Formulation of the claim
The text rejects the generalization of Aristotelian analogy to the Qur’an.
Explanation
This objection assumes that the Qur’an is not to be read as a text that corresponds to ready-made logical categories, because such an imposition obscures its textual and semantic specificity. For this reason, generalizing analogy to it remains problematic within the reading opened up by Arkoun.
As this atom shows, there is a tension between the desire to revive religion and the tendency to say that the Qur’an contains forms of Aristotelian analogy. Yet Arkoun draws attention to the fact that transferring the tools of logical thought as they are to the Qur’anic text does not settle its meaning; rather, it may conceal it.
Its place in the book’s argument
This idea falls within Arkoun’s critique of ways of reading the Qur’an when concepts drawn from outside its structure are imposed upon it, so that it appears to correspond to them in advance. It thus supports his broader thesis concerning the need to question inherited tools of understanding before fastening them onto the text.
Limits of the claim
This atom does not elaborate on logical theory itself, nor does it offer a definitive judgment on every use of analogy in thinking about the Qur’an. What is meant here is an objection to generalization and to unexamined projection.