This is a lexical entry that brings together the technical meaning of this term in Shahrur across his various books, and connects its multiple uses.
This entry belongs to Shahrur’s glossary. For reading by theme, one may refer to Shahrur’s major themes and shared concepts.
The meaning in Shahrur
Becoming is the outcome or end to which being arrives through process, that is, the realized form in which the path is completed after movement and change. In this usage, it serves to interpret existence and history from the standpoint of the end to which transformation leads, not merely from the standpoint of describing transformation itself.
Distinctions
- It differs from process; process is the flow and gradation of transformation, whereas becoming is its result and outcome
- It differs from being; being denotes existence or stability, whereas becoming focuses on what this existence turns into after the course it follows.
- It does not mean mere movement or change, but rather the realized end into which movement settles.
- It is not identical with the fixity of the text or the historicity of understanding, because those concern the mode of understanding, whereas becoming concerns the outcome of existence or history.
Places in his books
- Towards New Foundations for Islamic Jurisprudence: becoming is the outcome to which being arrives through process. In Muhammad Shahrur’s construction, it represents the purpose or realized end, and for that reason he links it to the interpretation of history and existence rather than merely describing movement or stasis
What accompanies it and differs from it
- being
- process
- the new foundations of jurisprudence are based on distinguishing between the fixity of the text and the historicity of understanding
- becoming is the final outcome
- the world needs becoming
- the Arab society lacks becoming
- existence cannot be understood except through the interdependence of being, process, and becoming
- the triad of being, process, and becoming
- understanding religion and legislation is based on the triad of being, process, and becoming