Formulation of the claim
Religion is historically shaped after the disappearance of the founder within a struggle over interpretation and legitimacy, where power, jurisprudence, and sharia overlap in redefining it, while faith remains a broader experience than this formation.
Why do these elements come together?
These elements come together because they begin from the moment of the Prophet’s absence, when the problem of interpretation becomes central and the founding word becomes a matter of disagreement. In this context, religion no longer appears as a single, complete given; instead, it enters a historical process that distinguishes between what is religion and what is religious history, and between what is origin and what is a later formation.
From here, sharia becomes connected to jurisprudence and power in a way that reveals how human understanding turns into an object of sanctification, and how juridical discourse is used to regulate meaning and conduct. At the same time, faith remains a moving inner experience, while the Qur’an also carries a political dimension within the historical social field, so legitimacy is determined within the interweaving of religion, interpretation, power, and reality.
Place of the cluster in the book
This page comes within the book The Humanistic Formation of Islam, because it gathers the elements that explain the transition from the moment of foundation to the historical formation of religion. It lies at the heart of questions related to interpretation, to the distinction between religion and its historical experiences, and to the relationship among faith, jurisprudence, and power.
Cluster elements
- After the Prophet’s death, the problem of interpretation becomes central
- Critique of Islamic Reason distinguishes between religious history and religion itself
- Sharia is understood historically, while confusion turns into human sanctification
- Faith is a moving inner experience
- Juristic discourse appears coercive
- Power nationalizes religion historically
- The Qur’an carries a political dimension
Brief evidence
After the disappearance of the founder, religion enters a field in which interpretations and authorities compete to define it and grant it legitimacy. Here, jurisprudence overlaps with sharia and with balances of power, and religion becomes a site of ongoing rearticulation rather than a fixed given. These elements therefore come together because they show how history becomes the mediator between faith and its institutional embodiment. Yet faith remains broader than these structures, because it cannot be reduced to mechanisms of control or to a struggle over legitimacy.
Conclusion
These elements come together because they explain how, after the founder, religion moves into a field in which historical interpretation intersects with jurisprudence and power, and how legitimacy is reformulated within this interweaving.