What is meant
The passage links livestock, agriculture, and provisioning to humanity’s transition from cave life to stability and presents this stability as a foundational stage that paved the way for urban civilization, the state, and the formation of complex social relations
The structure of the atom in the atlas
- Type of argument: Historical
- Movement of the argument: It links human stability to livelihood transformations that paved the way for urban civilization.
- Key terms: livestock, agriculture, stability, urban civilization.
- Degree of centrality: Secondary.
This atom offers a historical explanation for the emergence of stability through livelihood-based elements, making social transformation the result of practical accumulation rather than an abstract leap, and linking it to the beginnings of urban civilization and the formation of the community.
Links that help with reading
- Muhammad Shahrur: The Book and the Qur’an
- History, Evolution, and Divine Laws
- Livestock
- Previous legislations are phased and concrete
Basis
- Supporting text: «It states that livestock, agriculture, and provisioning contributed to humanity’s transition from the cave to stability».
Place of support in the book
- Book: The Book and the Qur’an.
- Location: in the final section of the book
- Type of support: Nearby witness.
- Verification marker: Human transition from living in caves
- Reading note: This location works as evidence because it mentions humanity’s transition from caves and hunting to stability through the domestication of livestock, and it is close to the atom.
Degree of documentation
- Level: Directly documented
- Meaning of the level: The atom relies on an explicit witness close to the wording of the claim.
- Limits of the reading: The formulation 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 argument depends.
Related to
Editorial note
The atom is contextual preface, not a legislative origin.