What is meant
Shahrur understands guardianship as something that is not reserved for the man alone, but may belong to man and woman together He makes competence, financial support, and the ability to manage its criterion, not mere masculinity
The atom’s structure in the atlas
- Type of argument: distinguishing
- Movement of the argument: expanding the meaning of guardianship from masculinity to competence, financial support, and management.
- Key terms: guardianship, man, woman, competence, financial support.
- Degree of centrality: original.
It modifies the understanding of guardianship from a male prerogative to 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 closely tied to practical responsibility.
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: “It expands the concept of guardianship to include both man and woman according to competence, financial support, and the ability to manage, not according to masculinity itself.”
Place of the basis in the book
- Book: Toward New Foundations for Islamic Jurisprudence.
- Location: in the final section of the book within the treatment of family and guardianship
- Type of basis: direct evidence.
- Mark for verification: the family, which is based on two spouses
- Reading note: the passage explicitly states that the family is based on two spouses, man and woman, and makes competence and leadership the criterion; therefore, it is direct support for the atom.
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 the 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 definitional; it fixes a meaning or conceptual distinction that Shahrur relies on in building the idea.
Related to
Editorial note
This atom needs to be linked to the field of women and family as it deconstructs the traditional understanding of guardianship.