Passage cited: The Qur’an in Contemporary Thought, p. 26.
What does the atom record?
The available evidence, not found in the raw text, records the following claim: that the Muhammadan message abolished forms of traditional religious and political authority, and that political legitimacy derives from people through allegiance, rather than from direct divine authorization. This wording is preserved in the evidence record; it is not a quotation that can here be attributed to a specific location in the book’s text.
What does the available raw text establish?
On p. 26, in discussing punishments, Shahrur states: “3. Punishments: possibilities and options were laid down for them, most clearly through the theory of limits, which established the contours of the range within which punishments fluctuate between lower and upper limits, leaving the task of interpretation to human beings through legislative parliaments.”
This establishes the attribution of a legislative sphere to human interpretation through parliaments in matters of punishments, but the cited passage itself does not state that allegiance is the source of political legitimacy, nor does it compare it with direct divine authorization.
Limit of the conclusion
The available passage on legislative parliaments cannot be turned into proof of the claim concerning allegiance and political legitimacy. The central claim requires a raw passage that explicitly mentions allegiance, legitimacy, or divine authorization. See Muhammad Shahrur Quran in Contemporary Thought, The Civil State, Religion, and Authority, and The plural civil system is the alternative to religious and political monopoly.
The plural civil system is the alternative to religious and political monopoly