What is Meant
Shahrur holds that the text was revealed in the dialect of Quraysh, and that the difference in recitations was not in the original written text but in the oral transmission. Accordingly, he links the unity of the written muṣḥaf to the original language in which the revelation came down
The Atom’s Structure in the Atlas
- Type of argument: Historical
- Movement of the argument: The unity of the text is linked to the language of its revelation, not to the multiplicity of oral transmissions.
- Central terms: the dialect of Quraysh, the muṣḥaf, the recitations, oral transmission, unity of the text.
- Degree of centrality: Pivotal.
This atom establishes a linguistic basis for unifying the text, and distinguishes between writing and transmission. It serves a historical reading that sees variation in recitation as not revealing multiplicity in the original written text.
Links That Help Reading
- Muhammad Shahrur, Mother of the Book and Its Elaboration
- the Book, the Qur’an, and the Mother of the Book
- Qur’anic narratives fall within the cognitive dimension, not legislation
Support
- Supporting text: “He makes the issue of compiling the muṣḥaf, the recitations, and the seven letters a gateway for overturning the inherited traditional system, and tends to the view that the text came down in the dialect of Quraysh, and that the multiplicity of recitations was oral rather than original in the written text.”
Place of Support in the Book
- Book: Mother of the Book and Its Elaboration.
- Location: At the beginning of the book, in the treatment of the compilation of the muṣḥaf, the recitations, and the traditional disagreement surrounding them.
- Type of support: Close witness.
- Marker that helps verification: the seven letters
- Reading note: This passage is suitable as support because it discusses the original language adopted in the text and pauses at the recitation reports; it is close to the atom’s content.
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 reading: The wording above is an analytical summary and should not be treated as a verbatim quotation unless the witness is quoted textually.
Its Function in the Book
Its function here is declarative; it establishes a result on which what follows in the argument depends.
Related to
Editorial Note
It links the linguistic origin to the unity of the muṣḥaf.