Thesis Summary
Shahrur holds that beauty is not fixed in a single state, but develops with knowledge, consciousness, and history. He also maintains that beauty comes after function, not before it and not in place of it.
Foundational Atoms
Place of Support within the Book
This meaning appears in the later sections of The Book and the Qur’an when he links architecture and aesthetic abstraction to the development of consciousness.
Limits of the Reading
This reading focuses on the sequence of function and beauty, and does not turn it into a judgment on all forms of creativity. It is a brief summary of what Shahrur presents in this section.