Intended Meaning
Muhammad Shahrur holds that kufr is not a fixed or absolute description; rather, it is a stance, behavior, or statement that changes according to its subject and context. Therefore, it may not be casually applied to people, nor turned into a tool of authority for judging individuals.
The Atom’s Structure in the Atlas
- Type of argument: Critical
- Argument movement: It understands kufr as a contextual concept, not a fixed judgment on persons.
- Key terms: kufr, contextual, authority, absolutizing.
- Degree of centrality: Primary.
It limits generalization in the use of kufr and prevents it from becoming an instrument of exclusion, thus linking religious understanding to the responsibility of interpretation and the limits of discourse about people.
Links to Help with Reading
- Muhammad Shahrur: The Book and the Qur’an
- Islam, Faith, and Righteous Deeds
- kufr
- Kufr and shirk are contextual concepts, not tools of authority
Basis
- Supporting text: “He affirms that the concepts of kufr and shirk are variable and contextual, and that it is not permissible to apply them to people arbitrarily or to turn them into a tool of authority.”
Location of the Basis in the Book
- Book: The Book and the Qur’an.
- Location: in the middle section of the book
- Type of basis: Nearby evidence.
- Verification marker: absence of abrogation
- Reading note: This location is suitable evidence because it speaks of the absence of abrogation and points to concepts related to context and development.
Degree of Documentation
- Level: Structurally documented
- Meaning of the level: The atom relies on more than one piece of evidence, or on a clear combination of closely related phrases.
- Reason for classification: The evidence explicitly confirms the changeability and contextuality of kufr.
- Limits of reading: The formulation above is an analytical summary and should not be treated as a verbatim quotation unless the evidence is quoted verbatim.
Its Function in the Book
Its function here is definitional; it sets out a meaning or conceptual distinction on which Shahrur relies in building the idea.
Related to
Editorial Note
These are among the foundational atoms in the conceptual map.