What is meant
Shahrur holds that polygamy is not an unrestricted right at all, but a conditional solution tied to the existence of specific controls. Accordingly, it is not a general principle applied in every case; rather, it is understood within the framework of the conditions that constrain it.
The atom’s structure in the atlas
- Type of argument: legislative
- Movement of the argument: it confines polygamy to conditions.
- Central terms: polygamy, conditional, controls.
- Degree of centrality: primary.
It prevents reading polygamy as open permission, and places it within limits that regulate it and tie its use to the existence of a condition that justifies it.
Links that help with reading
- Muhammad Shahrur Toward New Foundations for Islamic Jurisprudence
- Women, Family, and Dress
- Divorce Is a Mutual Right and the House Remains with the Wife
Basis
- Supporting text: «He argues that polygamy is not a general absolution, but a conditional solution».
Place of the basis in the book
- Book: Toward New Foundations for Islamic Jurisprudence.
- Location: in the first section of the book
- Type of basis: near witness.
- Verification cue: These are the main points
- Reading note: The phrase indicates that the ruling is tied to conditions and context, which is an appropriate basis for the atom related to conditional polygamy.
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 the reading: the wording above is an analytical summary and should not be treated as a verbatim quotation unless the witness is quoted exactly.
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
The atom moves polygamy from absoluteness to constraint.