Meaning
Shahrur holds that Mecca is a special ritual case as the “Mother of Cities,” rather than a city suited to serve as the political center of a civil state. For him, it has a singular religious function, whereas a civil capital requires a space capacious enough to accommodate plurality within political unity.
Atom Structure in the Atlas
- Argument type: political.
- Argument movement: Mecca is a special ritual site, not a civil center of the state.
- Central terms: Mecca, the Mother of Cities, the capital, the civil state.
- Degree of centrality: foundational.
The atom establishes a distinction between ritual and political functions, placing the sacred place outside the logic of the civil capital, which requires pluralistic capaciousness.
Links That Aid Reading
- Muhammad Shahrur: State and Society
- The Civil State, Religion, and Authority
- The Civil State
- The People and the State Translate Plurality within Political Unity
Evidence
- Supporting text: “The passage links the understanding of the village/city to the emergence of tyranny or pluralism, and presents Mecca as an exceptional case, as the ‘Mother of Cities,’ with a singular ritual function that makes it unsuitable as the capital of a civil state.”
Location of Evidence in the Book
- Book: State and Society.
- Location: in the first section of the book, within the discussion of the Mother of Cities and the civil state.
- Type of evidence: direct textual witness.
- Verification marker: unsuitable to be the capital of a civil state.
- Reading note: this location is appropriate because it explicitly states that Mecca is a ritual zone unsuitable as the capital of a civil state, which is the core of the intended atom.
Degree of Documentation
- Level: directly documented.
- Meaning of the level: the atom rests on an explicit textual 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 reproduced textually.
Function in the Book
Its function here is declarative: it establishes a conclusion upon which the subsequent course of the argument depends.