Location of the quotation: The Qur’an in Contemporary Thought, p. 26.
What Shahrur says
Shahrur says: «No one may monopolize the right to prohibit or legislate in God’s name; for declaring things lawful and forbidden is among God’s exclusive prerogatives.»
Thus, the documented claim is directed against humans claiming the authority to prohibit or legislate as a divine authority.
Atlas explanation
The qualification in the statement—“in God’s name”—means that it should not be turned into an absolute denial of all human legislation. The other cited text states that punishments vary between limits, “leaving the task of exercising judgment in this regard to human beings through legislative parliaments.”
The page therefore preserves an analytical distinction between declaring things lawful and forbidden as attributed to God, and human judgment in the domain that the text identifies for punishments. This does not mean that the two terms are synonymous or that their detailed boundaries are fully established by these two quotations.
Qualified conclusion
More precisely, the atom should be formulated as a denial of monopolizing the authority to prohibit and legislate in God’s name, rather than as a general denial of human legislative action; in the other quotation, Shahrur assigns legislative parliaments a role in exercising judgment concerning punishments.
Open question
What detailed criterion distinguishes, in this book, between the judgment of legislative parliaments and the rejected legislation described as legislation “in God’s name”? The evidence available here does not specify this criterion beyond the example of punishments.
Reading aids
- Muhammad Shahrur Quran in Contemporary Thought
- Legislation, limits, and prohibition
- Prohibition
- Islam, for Shahrur, is a pluralistic value framework, not a coercive ritual system
The Qur’an in Contemporary Thought · Islam, for Shahrur, is a pluralistic value framework, not a coercive ritual system