Muhammad Shahrur

Muhammad Shahrour (, 11 April 1938 – 21 December 2019) was a Syrian philosopher and author. He was an Emeritus Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Damascus who wrote extensively about Islam. Shahrour was trained as an engineer in Syria, the former Soviet Union and Ireland. He referred to the book of the Islamic prophet Muhammad as "The Book", not the Quran; which casts him in direct contradiction with other Islamic thinkers and traditional scholars. Yet similar to Quranist Muslims, he did not consider Hadith as a divine source; however, he did not belong to the same school as Ahmed Subhy Mansour.

Early life Born in Damascus, Shahrour had his high school diploma in 1958, then he studied Civil engineering at the Moscow State University, Soviet Union until 1964. Afterwards, he went back to Syria to work as a research assistant for the Damascus University. Later on, he had Master's and PhD degrees, in 1968 and 1972 respectively, from Trinity College Dublin.

Positions Shahrour decided to write his first book, which took him more than twenty years to complete, after the Arab defeat in the 1967 Six Day War that was a collective shock for the Arab world. This led Shahrour to search for a way out of the region's crisis, which he interpreted above all as a moral and intellectual crisis.

Shahrour said that traditional scholarship on the Qur'an is unscientific. His interpretation of the Quran supports liberal political positions such as pluralism. He also said that the Quran must be read and understood in relation to ever changing social realities.

Death Shahrour died on 21 December 2019 in Abu Dhabi, UAE. However, his body was taken to Damascus to be buried there.

Reactions Shahrour's first book has circulated throughout the Middle East and North Africa. His second and third books have been banned in many countries, but thousands of copies have been published, sold, and circulated under the table. At least thirteen books have been published attacking Shahrour's first book.

Shahrour and a dozen or so like-minded intellectuals from across the Arab and Islamic worlds provoked bedlam when they presented their call for a reinterpretation of holy texts after a Cairo seminar entitled "Islam and Reform" in 2004. His thoughts have angered many traditional scholars in Al-Azhar University and has been declared apostate by two of them, Mustafa Al-Shak'a and Farahat Al-Sayeed Al-Mungi. When Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, the influential Islamic thinker and frequent guest on Al-Jazeera, was asked about the significance of Shahrur's work for the Islamic world, he said: "It's a new religion!"

Notable quote “It is easier to build a skyscraper or a tunnel under the sea than to teach people how to read the book of the Lord with their own eyes. They have been used to reading this book with borrowed eyes for hundreds of years”.