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xxiiintroductionof his influences from German positivist philosophy (Kant, Fichte,and Hegel). 12 This synthesis between Whitehead’s speculative philosophy,German rationalist idealism, and the structuralism of hismathematic al-engineering mind has given his work its distinctivecharacter among the work of other philosophical thinkers.Shahrur’s unorthodoxy is best illustrated by his account of howhe came to elaborate his theory of limits, the central and most significantpart of his work on Islamic law: “One day an idea occurredto me when I was lecturing at the university on civil engineering onhow to make compaction roads. We have what we call a proctortest, in which we sample and test the soil used in fills and embankments.In this test, we follow a mathematical pattern of exclusionand interpolation. We have two vectors, x and y, a hyperbole. Wehave a basic risk. We plot a curve and put a line on the top of it.This line is the upper limit, and there is a lower limit. Then I thoughtof the concept of ‘God’s limits’. I returned here to the office andopened the Qur"an. Just as in mathematics where we have five waysof representing limits, I found five cases in which the notion of God’slimits occurred. What they have in common is the idea that God hasnot set down exact rules of conduct in such matters as inheritance,criminal punishments, marriage, interest, and banking practices, butonly the limits within which societies can create their own rules andlaws. [Therefore, on reflection I came to the conclusion that] thievesdo not have to have their hands amputated.” 13The Shahrur CaseThe controversy around The Book and the Qur"an started immediatelyafter its first release in Syria in 1990 with a handful of short reviewsand culminated in the year 2000 with a 1014-page magnum opus byMuÈammad ‘ayy§È al-Ma#rr§wiyya, a “comprehensive refutation”of Shahrur’s work, which intended to deal the deathblow to allthe unceasing modification of religious thought, to the great advantage of religion”(p. 264) could indeed serve as Shahrur’s own philosophical credo.12Despite the fact that Whitehead only confessed a modest indebtedness to thenineteenth-century school of German philosophy, its influences, in particular ofG. F. Hegel, have been unambiguously established by Whiteheadian scholars: seeGeorge R. Jr. Lucas, ed., Hegel and Whitehead: Contemporary Perspectives on SystematicPhilosophy (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1986).13Interview, 514–515.