What is meant
What is meant is that prohibition is not within the state’s jurisdiction, but within religion’s jurisdiction As for the state, its function is to regulate and prohibit through law in the public sphere, not to declare people’s actions forbidden or permitted
The atom’s structure in the atlas
- Type of argument: political
- Movement of the argument: separates the function of religion from the function of the state in the public sphere.
- Key terms: the state, prohibition, law, public sphere.
- Degree of centrality: pivotal.
It defines the state’s domain as regulatory rather than doctrinal, and prevents it from claiming religious authority over consciences, thereby affirming the difference between civil law and devotional judgment.
Links that help with reading
- Muhammad Shahrur Islam and Humanity
- The civil state, religion, and authority
- prohibition
- The civil state regulates the public sphere by law, not by religious prohibition
Grounding
- Supporting text: “For religion forbids, commands, and forbids again, whereas the state regulates and prevents and does not possess the power of prohibition.”
Location of the grounding in the book
- Book: Islam and Humanity.
- Location: in the early parts of the book
- Type of grounding: close evidence.
- Verification marker: religion forbids… whereas the state commands, prohibits, and prevents
- Reading note: this passage is suitable as evidence because it directly distinguishes between what religion does and what the state does, and states explicitly that prohibition is not within the state’s jurisdiction.
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 cited verbatim.
Its function in the book
Its function here is definitional; it establishes a meaning or conceptual distinction that Shahrur relies on in building the idea.
Related to
Editorial note
This atom places a limit on the state’s domination over religious meaning.