What Is Meant
What is meant here is not that taʾwīl is a name for every kind of interpretation; rather, it is a practice specific to Muhammad Shahrur, Mother of the Book and Its Elaboration. The witness connects it to referring the text back to the objective truth or rational law that it expresses.
What Is Attributed to Shahrur
The witness states that taʾwīl is confined to the ambiguous and identifies its attributed aim: referring the text back to the objective truth or rational law that it expresses.
For reading in the context of the book: the contemporary reading method.
Atlas Explanation
The Atlas understands from this restriction that “taʾwīl” is not a general label for all interpretive work, but the name of a practice with a specific scope. The claim about taʾwīl here should therefore be read alongside the entry interpretation and the entry the ambiguous, without assuming that the two terms encompass every form of exposition or understanding.
Conclusion
This restriction directs the question of reading first to the type of text: is the discussion concerned with the ambiguous in the sense intended here? This is an organizational inference from the wording of the witness, not a complete, detailed description of the method of taʾwīl.
For the related path concerning the distinction between types of text: The distinction between the definitive and the ambiguous methodically distributes ijtihad and interpretation, and Mother of the Book and Its Elaboration.
Open Question
How does Shahrur determine in practice the “objective truth” or “rational law” to which the text is referred? The available witness does not answer this, nor is it sufficient on its own to detail what corresponds to taʾwīl in The distinction between the definitive and the ambiguous methodically distributes ijtihad and interpretation.