The Intended Meaning
The year here is not an abstract time, but a temporal measure tied to the event and defined by it in Qur’anic usage It is therefore understood within a specific occurrence, not apart from it It is thus a time directly related to the act or event that defines it
The Atom’s Structure in the Atlas
- Type of argument: definitional
- Movement of the argument: makes the year a temporal measure linked to the event.
- Central terms: year, event, time, Qur’anic usage.
- Degree of centrality: secondary.
It links the unit of time to the act or occurrence, so the year is not understood as an abstract duration detached from context. This meaning is useful for reading Qur’anic time as a time conditioned by the event.
Links That Help Reading
- Muhammad Shahrur the Book and the Qur’an
- History, Evolution, and Sunan
- Time in the Qur’anic conception is relative and constrained by the event
Basis
- Supporting text: “The year: a temporal measure linked to the event and defined in Qur’anic usage.”
Place of the Basis in the Book
- Book: The Book and the Qur’an.
- Location: in the middle section of the book
- Type of basis: proximate evidence.
- Verification marker: direct boundary rulings
- Reading note: this location is suitable as evidence because it addresses boundary rulings and the historical event in a general context, and it is close to the atom.
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 textually.
Its Function in the Book
Its function here is definitional; it fixes a meaning or conceptual distinction on which Shahrur relies in building the idea.
Related to
Editorial Note
The atom is definitional and prevents the generalization of abstract time.