Evidence location: Muhammad Shahrur, The Book and the Quran; Page 540؛ OCR line 12451. Arabic source witness: «لا يوجد شيء اسمه الشريعة الإسلامية، ولكن يوجد شيء اسمه حدود الله “نظرية الحدود”»
Intended Meaning
This entry presents limits as legislative constants that define the scope of ijtihad, rather than presenting ijtihad as an unrestricted field. The evidence establishes that these limits include a lower limit and an upper limit, without further detail on how to operate between them.
What Is Attributed to Shahrur
Shahrur defines “limits” as “the legislative constants that define the scope of ijtihad,” and states that they include “the lower limit, the upper limit, and others.”
Atlas Explanation
This is a definitional atom: its focus is the meaning of “limits” and their relation to the scope of ijtihad. By itself, it does not establish a list of the rulings in which limits operate, nor the forms of application for each limit.
Conclusion
The connection between limits and the scope of ijtihad indicates that, in this conception, ijtihad takes place within legislative constraints rather than outside them. The details of this scope, or the rules for choosing within it, cannot be inferred from the evidence alone.
Open Question and Limits of the Evidence
What other limits does the text indicate through the expression “and others”? And how does Shahrur explain the mechanisms of application between the lower limit and the upper limit? This requires evidence broader than the text available here.
The location of the attached evidence is general (“in the middle section of the book”), and its raw field is unavailable; therefore, no more precise specification is added without verification.