Meaning
Shahrur understands qiwāma as not exclusive to men; rather, it may belong to both men and women. He makes its criterion competence, financial maintenance, and administrative capacity, not mere maleness.
The Atom’s Structure in the Atlas
- Argument type: distinction-making.
- Argument movement: expanding the meaning of qiwāma from maleness to competence, financial maintenance, and administration.
- Central terms: qiwāma, man, woman, competence, financial maintenance.
- Degree of centrality: foundational.
It modifies the understanding of qiwāma from a male prerogative into a function that can be distributed between man and woman according to conditions of capability, thereby establishing a family reading that is less restrictive and more connected to practical responsibility.
Links That Aid Reading
- Muhammad Shahrur: Toward New Foundations for Islamic Jurisprudence
- Women, Family, and Dress
- Divorce Is a Mutual Right, and the Home Remains with the Wife
Evidence
- Supporting text: “He expands the concept of qiwāma to include both man and woman according to competence, financial maintenance, and administrative capacity, not according to maleness itself.”
Location of the Evidence in the Book
- Book: Toward New Foundations for Islamic Jurisprudence.
- Location: in the final section of the book, within its treatment of family and qiwāma.
- Type of evidence: direct textual witness.
- Verification marker: the family, which consists of two spouses.
- Reading note: the passage explicitly states that the family consists of two spouses, man and woman, and makes competence and leadership the criterion; it is therefore direct evidence for the atom.
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 reproduced textually.
Its Function in the Book
Its function here is definitional: it establishes a meaning or conceptual distinction on which Shahrur relies in developing the idea.
Related to
Reader’s Note
This atom needs to be connected to the field of women and family, insofar as it deconstructs the traditional understanding of qiwāma.