Intended Meaning
Contemporary Arab societies are backward because they exclude becoming from their culture and legislation This exclusion renders them incapable of generating transformation from within, so their culture remains confined to two fixed dimensions that do not open a space for change
The Atom’s Structure in the Atlas
- Type of argument: critical
- Argument movement: it criticizes Arab societies for excluding becoming.
- Key terms: Arab societies, becoming, backwardness.
- Degree of centrality: original.
It links backwardness to the absence of a logic of transformation, and makes cultural and legislative stagnation the cause of disabling the capacity for internal change.
Reading Aids
- Muhammad Shahrur: Toward New Foundations for Islamic Jurisprudence
- History, Evolution, and Sunnas
- Becoming
Basis
- Supporting text: «Contemporary Arab societies are backward because they exclude becoming from their culture and legislation».
Degree of Documentation
- Level: directly documented
- Meaning of the level: the atom is based on an explicit witness close to the wording of the claim.
- Limits of reading: the formulation above is an analytical summary, and is not treated as a verbatim quotation unless the witness is quoted word for word.
Its Function in the Book
Its function here is declarative; it establishes a conclusion on which what follows in the argument depends.
Editorial Note
The atom explains backwardness through the absence of conceptual movement.