What is meant
What is meant is that embodied associating partners is the most severe form of associating partners, and it is the sin that is not forgiven if its perpetrator persists in it It is not limited to the worship of ancient idols, but also includes embodying God or deifying human beings and intermediaries
The atom’s structure in the atlas
- Type of argument: value-based
- Movement of the argument: it makes embodied associating partners the most severe form of associating partners.
- Central terms: embodied associating partners, greatest associating partners, persistence, embodiment.
- Degree of centrality: pivotal.
It arranges the degrees of associating partners according to their gravity, and links the gravest of them to conferring a fixed form on what should remain free of embodiment.
Links that help with reading
Basis
- Supporting text: «Embodied associating partners is the sin that is not forgiven if its perpetrator persists in it».
Basis location in the book
- Book: Islam and Faith.
- Location: in the final section of the book, within his interpretation of the meaning of associating partners in the cited verses.
- Type of basis: close evidence.
- Marker that helps verification: embodied associating partners
- Reading note: this location is suitable as evidence because it identifies the associating partners that are not forgiven as embodied associating partners.
Degree of documentation
- Level: directly documented
- Meaning of the level: the atom rests on an explicit witness close to the wording of the claim.
- Limits of reading: the formulation above is an analytical summary, and should not be treated as a verbatim quotation unless the witness is transmitted verbatim.
Its function in the book
Its function here is definitional; it fixes a meaning or conceptual distinction that Shahrur relies on in building the idea.
Editorial note
The danger here lies in embodiment and deification.