Muhammad Shahrur

Muhammad Shahrur (born April 11, 1938 in Damascus ; † December 21, 2019 in Abu Dhabi ) was a Syrian-Arab engineer and Islamic intellectual and enlightener . He published numerous books on Islam and is considered a representative of modernist Islam.

Life

Shahrur completed his school education from 1949 to 1957 in Damascus. In 1959 he traveled to Moscow to study civil engineering and graduated in 1964 with a diploma. From 1965 to 1968 he had a job at Damascus University. In 1968 he moved to Dublin to study . In 1969 he obtained his master's degree there and received his doctorate in 1972. In the same year he became a lecturer at the University of Damascus. A year later he opened an engineering office.

His first book on Islam was titled Al-Kitāb wa ʾl-Qurān: Qirā 'a Muʿāṣira ( The Scriptures and the Koran - A Modern Interpretation ). The book met with great interest in the Arab-speaking world. The Economist spoke on June 5, 1993 of a "publication phenomenon". Shahrur was also attacked by representatives of traditional Islam.

Think

According to Shahrur, the Koran contains absolute truth. This truth is timeless and valid everywhere. For humans this truth is only incompletely comprehensible and must therefore be accessible to interpretations. In particular , Shahrur did not understand the hadd punishments as commandments from God, but - with recourse to the original meaning of the word - as the limit of what could be regarded as justified under certain conditions. Draconian penalties for stealing sariqa are no longer binding. This approach is also described as "limit theory".

Publications

Arabic

• Al-Kitāb wa ʾl-Qurān: Qirā 'a Muʿāṣira . Damascus 1990. ( The Scriptures and the Koran - A Modern Interpretation )
• Dirāsāt al-Islāmiyya al-Muʿaṣira fi ʾd-Dawla wa ʾl-Mudschtamaʿa (Contemporary Islamic Studies on State and Society)
• Al-Islām wa ʾl-Imān (Islam and Faith)
• Naḥwa Uṣūl dschadīda liʾl-Fiqh al-islāmī. Fiqh al-marʾa . Damascus 2000. (Off to New Roots of Islamic Jurisprudence - Jurisprudence and Women)
• Tajfīf manābiʿ al-Irhāb ( Desiccation of the Sources of Terrorism)

in translation

• Andreas Christmann (ed.): The Qur'an, Morality and Critical Reason. The Essential Muhammad Shahrur . Brill, Leiden / Boston 2009.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Curriculum Vitae in Arabic ( memento of the original from January 26, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
2. ^ Lorenz Müller: Islam and human rights . In: Klaus H. Schreiner (Ed.): Islam in Asia . Bad Honnef 2001, p. 64.

literature

• Thomas Amberg: On the way to new principles of Islamic ethics: Muhammad Shahrour and the search for religious renewal in Syria . Ergon Verlag, Würzburg 2009
• Andreas Christmann: "73 Proofs of Dilettantism": The Construction of Norm and Deviancy in the Responses to Mohamad Shahrour's Book al-Kitāb wa'l-Qurʾān: Qirāʾa Muʿ āṣira , in: Die Welt des Islams , New Series 45/1 (2005 ), 20-73.
• Andreas Christmann: Shahrour, Muhammad , in: John L. Esposito (ed.): The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2009, Vol. 5, 118f.
• Andreas Christmann: 'Lis le Coran comme s'il avait été révélé la nuit dernière'. Une introduction à la vie et à l'œuvre de Muhammad Shahrur , in: Maghreb-Machrek 198 (2009), 19-29.
• Andreas Christmann: 'The Form is Permanent, but the Content Moves': the Qur'anic Text and its Interpretation (s) in Mohamad Shahrour's al-Kitab wal-Qur'an , in: Die Welt des Islam 43/2 (2003) , 143-172; Slightly revised version in: Suha Taji-Farouki (ed.): Modern Muslim Intellectuals and the Qur'an Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, 263-95.
• Loay Mudhoon: Muhammad Schahrûr - for a contemporary understanding of the Koran and Islam . In: Katajun Amirpur / Ludwig Ammann (ed.): Islam at the turning point. Liberal and conservative reformers of a world religion . Freiburg / Breisgau 2006, 136–145.
• Loay Mudhoon: In Averroes' footsteps - Portrait of the Islamic reformist Muhammad Shahrur . published on April 9, 2009 on qantara.de.

Web links

• Literature by and about Muḥammad Šaḥrūr in the catalog of the German National Library