What is meant
The author distinguishes between two combat creeds: an individual creed concerned with defending human values, and a collective creed concerned with defending the homeland. In this way, he separates what the individual does to protect values from what the community undertakes to protect national sovereignty.
The Atom’s Structure in the Atlas
- Type of argument: Distinguishing
- Argument movement: He distinguishes between individual fighting in defense of values and collective fighting in defense of the homeland.
- Central terms: combat creed, defense of human values, homeland, individual and community.
- Degree of centrality: Secondary.
This atom explains how the author separates the level of individual responsibility from the level of collective protection, thereby reducing the confusion of fighting as a single meaning.
Links to support reading
- Muhammad Shahrur, Islam and Humanity
- Jihad, Fighting, and Critique of Violence
- Islam precedes the particularity of the Muhammadan message historically and conceptually
Basis
- Supporting text: “He distinguishes between the individual combat creed for defending human values.”
Basis in the Book
- Book: Islam and Humanity.
- Location: in the final section of the book
- Type of basis: Near witness.
- Verification marker: the collective combat creed
- Reading note: the phrase distinguishes between the individual and collective combat creed, which matches the atom in its original sense.
Degree of Documentation
- Level: Directly documented
- Meaning of level: the atom relies on an explicit witness close to the wording of the claim.
- Limits of reading: the wording above is an analytical summary, and should not be treated as a verbatim quotation unless the witness is quoted textually.
Its Function in the Book
Its function here is definitional; it establishes a meaning or conceptual distinction that Shahrur relies on in building the idea.
Related to
Editorial note
The distinction here is functional and serves to clarify the meaning of fighting.