Intended Meaning
The decisive verses are not a field for ijtihad; rather, ijtihad applies to their elaboration and application, not to the original verses themselves. For this reason, Shahrur makes human work contingent on clarifying the details associated with the decisive, not on changing its meaning or interpreting it in an ijtihadi way.
The Atom’s Structure in the Atlas
- Type of argument: methodological
- Movement of the argument: it distinguishes between the stability of the decisive and the field of ijtihad in explaining it.
- Central terms: the decisive, ijtihad, elaboration, application.
- Degree of centrality: primary.
This establishes a basic reading rule in Shahrur: the original principle is fixed, and ijtihad takes place in elaboration and clarification, not in changing the original sense of the text.
Links that help with reading
- Muhammad Shahrur, Mother of the Book and Its Elaboration
- the methodology of contemporary reading
- the decisive
- The Qur’anic narratives fall within the cognitive dimension, not legislation
Basis
- Supporting text: “The decisive verses are not a field for ijtihad; rather, elaboration within them is the field of ijtihad.”
Basis in the Book
- Book: Mother of the Book and Its Elaboration.
- Location: near the beginning of the book, within the discussion of the decisive and the ambiguous and the limits of interpretation.
- Type of basis: close witness.
- Marker that helps verification: the decisive
- Reading note: this passage is suitable because it distinguishes between the domain of definitiveness and the domain of ijtihad, and it is close to the atom’s idea of fixing the locus of judgment.
Degree of Documentation
- Level: directly documented
- Meaning of the level: the atom is based on an explicit witness close to the wording 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 transmitted word for word.
Its Function in the Book
Its function here is definitional; it fixes a meaning or conceptual distinction that Shahrur relies on in building the idea.
Related to
Editorial note
It is necessary to avoid any impression that ijtihad negates stability.