This path opens the triad that Shahrur uses in Towards a New Foundation for Islamic Jurisprudence: being, process, and becoming. Its importance lies in transforming philosophical terms that may seem peripheral into a central reading tool: there is no existence without standing, no standing without movement, and no movement without an outcome.
In the atlas, this is not a path separate from contemporary reading, but a lens that helps explain why Shahrur insists on the fixedness of the text and the movement of understanding at the same time. Being governs what is established, process governs temporal movement, and becoming governs what that movement leads to.
Path question
How does Shahrur use the triad of being, process, and becoming to understand existence, history, and legislation without falling into rigid fixity or unrestrained change?
Short answer
Shahrur holds that understanding religion and legislation requires bringing together stability, movement, and outcome. Being prevents existence from being reduced to change alone; process prevents it from being turned into a static form; and becoming adds the question of end or result. Thus the text becomes fixed in its existence, but its understanding and practical rulings move within history, knowledge, and society.
Ascent map
| Layer | Its question | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Atoms | What does each term in the triad mean? | being, process, becoming |
| Structures | How does the triad operate in religion and legislation? | understanding religion and legislation rests on the triad |
| Path | What is its effect on reading? | the fixedness of the text and the movement of understanding and history |
Path nodes
- being
- process
- becoming
- objective existence
- knowledge
- the triad of being, process, and becoming
- the world needs becoming
- the Arab society lacks becoming
- existence can only be understood through the inseparability of being, process, and becoming
- understanding religion and legislation rests on the triad of being, process, and becoming
Books read within the path
- Towards a New Foundation for Islamic Jurisprudence: the central site of the triad, where it becomes a tool for understanding religion and legislation.
- The Book and the Qur’an: adjacent to this path in terms of objective existence, knowledge, and interpretation.
- Qur’anic Narratives Vol. 2: adjacent in terms of laws and open-ended history.
Before this path
After this path
This path connects to existence, knowledge, and history from the standpoint of philosophical foundations, to legislation and limits from the standpoint of the movement of legislation, and to Qur’anic narrative and history from the standpoint of laws and outcomes.
Point of contention
The point of contention is that Shahrur borrows a broad philosophical structure and then makes it an entry point for understanding legislation. Supporters see in this a solution to the problem of stagnation, while critics may see that this triad needs to be disciplined so that it does not become a mold that imposes itself on the text more than it derives itself from it.