The Trap of the Word and the Breadth of Abstraction

My careful critique of Muhammad Shahrur’s school, may God have mercy on him, grew out of my close observation that in many of his arguments he fell, to some degree, into the trap of attachment to the word. He rarely went beyond confining meaning within the moulds of human lexicons and dictionaries, whereas my aim was, and remains, to rise to the abstraction of meaning and to connect it with the cosmic and physical laws that govern existence. Even so, I acknowledge in fairness that his influence was decisive in breaking the idol of blind dependence. From his legendary steadfastness — his calm and courteous endurance of every campaign to exclude, silence and diminish him — I learned that independence in knowledge is a right that no sect or group will ever grant. It has to be wrested from them by the strength of argument and the clarity of certainty. Courage in knowledge is the latent force that sets everything in motion; without it every theory remains cold ink on old paper. Friedrich Nietzsche understood this well. Truth, as he saw it, demands courage — not only to be discovered, but to be lived and proclaimed. With that boldness I dared to uncover the hidden meanings concerning the riddle of “the Messiah Jesus” and the unity of the source of existence, knowing that the clamour of opponents and the shouting of the mob are only confused noises that fade before the majesty of Qurʾānic truth. Hashem Nassar All rights reserved