What is meant
For him, the city is not merely a geographical place; rather, it is the society that is based on plurality and difference It stands in contrast to the village as a monolithic society, and therefore it is associated more with freedom and openness than with closure
The atom’s structure in the atlas
- Type of claim: definitional
- Movement of the claim: the city is understood as a society based on plurality, not monolithic uniformity.
- Central terms: city, pluralistic society, village, difference, openness.
- Degree of centrality: subsidiary.
This establishes Shahrur’s meaning of the city as a social structure founded on difference, and links this meaning to freedom and openness rather than closure and enforced similarity.
Links that help with reading
- Muhammad Shahrur Qur’an in Contemporary Thought
- The civil state, religion, and power
- Plurality is a Qur’anic condition for development, whereas monism produces destruction and tyranny
Basis
- Supporting text: “The city: the pluralistic society.”
Place of the basis in the book
- Book: The Qur’an in Contemporary Thought.
- Location: within the treatment of the definition of the city in the first section of the book
- Type of basis: close witness.
- Marker that helps verification: the city as a pluralistic society
- Reading note: This passage is suitable as support because it defines the city as a society based on plurality and acceptance of opposition.
Degree of documentation
- Level: directly documented
- Meaning of the level: the atom rests on an explicit witness close to the wording of the claim.
- Limits of reading: the wording above is an analytical summary and should not be treated as a verbatim quotation unless the witness is transmitted 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
This atom is close to the previous one and performs a parallel explanatory function.