What Is Meant
What is meant is that the enactment of legislation is not the prerogative of an individual or a religious authority; rather, it falls within the competence of elected or legislative councils This makes that competence tied to political and institutional representation within the state
The Atom’s Structure in the Atlas
- Type of argument: Political
- Argument movement: It assigns legislation to elected councils, not to the individual or the religious institution.
- Central terms: legislation, elected councils, state, political representation.
- Degree of centrality: Primary.
This atom transfers legislation from the hand of the individual authority to the elected institutional sphere, and links it to political representation within the civil state.
Links to Support Reading
- Muhammad Shahrur Religion and Authority
- The Civil State, Religion, and Authority
- Jurisprudence Is Historical and Civil Law Is Separate from It
Basis
- Supporting text: “while legislation is the prerogative of elected or legislative councils.”
Place of the Basis in the Book
- Book: Religion and Authority.
- Location: in the final section of the book
- Type of basis: Close attestation.
- Verification marker: within the prerogative of legislative authority
- Reading note: This passage is suitable as support because it states that legislation issues from elected legislative councils, not from jurists.
Degree of Documentation
- Level: Directly documented
- Meaning of the level: The atom is grounded in a clear 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 reproduced word for word.
Its Function in the Book
Its function here is definitional; it fixes a meaning or conceptual distinction on which Shahrur relies in building the idea.
Related to
Editorial Note
Very important in clarifying the place of law within the state.