What Is Meant Here
The statement does not mean that everything connected with the Message lies outside ijtihad. What is specifically meant in this text is that the Mother of the Book, as the decisive verses, is “closed” and “not open to ijtihad.” Shahrur contrasts it with the elaboration of the Mother of the Book, where he locates the sphere of human ijtihad.
(A) What Is Attributed to Shahrur
Shahrur defines the Mother of the Book directly: “The Mother of the Book: the closed decisive verses that are not open to ijtihad.”
In his account of the Message, he says: “Muhammad (PBUH) became a messenger through the definitive Book (the Mother of the Book) and its elaboration.”
He then states that the decisive verses are “fixed in text and content” and are “closed verses in which there is no ijtihad.” By contrast, he says that “the verses elaborating the definitive [verses] (the elaboration of the Mother of the Book)” “are subject to human ijtihad.”
Muhammad Shahrur Contemporary Reading Guide to the Wise Revelation
(B) The Atlas Explanation
The decisive distinction in this atom is not between text and ijtihad in general, but between two divisions identified by Shahrur: the Mother of the Book on the one hand, and its elaboration on the other. Thus, the description of closure is read as a restriction on ijtihad within the Mother of the Book, while affirming another sphere for ijtihad: the elaboration of the definitive [verses].
The Book, the Qur’an, and the Mother of the Book
(C) Conclusion
Within Shahrur’s framework, this division establishes a duality: the fixity of text and content in the Mother of the Book, and the dynamism of content in its elaboration. Thus, describing the Mother of the Book as closed does not deny ijtihad throughout his entire legislative domain; rather, it marks the boundary beyond which the sphere of ijtihad, as he defines it, begins.
The Muhammadan message is a final transitional message, and legislation in it is historical ijtihad
(D) Open Question and Limits of the Evidence
The available passage does not explain how Shahrur identifies all the verses he includes within the Mother of the Book, nor does it spell out the practical boundaries between the ijtihad denied within it and explanation or application. Therefore, this atom does not settle those questions.
Guide to the Contemporary Reading of the Wise Revelation · The Muhammadan message is a final transitional message, and legislation in it is historical ijtihad