What Is Meant Here
Objective existence is the existence of things and events outside human consciousness. The available evidence does not provide a longer independent definition than this; rather, the term occurs in the definition of qadar.
What Is Attributed to Shahrur
Shahrur defines qadar as follows: “Qadar: the objective existence of things and events outside human consciousness.” Another piece of evidence states that the Qur’an concerns objective laws and existential truths, in contrast to the Mother of the Book, which concerns commands and prohibitions relating to human conduct.
For further reference to the source passages: qadar as objective existence and the Qur’an and the laws of objective existence.
Atlas Explanation
This page uses “objective existence” as the heading for the term given in the definition of qadar: that which things and events possess outside human consciousness. The connection between the two terms is therefore not an assumed general synonymy, but one established by the cited definition itself.
Within the scope indicated by the second piece of evidence, this entry is connected to the discussion of the Qur’an’s concern with objective laws and existential truths. As for knowledge, interpretation, and history, their detailed connections to this entry require specific evidence, and are not established by this evidence alone.
Synthetic Inference
This entry brings together, on the one hand, the definition of qadar and, on the other, the attribution of objective laws and existential truths to the Qur’an. This juxtaposition can be traced in objective existence and the free human being and the Book, qadar, and will, as well as in the path of existence, knowledge, and history. This is an atlas-based organization of connections, not an additional definition attributed to Shahrur.
Open Question and Limits of the Evidence
Does Shahrur offer a broader definition of objective existence than the definition of qadar, or does he specify elsewhere its relation to knowledge and interpretation? The available evidence does not settle this. The second piece of evidence is also used here only within the limits of its cited wording, since that wording does not appear in the accompanying raw context.
To return to the network of terms: the Shahrur glossary, qadar, and knowledge.