Formulation of the claim
Repentance is understood as both religious and political submission.
Explanation
At this point in Arkoun’s thought, repentance is not reduced to an individual moral meaning, but is read within the human relation to religious authority and to the political structure that organizes the community. It therefore points to a shift from a state of objection or separation to a state of compliance within a system that determines faith and obedience at the same time.
This understanding makes repentance part of the social and political history of religious concepts, not merely an emotional response within conscience. The meaning here is tied to the way religion operates in the public sphere, and to the manner in which return becomes a form of conformity.
Its place in the book’s argument
This atom falls within Arkoun’s concern to dismantle religious concepts when they are read outside their history, and to show what in them is connected to the power structures that surrounded the formation of Islamic discourse. It is close to theses that reassess foundational terms and reveal the intertwining of the religious and the political in the formation of meaning.
Limits of the claim
This atom should not be taken as an absolute judgment on every use of repentance in the Islamic heritage, nor turned into the sole final definition of the concept. What is meant here is the reading angle through which the double dimension of repentance emerges in a specific context.