Intended Meaning
Continuity here is not an absolute attribute, but a meaning that falls within the axis of time itself. It indicates what combines discontinuity and continuity together, that is, something that remains temporal, not outside time.
The Atom’s Structure in the Atlas
- Type of argument: interpretive
- Movement of the argument: it makes continuity a temporal meaning that combines discontinuity and continuity.
- Central terms: continuity, time, discontinuity, continuity.
- Degree of centrality: pivotal.
It breaks down the abstract idea into a simple temporal structure, and links relative stability to movement within time rather than outside it, thereby supporting a contextual reading of the concept.
Links That Help with Reading
- Muhammad Shahrur the Book and the Qur’an
- History, Evolution, and Laws
- Time in the Qur’anic conception is relative and bound to the event
Basis
- Supporting text: «The permanent: what carries the meaning of discontinuity and continuity within the axis of time».
Degree of Documentation
- Level: directly documented
- Meaning of the level: the atom rests on an explicit witness close to the formulation of the claim.
- Limits of the reading: the wording above is an analytical summary and is not treated as a verbatim quotation unless the witness is quoted exactly.
Its Function in the Book
Its function here is definitional; it fixes a meaning or conceptual distinction on which Shahrur relies in constructing the idea.
Related to
Editorial Note
It needs a later citation clarifying its relation to the structure of time.