What is meant
Muhammad Shahrur interprets the Night of Power as a season for proclaiming the Qur’an in Arabic and issuing divine commands not as a magical night based on supernatural signs or wondrous events in this sense, it is linked to the emergence of the Qur’an in Arabic, not to a special temporal sanctity
The atom’s structure in the atlas
- Type of argument: interpretive
- Movement of the argument: interpreting the Night of Power as the season for proclaiming the Qur’an, not as a supernatural night.
- Key terms: the Night of Power, proclaiming the Qur’an, divine commands, Arabic.
- Degree of centrality: pivotal.
It shifts the meaning from a mythical character to a historical function tied to the appearance and proclamation of the text, so the occasion is read within the context of the message, not within the context of temporal sanctity.
Links that help with reading
- Muhammad Shahrur, The Book and the Qur’an
- The Book, the Qur’an, and the Mother of the Book
- The Qur’anic understanding distinguishes between objective law and human choice
Basis
- Supporting text: “It interprets ‘the Night of Power’ as a season for proclaiming the Qur’an in Arabic and issuing divine commands, not as a magical night with supernatural signs.”
The basis in the book
- Book: The Book and the Qur’an.
- Location: in the first section of the book
- Type of basis: close evidence.
- A sign that helps verification: proclaiming the Qur’an in a clear Arabic tongue
- Reading note: this location serves as evidence because it explains the Night of Power as a proclamation of the Qur’an, not as an isolated supernatural event.
Degree of documentation
- Level: directly documented
- Meaning of the level: the atom relies on an explicit witness close to the wording of the claim.
- Limits of the reading: the wording above is an analytical summary, and is not treated as a verbatim quotation unless the witness is quoted textually.
Its function in the book
Its function here is definitional; it establishes a meaning or conceptual distinction that Shahrur relies on in building the idea.
Related to
Editorial note
This atom reflects the author’s tendency to strip the term of its fantastical quality.