Intended Meaning
Shahrur holds that wine and gambling did not appear in the Qur’anic text as items that were prohibited from the outset, but rather as things forbidden because of the sin and benefits contained in them. As for describing them as impurity, this indicates a state of ambiguity that requires avoidance, not absolute prohibition.
The Atom’s Structure in the Atlas
- Type of argument: legislative
- Argument movement: distinguishes between the Qur’anic prohibition and categorical prohibition in wine and gambling.
- Key terms: wine, gambling, prohibition, prohibition.
- Degree of centrality: central.
It serves a broader construction that distinguishes between levels of discourse in the text, and it leads the reader to understand rulings on the basis of prohibition and avoidance rather than absolute prohibition.
Links that help with reading
- Muhammad Shahrur: Religion and Authority
- Legislation, Limits, and Prohibition
- Prohibition
- The Qur’anic prohibitions are fixed, whereas prohibition is left to human reasoning
Basis
- Supporting text: “Wine and gambling were not prohibited from the outset in the verse of al-Baqarah, but were forbidden because of the sin and benefits contained in them, whereas ‘impurity’ in al-Ma’idah points to the ambiguity that requires avoidance, not absolute prohibition.”
Place of the citation in the book
- Book: Religion and Authority.
- Location: in the first section of the book
- Type of citation: close evidence.
- Marker that helps verification: فيه إثماً كبيراً ومنافع
- Reading note: This location is suitable as support because it explains wine and gambling as things forbidden, with a detailed account of the verses’ position, and it is close to the atom’s formulation.
Degree of documentation
- Level: directly documented
- Meaning of the level: the atom relies on an explicit witness close to the wording of the claim.
- Reading limits: the wording above is an analytical summary and should not be treated as a verbatim quotation unless the witness is quoted verbatim.
Its function in the book
Its function here is definitional; it fixes a meaning or conceptual distinction that Shahrur relies on in building the idea.
Related to
Editorial note
The atom depends on a precise interpretive reading, so it must be linked to the concept of prohibitions in the sequence.