What is Intended
Time is defined as linking time to a known event, that is, as a specific or temporary time. The point is not time in its absolute sense, but time when it is measured by an occurrence or a marker that regulates it.
The Atom’s Structure in the Atlas
- Type of argument: definitional
- Argument movement: it defines time as time linked to a known event.
- Key terms: time, duration, event, delimitation.
- Degree of centrality: central.
It explains time as time measured by an occurrence, making delimitation what gives time its practical meaning in use and regulation.
Links That Help Reading
- Muhammad Shahrur, The Book and the Qur’an
- History, Development, and Laws
- Time in the Qur’anic conception is relative and constrained by the event
Basis
- Supporting text: “Time: linking time to a known event; that is, a specific or temporary time.”
Place of Support in the Book
- Book: The Book and the Qur’an.
- Location: in the middle section of the book, within the explanation of the concepts of continuity and time.
- Type of support: close witness.
- Marker that helps verification: time axis
- Reading note: this passage is suitable as support because the witness links prayer and food periods to the time axis and continuity, and it is close to defining time as time tied to an event.
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 wording above is an analytical summary, and should not be treated as a verbatim quotation unless the witness is cited verbatim.
Its Function in the Book
Its function here is definitional; it sets a meaning or conceptual distinction on which Shahrur relies in building the idea.
Related To
Editorial Note
This definition is close to both philosophical and linguistic usage.