Intended Meaning
The point is that the existence of more than one possibility does not yet amount to an actual decision. Shahrur distinguishes between mashi’a, which encompasses possibilities, and irada, which settles on one possibility and carries it out.
This distinction appears in the context of the example of injustice and justice, rather than as an abstract lexical definition detached from that context.
What Is Attributed to Shahrur
Shahrur says that mashi’a “includes two possibilities: injustice and justice.” When injustice is carried out, “mashi’a turns into irada because the matter has been decided and one possibility out of the two has been chosen.” He connects this to a specific act and to implementation with “full understanding, study, and awareness of its results and consequences.”
Accordingly, this passage establishes that irada is not merely the continued possibility of alternatives, but the determination of one of them in an executed act.
Atlas Explanation
This distinction organizes the stages of the example as the text presents them: multiple possibilities in mashi’a, then the resolution and selection of one possibility, then the execution of a specific act in irada. This explains the structure of the evidence; it does not add another definition of the two terms.
For reading within the book’s broader structure: Freedom regulates human action between will and willing.
Synthetic Inference
The distinction helps us read the act, in Shahrur’s example, as resulting from a specific choice rather than from unresolved possibilities alone. It is therefore appropriate to connect this atom to the discussion of Freedom, the Human Being, and Responsibility, while recognizing that this connection is a synthetic inference rather than an independent text on responsibility.
Open Question and Limit of the Reading
Does Shahrur generalize this same structure to all acts and choices, or is its elaboration here limited to the context of injustice and justice? The available evidence alone does not settle this.
For the source context: Muhammad Shahrur, the State and Society.
the State and Society · Freedom regulates human action between will and willing