Meaning
Muhammad Shahrur holds that the greatest danger lies not only in the fabrication of hadith, but in interpreting the Qur’anic text outside its context. Such interpretation removes verses from their purposes, especially verses concerning fighting, sedition, and inheritance.
The Atom’s Structure in the Atlas
- Type of argument: critical.
- Argument movement: He considers taking the text out of its context more dangerous than fabricating hadith.
- Central terms: interpretation, context, hadith, purposes.
- Degree of centrality: pivotal.
It shifts the danger of deviation from the level of transmission to the level of understanding, since meaning may be distorted by departing from context. It thus directs criticism toward faulty reading more than toward the mere problem of narration.
Links That Aid Reading
- Muhammad Shahrur: Toward New Foundations of Islamic Jurisprudence
- Critique of Heritage, Jurisprudence, and Exegesis
- Interpretation
- Avoidance Does Not Equal Prohibition
Evidence
- Supporting text: “Interpreting the Qur’anic text outside its context, especially in verses concerning fighting, sedition, and inheritance, is, for Shahrur, more dangerous than the fabrication of hadith itself.”
Location of Evidence in the Book
- Book: Toward New Foundations of Islamic Jurisprudence.
- Location: At the beginning of the book, within the warning against deviant interpretation.
- Type of evidence: proximate witness.
- Verification marker: more dangerous than fabrication.
- Reading note: This passage serves as evidence because it explicitly states that more dangerous than fabricating hadith is interpreting verses outside their purposes and context.
Degree of Documentation
- Level: compositionally documented.
- Meaning of the level: The atom rests on more than one witness or on a clear synthesis of closely related formulations.
- Reason for classification: Supported by two clear formulations that mention danger and departure from purposes.
- Limits of reading: The formulation above is an analytical summary and should not be treated as a verbatim quotation unless the witness is quoted directly.
Its Function in the Book
Its function here is argumentative; it supports a larger conclusion in the chapter or prepares the way for it.
Related To
Note for the Reader
The critical meaning here is directed at interpretation detached from context.