What is meant
Being here means existence standing by itself, that is, the thing as it is within its material sphere. This meaning is used to distinguish being from movement and transformation, as the aspect of constancy in the conceptual structure.
The atom’s structure in the atlas
- Type of argument: definitional
- Movement of the argument: it defines being as existence standing by itself.
- Key terms: being, existing existence, matter.
- Degree of centrality: pivotal.
It establishes a conceptual basis for constancy in existence, and uses it to distinguish what is stable from what is changing in the general intellectual structure.
Reading aids
- Muhammad Shahrur: Toward New Foundations for Islamic Jurisprudence
- History, evolution, and laws
- Being
- Existence cannot be understood except through the interdependence of being, process, and becoming
Basis
- Supporting text: «Being: existence standing by itself, or the thing as it is within its material sphere».
Place of the basis in the book
- Book: Toward New Foundations for Islamic Jurisprudence.
- Location: within the opening sections of the book in its conceptual presentation of being and becoming
- Type of basis: close witness.
- Marker that helps verification: existence as fixed forms and laws
- Reading note: this passage is suitable as evidence because it explains being in contrast to becoming and changing existence.
Degree of documentation
- Level: directly documented
- Meaning of the level: the atom relies on an explicit witness close to the wording of the claim.
- Limits of reading: the wording above is an analytical summary, and is not treated as a verbatim quotation unless the witness is quoted 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 gives constancy a determinate conceptual meaning.