What is meant
For the author, the Book is not the Qur’an in terms of signification; rather, it is broader and more comprehensive than it. It is the totality of all the verses of the muṣḥaf, that is, the totality of the elements that make up the overall subject, whereas the Qur’an is linked to the similar part of the Book and to the verses of the cosmos and the narratives.
The atom’s structure in the atlas
- Type of argument: Distinguishing
- Movement of the argument: It separates the signification of the Book from the signification of the Qur’an in order to confine understanding to the whole text, not to a part of it.
- Central terms: the Book, the Qur’an, signification.
- Degree of centrality: Central.
This atom establishes a semantic distinction that expands the referent of understanding to the whole Book, then links the Qur’an to a specific part of it, which serves the construction of a purposive reading and prevents hasty generalization in inference.
Links that help with reading
- Muhammad Shahrur, Drying Up the Sources of Terrorism
- The Book, the Qur’an, and the Mother of the Book
- the Qur’an
- The verses of fighting and the Muhammadan narratives do not legislate absolute violence
Basis
- Supporting text: “The Book: the totality of all the verses of the muṣḥaf, or the totality of the elements that make up the overall subject.”
Degree of documentation
- Level: Directly documented
- Meaning of the level: The atom rests on an explicit witness close to the wording of the claim.
- Limits of the reading: The formulation above is an analytical summary, and is not treated as a verbatim quotation unless the witness is transmitted word for word.
Its function in the book
Its function here is definitional; it sets out a meaning or conceptual distinction on which Shahrur relies in building the idea.
Related to
Editorial note
The atom should not be understood as an equation between the muṣḥaf and the overall subject, but rather as a delimitation of the field of signification.