Formulation of the Claim
The Hajj verses implicitly presuppose the existence of a believing community and another, opposing one.
Explanation
Arkoun reads these verses as a discourse that does not state all of its premises explicitly, but rather relies on historical and theological assumptions operating in the background. Among these assumptions is the conception of a believing community that receives the discourse, set against another community that is opposing or unbelieving.
This assumption does not appear as an independent topic, but it guides the very structure of the discourse and the way actions are distributed within it. Thus, for Arkoun, the Hajj verses become an example of meaning formed within a network of unstated presuppositions.
Its Place in the Book’s Argument
This atom falls within Arkoun’s concern to uncover the implicit premises carried by Qur’anic discourse that are not stated directly. Here it is connected to his reading of religious discourse as conditioned by a historical and theological context, rather than as a set of statements detached from the network of assumptions that grounds them.
Limits of the Claim
This atom should not be made to bear a final judgment on the meaning of all the Hajj verses, nor turned into a comprehensive interpretation of all their aims. What is intended here is only to highlight the implicit assumptions that Arkoun detects in the structure of the discourse.