Intended meaning
Shahrur rejects the traditional common meaning of the word «shahid» as one who is killed in the cause of belief, and he sees it as a late meaning that entered Islamic culture from the Christian milieu and from narratives. He emphasizes that this usage is not from the Wise Revelation, but from a later cultural understanding.
The atom’s structure in the atlas
- Type of argument: Critical
- Movement of the argument: It overturns the traditional common meaning of shahid and considers it late.
- Key terms: shahid, traditional meaning, Revelation.
- Degree of centrality: Central.
This atom removes the word from its inherited common meaning and returns it to an earlier horizon closer to the Revelation, thereby changing the way shahada and the shuhada are read.
Links that help with reading
Basis
- Supporting text: «He rejects the common traditional meaning of the word «shahid» as one who is killed in the cause of belief, and holds that it is a later meaning that entered Islamic culture from the Christian environment and from reports, not from the Wise Revelation».
Place of the basis in the book
- Book: Islam and Faith.
- Location: In the middle section of the book, within the critique of inherited meanings.
- Type of basis: Direct evidence.
- Verification marker: It does not occur at all in the Wise Revelation.
- Reading note: This passage is suitable because it denies that the meaning of shahid as one killed in the path of God comes from the Revelation itself, and attributes it to a later development.
Degree of documentation
- Level: Directly documented
- Meaning of the level: The atom rests on a clear witness close to the formulation of the claim.
- Limits of reading: The formulation 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 declarative; it establishes a result on which what follows in the course of the argument depends.
Links
Editorial note
Directly related to the study of the Qur’anic term.