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xxviiiintroductionstate authorities. The papers and lectures he was allowed to produceafter 9/11 furnished the material for his most recent and politicallymost outspoken publication, TajfÊf man§bi# al-irh§b (Draining the sourcesof terrorism), in which he refutes the militant interpretations of centralqur"anic concepts by today’s radical Islamists and traces their historicalroots in what he sees as the equally militant understandings ofmedieval Islamic jurisprudence. Given his late entry into the publicdiscourse on Islam and the negative press his first book received inspite of its popularity, it is remarkable to see that Shahrur, not leastbecause of the toleration by the Syrian government and rulers ofseveral Arab countries, has now become a major voice in the debateabout a more liberal and tolerant interpretation of Islam and areform of traditional concepts and understandings of the Qur"an.TheoryThe philosophical work of Shahrur, as presented in this volume, isa multidimensional undertaking: it endeavours to provide a systematicand entirely novel presentation of the qur"anic text and, thus, acompletely new conception of religion and Islam. It aims to demonstratethat faith and reason do not need to be mutually exclusive,and it also attempts to show that a rational definition of faith is notonly more truthful to the modern, universal spirit of intellectualthought but also superior to the particularistic and ritualistic religiosityof traditional Islam. Like reformists such as Muhammad #Abduhand Fazlur Rahman before him, Shahrur seeks to synthesize qur"anicwith modern worldviews. To this end, he points out what to himseems an already existing symbiosis between the qur"anic notion ofreligion (called al-isl§m) and a universally applicable and de factoobservable form of common (human) religiosity (also called al-isl§m).Finally, he develops the thesis that the eternal verities of al-isl§m andthe philosophical perceptions of the world, defining the parametersof morality and religion, are all but identical.Shahrur’s main philosophical position can be found in his viewson general religion ( al-isl§m) and on particular religion ( al-Êm§n). Theformer is guided by scientific reason and by what common (human)sense in all periods of history has viewed as good, moral action. Thelatter was brought into existence during one limited period of timeby a prophet’s appearance as God’s messenger and promulgator of