What is meant
Shahrur criticizes traditional rigidity, which has petrified the old understanding and turned the knowledge of the ancestors into a final standard. He sees this sanctification as blocking development and leading to civilizational and epistemic marginalization. For that reason, he calls for overcoming this rigidity in order to restore effectiveness.
The atom’s structure in the atlas
- Type of argument: critical
- Movement of the argument: it links civilizational marginalization to the rigidity of the old understanding.
- Central terms: traditional rigidity, marginalization, old understanding, sanctification.
- Degree of centrality: pivotal.
It offers a civilizational critique that assigns traditional rigidity responsibility for blocking development, and it opens the way to a call to move beyond the inherited tradition as a final standard.
Links that help with reading
- Muhammad Shahrur, The Mother of the Book and Its Elaboration
- Critique of Heritage, Jurisprudence, and Exegesis
Basis
- Supporting text: «He criticizes the traditional rigidity that petrified the old understanding and made the knowledge of the ancestors a final standard, and he sees this rigidity as one of the causes of civilizational and epistemic marginalization».
Place of support in the book
- Book: The Mother of the Book and Its Elaboration.
- Location: at the beginning of the book
- Type of support: close witness.
- Marker that helps verification: sanctifying the knowledge of the ancestors
- Reading note: the text criticizes the sanctification of the ancestors’ knowledge and links it to marginalization; it is thus a suitable close support for the atom.
Degree of documentation
- Level: directly documented
- Meaning of the level: the atom rests on an explicit witness close to the formulation of the claim.
- Limits of reading: the formulation above is an analytical summary and should not be treated as a verbatim quotation unless the witness is quoted word for word.
Its function in the book
Its function here is argumentative; it supports a larger conclusion in the chapter or prepares for it.
Editorial note
It is preferable not to exaggerate the civilizational judgment beyond the limits of the atom.