The meaning of the concept in this book
Mohammed Arkoun uses the concept of rooting to denote linking judgments and ideas to origins that confer legitimacy upon them. But he does not treat this link as a final or closed foundation; for in his view, the origins themselves are historical and changeable. Rooting thus becomes, for him, a field of review and critique, not a final point of closure for meaning.
Its place in the book’s argument
Rooting lies at the heart of the argument presented in this book: the problem is not the existence of origins, but the transformation of them into a fixed authority that closes off ijtihad and prevents rethinking. From here, the concept is directly tied to the idea that rooting is historical and non-final, and that later rooting became associated with fundamentalism when the rooted was presented as a completed judgment that does not admit revision. In this sense, the concept converges with Arkoun’s critique of fundamentalism imposes an old model and closes off the possibility of modernization and with his statement that the impossibility of rooting imposes a historical critique of Islamic reason and modernity.
How it works within the atlas
Within the atlas, rooting becomes an entry point for understanding the relationship between text and history, between belief and the imaginary, and between ijtihad and authority. It is not read as fixing meaning, but as part of a historical movement in which the origins themselves change according to contexts. Therefore, concepts such as belief is read historically and linguistically, non-reductive interpretation includes text and practice, and applied Islamology treats religious reason as a critical scientific field stand alongside it. The concept also illuminates other places in the atlas connected to the idea that the meaning of religion cannot be understood outside history, and that traditional closure obstructs the emergence of a modern understanding of Islam.