom as one of the principles governing relations among religious communities. This is an interpretive connection, not a complete list of human values or a ranking among them.
Open Question
Which human values does Shahrur include under this meaning, and does he state elsewhere that freedom is the foremost among them? This requires additional evidence from a specific passage.
For the broader context: Muhammad Shahrur: Islam and the Human Being, Islam, Faith, and Righteous Deeds, Islam, Freedom.