Evidence locus: Towards New Foundations for Islamic Jurisprudence, p. 255.

Intended Meaning

The intended meaning is that the marital home does not cease to be the wife’s right after divorce; rather, it remains hers, without the husband having the right to exclusively claim it. This forms part of an argument that regards divorce as a mutual right of both spouses, while housing remains the wife’s entitlement.

Atom Structure in the Atlas

  • Argument type: legislative
  • Argument movement: establishes the wife’s right to the house after divorce.
  • Central terms: the house, the wife’s right, divorce.
  • Degree of centrality: foundational.

It preserves housing as a right of the wife and prevents divorce from being turned into a means of dispossessing her of the house or allowing the husband to claim it exclusively.

Basis

  • Supporting text: “The house remains the wife’s right.”

Degree of Documentation

  • Level: directly documented
  • Meaning of the level: the atom is based on explicit evidence closely corresponding to the wording of the claim.
  • Limits of interpretation: the wording above is an analytical summary and should not be treated as a verbatim quotation unless the evidence is cited word for word.

Its Function in the Book

Its function here is declarative: it establishes a conclusion on which the subsequent course of the argument depends.

Note for the Reader

The atom gives housing a legal-rights meaning after separation.