Critique of Muhammad Shahrur’s Book Al-Kitab wa-l-Qur’an: An Interrogation of Method and Hermeneutical Tools

The Critique’s Methodology

Prior to embarking on reading the book, the initial plan was to examine it through its declared research methodology—which is typically outlined at the beginning of a volume—and then apply that exact methodology to the text. The objective was to test whether running his theoretical apparatus and making it operate within the text would actually generate the results Muhammad Shahrur reached, thereby probing its limits and testing its resilience when confronted with cases other than those Shahrur himself decided upon in the book. In other words: Is the book’s methodology capable of producing independent outcomes that are distinct from the conclusions Muhammad Shahrur predefined and sought to reach from the outset?

Upon finishing the introduction, I skipped directly to the appendix written by Dr. Ja’far Dakk al-Bab, titled “The Secrets of the Arabic Tongue,” given that this concept is pivotal to the entirety of Muhammad Shahrur’s architecture. By the time I completed both, I had recorded approximately two thousand words of unstructured notes that still required further refinement and work to be formulated and integrated into the critical context. Consequently, it was no longer viable to read the volume, which spans over eight hundred pages, in a linear fashion just to log every single flaw. Critiquing each outcome individually would turn the critique into an endless chase after granular details. For instance, I would be forced to study the history of Qur’anic variants (Qira’at), the seven modes (Ahruf), Arabic dialects, and epigraphy merely to refute a few pages regarding the “Arabic tongue.” Meanwhile, the prior, more fundamental question remains: What are the underlying rules that generate these outcomes in the first place?

The initial reading revealed two recurring “inferential” patterns:

The Leaping Inference: Where an attempt at inference is made, but its logical links are defective. This can be represented by the following model:
Claim → Absence of an operational definition → Conceptual leap → Redescription of evidence → Conclusion → Utilization of the conclusion itself as a subsequent premise.
That is to say, the claim does not transition into a conclusion via a disclosed chain of rules and criteria; rather, it moves through conceptual shifts and the redescription of evidence without clear justification. The resulting conclusion is then transformed into a stable premise upon which subsequent arguments are built.
Declarative Stacking: Here, no genuine attempt at logical inference takes place. Instead, the final conclusions themselves are presented in the guise of premises. This stacking creates an illusion of inference because its rhetorical force stems precisely from the density of the declarations and the velocity of their succession, leaving the reader no room to ask: What is the evidence for the first claim? And does the second one actually follow from it? In other words, the claim is predetermined as a given outcome.

Through a variety of selected samples, I will test whether these two patterns are accidental or structural. If proven structural to the work, I can make a more economical judgment: either there is indeed a coherent linguistic and epistemological theory worthy of our examination, or we are facing an apparatus designed to manufacture methodologically-apparent results from unfounded premises. To put it another way: Does a theory actually exist here in the sense that allows it to be true or false, or are we looking at a collection of axioms, interpretations, and terminologies whose functions shift according to the immediate argumentative need?

Before doing so, however, I had to map out a preliminary blueprint to guide me through the work so as not to drown in details, as previously explained:

First: Interrogating the declared methodology in the book: Does it meet the basic conditions required to be considered a methodology?
Second: Critiquing the frameworks upon which Muhammad Shahrur relies. A major portion of his hermeneutical project can be traced back to three interconnected pillars:
1. A linguistic framework manifested in the concept of the “Clear Arabic Tongue” (al-Lisan al-‘Arabi al-Mubin) and its associated conceptions of roots, morphology, phonetic, and semantic relationships. Without this, the semantic framework cannot operate.
2. A semantic framework primarily built upon the absolute negation of synonymy (Taraduf) and the derivation of conceptual differences from the divergence of vocabulary. One of the initial outcomes of applying this framework is the distinction between al-Kitab (the Book), al-Qur’an, al-Dhikr (the Remembrance), and al-Mushaf (the Codex). This distinction allowed Shahrur to classify verses, distinguish between Prophethood (Nubuwwa) and Messengership (Risala), differentiate between the absolute and the relative, and separate sending down (Inzal) from gradual revelation (Tanzil). This was the foundational stratum without which the architecture could not be completed.
3. A framework for dealing with the Sunna and transmitted Hadith reports, determining what may count as evidence for the Qur’an and what may not. In other words, it defines their epistemic and legislative value, as well as their role in interpreting the text.

The following question may be raised: Why was the framework concerning the Sunna and transmitted reports considered one of the three pillars, even though Shahrur did not focus on it as extensively as he did on other subjects, nor did he deploy it in the same manner he utilized the “Clear Arabic Tongue” and “non-synonymy”?

It is evident that Muhammad Shahrur accepts Hadiths in principle. He states, “The Prophet insisted on transcribing the Book, while simultaneously commanding the people not to transcribe his personal statements” (p. 39). Hadiths and transmitted reports possess an immensely critical impact on understanding the Qur’an because they frequently provide the verses with their historical context, which yields meaning. Furthermore, Hadiths and transmitted reports perform a guarding epistemological function: namely, identifying which external pieces of evidence (external to the Qur’an) can restrict interpretation and which evidence can be excluded. That is, the decision to accept or exclude them can alter the very set of evidence available to the interpreter. This decision partially controls the boundaries of the evidence permitted to enter the hermeneutical process to begin with.

Ultimately, if the foundation (the methodology and frameworks) collapses, the inferential paths that produced the architectural build collapse with it and lose their validity.

Interrogating the Methodology

Muhammad Shahrur asserts in multiple places that he follows a scientific, objective methodology. Yet, in the book’s introduction and right before presenting his method, he confronts us with a stance that warrants scrutiny. He writes: “I cannot conceive of a Muslim and Arab human being who could take a negative stance toward the Prophet, because such a position is a betrayal of religion on the part of the Muslim, and a betrayal of nationalism on the part of the Arab. I cannot conceive of an Arab human being, regardless of their religion, who takes a negative stance toward the Prophet and yet says of themselves: they are a patriot or an Arab” (p. 39).

This represents a sharp contradiction between an epistemological claim (that research is free, scientific, and objective) on one hand, and a normative judgment (that certain results render their author a traitor) on the other. A tendency emerges here to cast out anyone who rejects the researcher’s dogmatic axioms from the sphere of legitimacy. Consequently, the repeated invocation of “objectivity” becomes a profound problem within the methodology itself.

As for the methodology outlined by Muhammad Shahrur from pages 42 to 45, it can be dealt with on two levels: macro and micro.

When a researcher claims to use a “scientific, objective, and methodological” approach, we expect elements such as:

The types of admissible evidence.
The criteria for adjudicating between competing interpretations.
The method for distinguishing between discovering a new meaning and projecting a modern meaning onto the text.
Crucially, the mechanism for falsifying an interpretation: what is it that refutes a given reading?

Instead, under the section “What is the methodology followed in this book,” we read a collection of philosophical beliefs about the world, such as: the world is material, knowledge begins with the senses, the intellect is capable of comprehension, the universe began with the Big Bang, etc.

It appears here that Shahrur does not differentiate between methodology, epistemology, ontology, dogmatic assumptions, and scientific outcomes.

Looking closely at the details, while maintaining the original numbering of the paragraphs as they appear in the book:

1. “The relationship between consciousness and material existence is the fundamental question in philosophy. In defining that relationship, we have proceeded from the premise that the source of human knowledge is the material world outside the human self. This means that true (non-illusory) knowledge consists not merely of mental images, but corresponds to things in reality, because the existence of things outside consciousness is the very essence of their reality. Therefore, we reject the claim of idealist philosophers that human knowledge is nothing but the recollection of pre-existing ideas. The Holy Qur’an has confirmed this starting point by stating: ‘And Allah has brought you out from the wombs of your mothers while you know nothing, and He gave you hearing, sight, and hearts that you might give thanks’ (An-Nahl 78)” (p. 42).

The transition Shahrur makes from “things exist outside consciousness” to “their existence outside our consciousness is the very essence of their reality” is by no means self-evident. The independent existence of an object does not automatically mean I know its reality as it is in itself merely through sensory perception.

As for the verse, one possible facet of its interpretation is that humans are not born carrying ready-made knowledge. However, one cannot find the inferential bridge to arrive at the aforementioned philosophical conclusion. Here, the leaping inferential pattern can be applied:

Claim: The existence of things outside our consciousness is the very essence of their reality, and the evidence is the cited verse.
Absence of an operational definition: Several fundamental concepts enter the inferential chain—reality, consciousness, knowledge—without specifying what is meant by them or how one transitions from one to the other.
Conceptual leap: Assuming that activating the senses to perceive an object necessarily means that what the senses perceive is the very essence of the object’s existence. This is a leap from the mechanism of perception to the ontology of existence.
Redescription of evidence: Interpreting the text and overloading it with a philosophical burden that was not originally in it, solely to match the claim.
Conclusion: Since God created senses for us, we therefore perceive things as they truly are.
Utilization of the conclusion as a premise (falling into circular logic and begging the question): Since things outside our consciousness are the very essence of their reality, “Therefore, we reject the claim of idealist philosophers.”

A highly important distinction must be made here: the conceptual leap is not merely that the conclusion is “larger than the evidence”; rather, the question itself changed during the inference. We began with the question: When and how do humans know? and ended with an answer to a different question: What makes something real? This causes more concern for the fate of the remaining questions in the book than a mere rupture in inference.

2. “Based on this holy verse, which states that knowledge comes from outside the human self, we call for a contemporary Islamic philosophy that relies on intellectual knowledge that springs from sensibles via the senses, primary among them being (hearing and sight), to reach abstract theoretical knowledge in light of the scientific achievements attained by humanity at the beginning of the fifteenth Hijri century. We call for the rejection of recognizing illuminative, inspirational knowledge exclusive to the people of mysticism (‘Arifan*) alone, or those called the ‘people of unveiling’ (Kashf) or the ‘people of God'”* (p. 42 – 43).

With total agility, the author claims that the previous verse “states that knowledge comes from outside the human self.” Let us apply the inferential pattern once more:

Claim: Knowledge comes from outside the human self, and the evidence is the cited verse.
Absence of an operational definition: Entry of several core concepts into the inference chain—the human self, knowledge—without defining what they mean or the relationship between them.
Conceptual leap: Moving from the mention of tools of perception to the claim that the source of knowledge is outside the self.
Redescription of evidence: Interpreting the text and loading it with a philosophical weight far greater than it claims, to align with the hypothesis.
Conclusion: Knowledge begins from the external sensible object perceived by the senses and then processed by the mind.
Utilization of the conclusion as a subsequent premise: “We call for a contemporary Islamic philosophy that relies on intellectual knowledge that springs from sensibles via the senses.”

Then, conceptual leaps cascade rapidly: Senses → Intellectual knowledge → Abstract theoretical knowledge → Scientific achievements → Modern Islamic philosophy. One cannot help but ask: How did these transitions occur? The same flawed inferential pattern can be applied to every single arrow in this sequence—that is, to every conceptual leap.

From another angle, it appears that the epistemological framework is engineered to make its elements match the available Qur’an vocabulary: since the text mentions hearing and sight, they must be granted a distinct epistemic status. Instead of conducting an independent scientific investigation and subsequently comparing the result with the text, we extract the elements from the text first, then summon science to grant them modern legitimacy. We will verify the repetition of this pattern alongside the inferential patterns.

3. “The universe is material, and the human mind is capable of perceiving and knowing it; there are no boundaries at which the mind must stop. Human knowledge is characterized by continuity and is linked to the degree of development achieved by the sciences in any given era. Everything in the universe is material. What we now call ‘cosmic vacuum’ is a material vacuum—meaning that the vacuum is a form of matter. Science does not recognize the existence of a non-material world that the mind is incapable of perceiving” (p. 43).

Without any inference, the author simply decrees that “everything in the universe is material” and that “the human mind is capable of perceiving and knowing it, and there are no boundaries at which the mind stops.”

The first claim is an ontological claim that science does not necessarily dictate. The natural sciences define for themselves subjects and methods that are observable, measurable, and testable. This does not mandate that absolutely nothing non-material exists.

The second claim is an exceptionally bold epistemological assertion that empirical science cannot easily prove, because stating that everything that exists is knowable by human intellect extends beyond what humans actually know to everything that could exist and everything that could be known. It is a metaphysical claim about the limits of knowledge.

Here, the pattern of declarative stacking emerges clearly; inference disappears entirely, replaced by a rapid succession of declarations (claims):

The universe is material: An ontological declaration.
The mind is capable of perceiving it and has no limits: An epistemological declaration unrelated to the first.
Human knowledge is continuous and linked to the evolution of science: A declaration within the philosophy of knowledge and history.
Everything in the universe is material: A universal generalization that restates the first declaration.
The vacuum is a form of matter: A physical claim deployed to reinforce materialism.
Science does not recognize a non-material world: Redescribing a prior philosophical position as the stance of “science.”

4. Shahrur states in presenting his method: “Human knowledge began with concrete, specific thinking bounded by the two senses of hearing and sight, and it elevated by attaining abstract, general thinking. Therefore, ‘the world of the witnessed’ (‘Alam al-Shahada*) meant initially the material world that humans recognized through their senses, then it expanded to include what they perceived with their minds, not their senses. Consequently, the world of the witnessed and the world of the unseen (‘Alam al-Ghayb) are both material. The history of the progress of human knowledge and sciences is a continuous expansion of what enters the world of the witnessed, and a continuous shrinkage of what enters the world of the unseen. In this sense, it appears that the ‘world of the unseen’ is a material world, but it has remained hidden from our perception so far because the level of the sciences has not reached a stage enabling its knowledge”* (p. 43).

Once again, the epistemological structure is tailored to match the Qur’anic terminology. Hearing and sight are given an exclusive status at the expense of the other senses, in compliance with the previously cited verse.

Additionally, we detect both inferential patterns operating together here. On one hand, declarative stacking appears in:

Human knowledge began with concrete thinking bounded by the senses of hearing and sight: An epistemological declaration. Note that “concrete thinking bounded by hearing and sight” remains an undefined concept.
Knowledge elevated by attaining abstract, general thinking: Another epistemological declaration connected to the first.

We can apply the leaping inferential pattern to several arguments in this paragraph:

Argument A: Human knowledge began with concrete thinking bounded by the senses of hearing and sight → Therefore, the world of the witnessed meant initially the material world recognized through the senses.
Argument B: Knowledge elevated by attaining abstract, general thinking → The world of the witnessed expanded to include what man perceived with his mind, not his senses.
Argument C: Conclusions A and B → Consequently, the world of the witnessed and the world of the unseen are both material.
Argument D: Conclusions A and B → And therefore, the history of the progress of human knowledge is a continuous expansion of the witnessed world and a continuous shrinkage of the unseen world.

Let us apply the pattern to Argument A:

Claim: Human knowledge began with concrete thinking bounded by hearing and sight.
Absence of an operational definition: He does not define “concrete thinking,” nor does he demonstrate why it is restricted to hearing and sight, nor does he offer historical evidence for this hypothesis of the stages of knowledge.
Conceptual leap: Shifting from a claim about how human knowledge originated to a claim about the historical semantic meaning of the concept “the world of the witnessed.”
Conclusion: Therefore, the world of the witnessed meant initially the material world that humans recognized through their senses.
Utilization of the conclusion as a subsequent premise: This conclusion becomes the foundation for subsequent inferences aimed at proving that the witnessed world expands with the advancement of science.

I will not repeat the application of the pattern to all arguments, but special note must be taken of Argument C, where the expansion of the witnessed world to include what we perceive by the mind rather than just the senses leads to: Therefore, the world of the witnessed and the world of the unseen are both material! Here, even if all premises from A and B were correct, they do not logically yield the conclusion that the unseen world is material. The maximum they can produce is that some things that were unknown or imperceptible have now become known. That is to say: Everything that was unknown and then became known ≠ every unseen reality is material.

Here, it must be said, a slick substitution of the meaning of “the unseen” (Ghayb) took place during the inference, shifting it from its Qur’anic semantic sense to that which science has simply not yet discovered.

5. “There is no contradiction between what is revealed in the Holy Qur’an and philosophy, which is the mother of sciences. The task of interpreting (Tawil) the Qur’an is exclusively restricted to the category of ‘those firmly grounded in knowledge’ (al-Rasikhuna fi-l-‘Ilm), in accordance with what scientific proof has led to, and that is according to the law of interpretation in the Arabic tongue which we explained extensively in the first part of this book, and in light of the latest scientific achievements” (p. 43).

Once again, we observe both inferential patterns here. Declarative stacking shows up in:

“There is no contradiction between what is revealed in the Qur’an and philosophy”: A declaration regarding the relationship between revelation and philosophy. This declaration cannot be correct under any facet, because there is no single philosophy; rather, there are multiple philosophies, some of which contradict one another. If the Qur’an aligns with one, it will inherently contradict another.
“The task of interpreting the Qur’an is exclusively restricted to those firmly grounded in knowledge”: An interpretive declaration determining the authority of specialization.
“Interpretation occurs in accordance with what scientific proof has led to”: A methodological declaration making scientific outcomes a guiding criterion for interpretation.

As for the leaping inference pattern, it manifests as follows:

Declaring the alignment between the Qur’an and philosophy → Declaring the status of science → Entrusting interpretation to the “firmly grounded” → Making scientific proof a guide for interpretation → Expanding proof to the latest scientific achievements.

The central and most critical leap is: moving from the non-contradiction between the Qur’an and intellectual/scientific knowledge to making external science the benchmark for redefining the signification of the Qur’an.

The conclusion is far more potent than the premise. Non-contradiction can be the result of an interpretive process; however, for Shahrur here, it turns into a prior rule ensuring that the text must be interpreted until it matches what is deemed correct by the science of its era. Here, the hazard of circularity becomes stark: it is assumed from the outset that the Qur’an does not contradict science; then, if a conflict appears, interpretation is deployment to alter the meaning; and finally, the resulting interpretation is used as evidence that the Qur’an does not contradict science.

6. “We adopt the scientific theory stating that the appearance of the material universe was the result of a massive explosion that led to a change in the nature of matter. We hold that another massive explosion, identical to the first in magnitude, will inevitably lead to the destruction of the universe and change the nature of matter within it, to be replaced by another material universe (world). This means that the universe did not originate from nothingness (while emphasizing that none is eternal save God), but from matter of another nature. And that this universe will vanish to be replaced by another universe of a different nature, and this is what we call ‘the Hereafter’ (al-Hayat al-Akhira)” (p. 43).

The declarative stacking pattern can be mapped here:

“The appearance of the material universe was the result of a massive explosion”: A cosmological declaration.
“Another identical massive explosion will inevitably lead to the destruction of the universe”: Another cosmological declaration, even more potent because it invokes inevitability.
“The universe did not originate from nothingness but from matter of another nature”: An ontological declaration that does not follow automatically from the prior one.
“It will be replaced by another universe of a different nature”: A new cosmological/metaphysical declaration.
“This is what we call the Hereafter”: Re-defining an entire religious concept.

The issue is that these declarations are placed side-by-side so they appear as a continuous chain, whereas each one requires independent proof.

Shahrur does not infer from science to the conclusion here; rather, he stacks a series of hypotheses: from the first explosion to an inevitable second explosion, from there to a pre-existing matter, then to a subsequent universe, and then he renames this universe “the Hereafter.” Every transition adds content not contained in the preceding premise, until the religious conclusion at the end is carried by the cosmological hypothesis rather than derived from it.

This paragraph serves as a fitting conclusion to the critique of what Shahrur labeled his “methodology,” because it aggregates in a few lines almost all the problems we have been tracking. It illuminates the mechanics of Muhammad Shahrur’s interpretive machine: an unjustified declaration, a leap between different epistemic levels, borrowing the authority of science, and then transforming the result into a definition for the religious text.

The Linguistic Framework: The Clear Arabic Tongue

Dr. Ja’far Dakk al-Bab concludes the first chapter of the appendix “The Secrets of the Arabic Tongue” with what he terms a new scientific fact:

“Therefore, we posed the following question: Is the primitive origin of the Arabic tongue linked to the beginning of the formation of human speech? To answer this question, we presented a new perspective on philology in which we laid out our view on the origin of human speech, pointed to the necessity of distinguishing between the origin in the lexicon and the origin in morphology, and put forward a phonetic view of the Arabic lexicon. This phonetic view revealed that the linguistic system of Arabic reflects all the stages through which the origin of human speech passed. This means that the linguistic material of Arabic available up to our present day, which has been preserved for us by the Arabic lexical system, provides scientific historical evidence proving conclusively that the Arabic language is an independent origin in and of itself. This new scientific fact entails the following results:

The Arabs are Arabs since the appearance of human life in their homeland.
The Arabic language is the original language of the Arab people since the beginning of their existence.
Exposing the falsehood of the hypothesis of the ‘Semitic language family’ and the ‘Semitic people'” (p. 763).

I will not expand on critiquing this passage; I will confine myself to what is essential regarding the book. The inferential leap from a “hypothetical phonetic view of the lexicon” to “the Arabs are Arabs since the appearance of human life” and “the Arabic language is the original language of the Arab people since the beginning of their existence” is a gargantuan leap. It collapses thousands of years of human evolution, population migrations, and the intermingling and interaction of human groups into a definitive nationalistic judgment. Consequently, the Arabic language becomes an exceptional, eternal language, isolated from its historical context and its human surroundings. It becomes clear that these results are highly useful for running the semantic machine.

By this logic, since the Arabic language is original and self-contained since the beginning of human existence, comparing Qur’anic words with their counterparts in other languages close to Arabic—such as Aramaic and Hebrew—loses all explanatory value. Thus, Qur’anic words become isolated linguistic islands that accept no explanation except from within themselves, which minimizes verifiable external constraints on interpretation.

Furthermore, the eternity of the Arabic language allows for the application of the principle of non-synonymy with greater mathematical rigidity, because it treats its lexicon as a closed system. Thus, when the terms al-Kitab, al-Qur’an, al-Dhikr, and al-Mushaf diverge, each can be matched with a different conceptual entity or category, and the network of relationships between them can then be constructed.

But why the “Clear Arabic Tongue,” and how?

Once again, it appears that the epistemological framework is adjusted to match the available Qur’anic words: since the text states: “And truly, this is a revelation of the Lord of the worlds… In a clear Arabic tongue” (Ash-Shu’ara: 192 – 195), it must be granted a distinct epistemic position.

As for how Dr. Ja’far Dakk al-Bab arrived at the “Clear Arabic Tongue,” the matter is simple, achieved in seven steps:

He points out that “the word ‘Lugha’ (language) was used to mean ‘Lahja’ (dialect)” (p. 745).
He asserts that the Qur’an “used the word ‘Lisan’ (tongue) instead of ‘Lugha’ to emphasize that its language is not one of the languages ‘dialects’ of the Arabs, but rather the tongue of all Arabs” (p. 745).
He defines what constitutes “Modern Standard Arabic” (al-Lugha al-‘Arabiya al-Fusha) (p. 753).
He begins using the word “Lisan” to mean language (p. 755).
He obtains a “fluent tongue” (Lisan Fasih) (p. 755).
Then, without any premises and despite the mathematical rigidity of using the principle of non-synonymy, he introduces the word “Mubin” (clear/evident) as a synonym for the word “Fasih” (fluent): “A fluent or clear tongue” (Lisan Fasih aw Mubin) (p. 755).
He begins using “the Clear Arabic Tongue” from that moment onward (p. 756).

Thus, the concept of “the Clear Arabic Tongue” is not extracted from an independent analysis of the word Mubin; rather, the text arrives at it via a series of terminological substitutions that end abruptly by making Mubin an alternative for Fasih. This occurs even though the principle of non-synonymy itself mandates proving the difference between them, not using one in place of the other.

The Semantic Framework

I will test the resilience of this framework by examining two aspects: the coherence of the methodology of semantic derivation and the application of the principle of non-synonymy.

The Methodology of Semantic Derivation

Muhammad Shahrur refers throughout the book to what he calls the “Arabic tongue” when deriving the meanings of words. Here, he decrees without evidence (or implies?) that the derivation he has reached is a fixed linguistic fact, rather than a specific lexical opinion open to debate.

In practice, he returns (in most cases) to classical Arabic lexicons, primary among them being Maqayis al-Lugha by Ibn Faris (p. 44), without explicitly citing them. By doing so, Shahrur removes an entire layer of attribution, making it difficult to trace every semantic derivation. This renders the verification of his claims a far more arduous task than it ought to be.

Nonetheless, I tracked the sources of several semantic derivations to understand Shahrur’s mechanism for extracting meanings:

Duha (Forenoon/Sunlight): Shahrur copies from Maqayis al-Lugha almost verbatim, stating: “The verb Duha in the Arabic tongue is a sound root indicating the emergence of something…” (p. 289).
Sanna (To legislate/shape): Shahrur uses an explanation close to what is found in Maqayis al-Lugha, stating: “It means in the Arabic tongue ease and flowing smoothly” (p. 549).
Zagha (To deviate/swerve): Muhammad Shahrur states: “…One of the meanings of Zygh in the Arabic tongue is decrease or deficiency. If we give Zayd one hundred apples and he ‘Zagha’ in counting, this means he counted them as less than a hundred; if he counted them as more than a hundred, he ‘Tagha’ (transgressed) in counting. God the Almighty has placed Zygh and Tughyan as opposites by saying: ‘The sight did not swerve (Zagha), nor did it transgress (Tagha)'” (p. 192). It is unknown which lexicon he is referring to by “the Arabic tongue.” The word means “inclination” or “leaning” in Maqayis al-Lugha. In Lisan al-‘Arab, it means “inclination, turning away, the dulling of sight, swaying.” In Taj al-‘Arus, it means “inclination, doubt, injustice, the dulling of sight.” In al-Sihah, it means “inclination, dulling of sight, causing to incline.” That is to say, he provided no linguistic evidence that Zaygh means decrease. Instead, he constructed a hypothetical example, loaded Zaygh within it with the meaning of decrease, and subsequently utilized this invented meaning to explain the contrast between Zaygh and Tughyan in the verse. This is an interpolation of an undocumented signification.
Qur’an: The researcher states: “It was named Qur’an because Qur’an comes from ‘Qara’a’ (to read/recite), and according to some, from ‘Qarana’ (to link/join), and both mean gathering and comparison… The basis in the Arabic tongue is the verb ‘Qarana.’ In Ibn Faris, we see that the verb ‘Qara’a’ was derived from the verb ‘Qarana,’ and from here came the meaning of reading among the Arabs as the educational process, because it can only occur through comparison” (p. 94). In another locus, he says: “The Qur’an came from ‘Qarana,’ which is the gathering of the fixed part of the laws of the universe present in (the Preserved Tablet / al-Lawh al-Mahfudh) with the variable part present in (the Clear Leader / al-Imam al-Mubin)” (p. 80).

The first problem in this derivation is that Ibn Faris never states in Maqayis al-Lugha that the verb Qara’a is derived from the verb Qarana. Rather, he treats the latter as an independent root, stating that one of its two original forms indicates “joining something to something.” As for Qaraya—from which Qara’a stems—it is, according to Ibn Faris, a sound root indicating gathering and assembling. Thus, Shahrur leaped from semantic similarity to historical morphological derivation.

Even after assuming the origin of Qarana, Shahrur does not stop at the meaning of joining and gathering; instead, he transitions to the idea that reading can only happen through comparison, and then moves to the claim that reading is the educational process, presenting this final result as if it were a fixed linguistic fact from “the tongue of the Arabs.”

More dangerously, he takes the lexical result (Qarana = joining something to something) and loads it with a theoretical meaning required by his own project: the gathering of the fixed part of the universe’s laws with the variable part.

Al-Tanzil and al-Inzal (Gradual Revelation vs. Sending Down): Here we observe an important matter: Shahrur does not return to any of the lexicons, nor even to what he terms the Arabic tongue, to infer the signification of each word. Instead, he follows a hazardous path marked by excessive leaping.

Shahrur begins by saying: “The glottal stop (Hamza) in the Arabic tongue yields the meaning of transitivity (Ta’diya). An example of this is Ballagha and Abllagha. We have two terms: Balagh and Iblagh… The process of Balagh is the process of transmitting from one person to another without verifying whether the person transmitted to has actually received the news… When the content of the Balagh reaches the perception and consciousness of every citizen targeted by this Balagh, it becomes Iblagh” (p. 148).

First: One of the primary functions of the Hamza in the Af‘ala form is transitivity, but it is not, as Shahrur’s words imply, its sole function.

Second: There are verbs on the weight of Af‘ala whose Hamza is not for transitivity, such as Akhta’a (to make a mistake).

Third: Ballagha is not the triliteral root to which the Hamza was added to allow for a direct comparison with Abllagha.

Fourth: I have not encountered this specific distinction in Maqayis al-Lugha or Lisan al-‘Arab, for example.

In other words, Muhammad Shahrur departed from a linguistic piece of information that has a sound foundation, then loaded it with the specific semantic meaning that aids his interpretation, and subsequently presented it as a difference inherent in the “Arabic tongue.”

Suddenly, he leaps from Balagh and Iblagh to defining both Tanzil and Inzal, stating: “Tanzil: is the process of objective transmission outside human consciousness. Inzal: is the process of transmitting the transmitted material outside human consciousness, from the unperceived to the perceived—meaning it entered the domain of human knowledge” (p. 149).

There, Shahrur performs not just an inferential leap, but arbitrarily transfers the semantic difference he created himself for one morphological pair to another morphological pair. From there, he overloads the result with an epistemological content entirely absent from either form.

As Shahrur himself noted: “Explaining the difference between Inzal and Tanzil is considered one of the primary keys to understanding the Book in both its aspects: Prophethood and Messengership, just as it possesses a major relationship with the principles of interpretation” (p. 147). Where does the shaking of this primary key leave us now?

It becomes evident from these examples that Shahrur does not adhere to a single methodology in determining significations. He sometimes relies on Ibn Faris, at other times turns a semantic similarity between two roots into a morphological relationship, and in some instances creates a hypothetical example that loads the word with an unproven lexical meaning, which he then employs in interpretation—as in the case of Zagha. He then attributes the outcomes of all these procedures to “the Arabic tongue.”

The Application of the Principle of Non-Synonymy

At linguistic levels deeper than the functions of everyday communication, I lean toward adopting the theory of absolute non-synonymy in linguistics. If I were to critique Muhammad Shahrur’s apparatus from within, I would concede that the Qur’anic text is a divine text, and thus concede to the text its linguistic mathematical rigidity. Nonetheless, Muhammad Shahrur went further in this school than the school itself permits.

Two words might match in core meaning, but they may differ in emotional overtones—that is, feelings and connotations. They may also differ in geographical distribution, such as the word for a lift in the English language: if you hear someone say Lift, you will assume they are British; if they say Elevator, you will assume they are American. The same applies to the words Halib and Laban (milk) in the Syrian and Egyptian dialects, respectively. There are other cases where two words differ despite their core meanings being identical. In this sense, it is nearly impossible for two words to match completely.

Gottlob Frege distinguishes between Reference (Bedeutung) and Sense (Sinn):

Reference: The concrete object in external reality. In this example, the reference in both sentences matches 100%.
Sense: The mode of presentation through which this reference is represented in the listener’s consciousness.

In Frege’s famous example regarding the planet Venus:

The first term: “The Morning Star”
The second term: “The Evening Star”

The semantic weight and mental sense of the two terms are entirely different; the first is linked to dawn and appearing in the morning, the second to dusk and appearing in the evening. Yet, the reference in external reality is singular, concrete, and identical (namely, the planet Venus).

Therefore, even if we concede to “absolute non-synonymy” in sense and attribute, and even if we prove the difference between two words in sense, this does not logically justify dismantling the reference into a container and a content, or making one inclusive of the other, or rendering one completely distinct from the other. All of this requires independent, additional evidence.

The Framework for Dealing with the Sunna and Transmitted Reports

Under the title “Vocabulary of the Prophetic Revolution Lexicon: ‘Revolutionary Authenticity,'” Muhammad Shahrur narrates to us the broad outlines of the rise of Islam as a revolution. It is important to observe the alignment of the general structure of the prophetic mission-turned-revolution with what appears in the transmitted reports—such as the beginning of the mission being secret in Mecca, the shift to the public call, then the migration (Hijra), the beginning of armed conflict, the Treaty of Hudaybiyya, and the battles of Mu’tah and Tabuk, etc. During this presentation, he cited certain verses in which he followed the traditional classification of “Meccan” and “Medinan.” The details of this “historical” presentation are not what matters; what matters is that it is anchored in its foundational skeleton upon Islamic transmitted reports. We do not know exactly which of them Shahrur relied upon in this presentation.

We must recognize that any attempt to understand the contents of the Codex (Mushaf) is impossible without knowledge of the occasions of revelation (Asbab al-Nuzul), the chronological order of certain historical events, knowledge of the Meccan and Medinan verses, knowing which verse was revealed before another, and sometimes identifying the specific individual referred to in the text. All of this comes exclusively from the network of transmitted reports. Without these contexts provided by the reports, it would be impossible to know who “Zayd” is in the verse: “So when Zayd had dissolved his marriage with her, We married her to you” (Al-Ahzab: 37), or how adoption was prohibited.

Shahrur then outlines the approach that must be followed to re-examine the books of Hadith:

“a. The noble Hadiths are divided into Hadiths of Prophethood and Hadiths of Messengership.

b. The Hadiths of Messengership are divided into Hadiths binding in text and content together—which relate to acts of worship, legal punishments (Hudud), and ethics (the Straight Path)—and Hadiths binding in methodology only, such as Hadiths of definitions. That is, we must define the thief before cutting the hand because the Prophet defined them; the obligation upon us is the definition, not the specific definition itself.

c. We must demonstrate that the Hadiths of Prophethood have no bearing on the lawful (Halal) and the prohibited (Haram).

d. We must re-evaluate the verification of Hadiths related to the unseen (Ghaybiyat) in light of the modern understanding of the Qur’an.

e. We must consider all Hadiths related to the lawful, the prohibited, and the legal punishments that have no matching text in the Book as temporary, circumstantial Hadiths—such as singing, music, and drawing—and view them as Hadiths spoken in their time according to the prevailing conditions. We must also consider all Hadiths of the unseen that do not align with the Qur’an—such as the punishment of the grave, and the spirit being the secret of life—as weak or fabricated Hadiths and discard them” (p. 571 – 572).

Let us observe what paragraph “e” dictates: I first determine what the “modern understanding of the Qur’an” permits, and then I judge the Hadiths against it. Whatever aligns with it, I retain; whatever contradicts it, I classify as weak or fabricated. What happens if the chain of transmission (Isnad) of a Hadith from section “b” is identical to a Hadith from section “e”?

Suppose Hadith A is binding in text and content, and it shares the exact same chain of narrators with Hadith B, which is a Hadith regarding the unseen that does not align with the Qur’an. What is the criterion we must use to maintain Hadith A and weaken Hadith B?

Shahrur does not offer an independent methodology for Hadith criticism and then extract results from it; rather, he presents prior theoretical results (the interpretation) and then re-sorts the Hadith corpus to match them, subsequently using the Hadiths he retained to support his interpretation.

Any interpretive system can become completely insulated and unfalsifiable if it simultaneously possesses the authority to define the meaning of the text and the authority to exclude any counter-evidence.

Conclusion

This research critiques the methodological foundations upon which Muhammad Shahrur erected his project in Al-Kitab wa-l-Qur’an, rather than discussing his jurisprudential outcomes in isolation. Through the analysis of samples of his declared methodology, his linguistic grounding, his application of the principle of non-synonymy, and his manner of dealing with transmitted reports, the paper concludes that two patterns recur: leaping between premises and conclusions that lack adequate inferential bridges, and stacking claims in the form of settled premises. Consequently, many of the results appear generated from prior interpretive assumptions rather than from an independent methodology that is open to testing and falsification.

Translated by AI and reviewed and corrected by me

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