What is meant
The author sees the problems of Islamic knowledge as not stemming from the texts themselves, but from the old tools of inference that were applied to them. Thus, the real obstacle is the old way of understanding, not revelation itself. From here, he calls for renewing the tools of understanding in a way that suits the present.
The atom’s structure in the atlas
- Type of argument: critical
- Movement of the argument: It refers the stalling of Islamic knowledge to old tools of understanding, not to the text itself.
- Key terms: Islamic knowledge, tools of inference, renewal, understanding.
- Degree of centrality: central.
This atom shifts the critique from the text to the tools used to read it, making the problem one of the historical method of understanding rather than of revelation, and opening the door to revisiting the cognitive tools.
Links to help with reading
- Muhammad Shahrur Religion and Authority
- Critique of heritage, jurisprudence, and exegesis
- Renascence requires a break with cognitive despotism
Basis
- Supporting text: “The problems of Islamic knowledge go back to the old tools of inference.”
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 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 argumentative; it supports a larger conclusion in the chapter or prepares for it.
Related to
Editorial note
The wording is summarizing and should not be taken as a quotation.