What is meant
The text sees slavery and “those whom the right hand possesses” as a temporary historical substitute on the path toward abolishing slavery. They are not a final condition, but a transitional stage tied to specific historical circumstances before reaching freedom.
The atom’s structure in the atlas
- Type of argument: historical
- Argument movement: those whom the right hand possesses are a temporary historical stage on the way to abolishing slavery.
- Key terms: slavery, those whom the right hand possesses, freedom.
- Degree of centrality: pivotal.
This atom places slavery and those whom the right hand possesses within a transitional historical context, not within a fixed final state. In this way, it explains that the aim of the reading is to reach freedom, not to entrench enslavement.
Links that help with reading
- Muhammad Shahrur: State and Society
- History, Development, and Sunnahs
- Freedom
- Slavery and those whom the right hand possesses are two historical phenomena open to deconstruction
Basis
- Supporting text: “slavery and “those whom the right hand possesses” as a temporary historical substitute on the path toward abolishing slavery.”
Degree of documentation
- Level: directly documented
- Meaning of the level: the atom is based on an explicit witness close to the wording of the claim.
- Limits of the 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 declarative; it establishes a result on which what follows in the course of the argument depends.
Relates to
Editorial note
It is preferable not to separate the atom from the context of historical transformation.