Lessons in Islamic Jurisprudence by Mottahedeh Roy; Mottahedeh Roy ;

Author:Mottahedeh, Roy; Mottahedeh, Roy ;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oneworld Publications

The Connected and Independent Context

We have come to understand that the word “conversation” in the preceding example might be the context for that sequence of words as a whole. It is called a conjunctive context because it is conjoined with the word “sea,” which invalidates the literal meaning when [found] accompanying [the conjunctive context] in a single passage. The word which loses its literal meaning because of the context is called “contextualized.”

An example of a connected context is an exception from the general, as when the giver of a command says, “Respect every poor person except sinners.” The word “every” lexically has the prima-facie sense of generalization, but the word “sinners” is incompatible with this generalization. When we study the sequence of words as a whole we see that the image which this word “sinners” entails is closer to [the sense of] the passage than the image of generalization which the word “every” entails. In fact, there is no room for comparison between the two. For this reason the particle of exception [sc., the word “except”] is considered to be the context for the general meaning of the passage. So the conjunctive context is everything that is conjoined with another word and that invalidates the prima-facie sense [of that word] and directs the general meaning of the passage in a direction which is in harmony with itself.

Sometimes it happens that the context with this meaning does not appear connected to the speech in question, but disjunct from it. It is called a disjunctive context. An example is when the giver of a command says “Respect every poor person.” Then s/he says in another conversation a while later, “Do not respect the sinners among the poor.” This prohibitive [verb form], had it been conjoined with the first speech, would be considered a conjunct context; yet it was disjoined from it in this example. In this light we understand the meaning of the jurisprudential rule that says “The prima-facie sense of the context takes precedence over the prima-facie sense of what is contextualized by it, regardless of whether the context be conjunctive or disjunctive.”

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