The Prophets 107

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This verse recurs in Shahrur’s project because it brings the entirety of the Muhammadan message under the heading of mercy to the worlds. It is central for him because it prevents reading the message through violence or exclusion, and places mercy at the heart of its understanding.

The text of the verse as cited

And We have not sent you except as a mercy to the worlds.

Reader’s answer

The question

How does Muhammad Shahrur employ the words of God Most High, “And We have not sent you except as a mercy to the worlds”?

Shahrur employs the verse in an exposition that links the mercy of the message to respect for freedom of belief and to the method of calling through wisdom, good counsel, and disputation in the best manner. For him, the verse is not an isolated description, but part of the features of conveying the message to people. Elsewhere, he also explicitly states that the message is universal, and cites the verse in explaining its being “a mercy to the worlds.”

Shahrur cites The Prophets 107 after the verses on “no compulsion in religion” and the freedom to believe or disbelieve, placing it among the features of a call founded on wisdom, good counsel, and disputation in the best manner.

Evidence and location

Drying Up the Sources of Terrorism — p. 245.

Limits of the reading

  • The phrase “mercy to the worlds” is not here transformed into an independent, detailed rule without tracing the rest of Shahrur’s framework concerning freedom, fighting, and legislation.
  • The connection between mercy and dialogue is established in the direct evidence; extending it to the rejection of every use of violence or to detailed jurisprudential rulings requires other specific evidence.

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Brief reading

Shahrur reads the verse as a comprehensive statement of the nature of the message, not merely an ethical description of it. For him, the message is a mercy to the worlds; this accords with alleviation, dialogue, and the rejection of fanaticism, and makes violence, in his reading, incidental to its purpose rather than part of its essence.

Axes

  • Faith
  • Human and ethical
  • Methodological
  • Mercy: 6
  • Mercy to the worlds: 3
  • Universality: 2
  • Universality of the message: 2

Its place in the network of concepts

The verse is connected with mercy, universality, alleviation, the rejection of abrogation, and the understanding of the final message. It is central because it gives his project a general criterion through which legislation and relations with the other are read.

The verse’s role in the argument

  • Support: 6
  • Foundation: 2
  • Critique of tradition: 1

Summary of its presence in the atlas

  • Mercy to the worlds is its central theme.
  • It is connected with the universality of the message and alleviation.
  • It is used to resist a reading of violence.

Pages in the atlas that refer to this verse

These links gather the pages that rely on the verse or make it part of the argument within the atlas.

Contexts of use

  • The Book and the Qur’an, p. 410: He uses it to affirm that the finality of the message is coupled with comprehensive mercy and legislative alleviation.
    • Concept: mercy to the worlds
    • Function of the verse here: support
    • Textual evidence: “Thus we understand why Muhammad’s message (PBUH) was a mercy to the worlds: {And We have not sent you except as a mercy to the worlds} (The Prophets 107).”
  • Drying Up the Sources of Terrorism, p. 13: He employs it to establish the universality of the Muhammadan message and that it cannot be founded on violence and killing.
    • Concept: mercy to the worlds
    • Function of the verse here: support
    • Textual evidence: “This message is universal: {And We have not sent you except as a mercy to the worlds} (The Prophets 107).”
  • Drying Up the Sources of Terrorism, p. 39: He makes it a governing principle through which he rejects extending the verses of fighting to the message as a whole.
    • Concept: mercy
    • Function of the verse here: foundation
    • Textual evidence: “The most important quality of the Muhammadan message is mercy to all people: ﴿And We have not sent you except as a mercy to the worlds﴾ (The Prophets 107).”
  • Drying Up the Sources of Terrorism, p. 188: He uses it to refute the idea that the Prophet was commanded to hate and show enmity, since his message is a mercy to the worlds.
    • Concept: mercy
    • Function of the verse here: support
    • Textual evidence: “{And We have not sent you except as a mercy to the worlds} (The Prophets 107).”
  • Drying Up the Sources of Terrorism, p. 245: He places it among the features of the Prophet’s call, founded on mercy and dialogue rather than coercion, to support his view of religion as a choice.
    • Concept: mercy
    • Function of the verse here: support
    • Textual evidence: “Thus He says: {And We have not sent you except as a mercy to the worlds} (The Prophets 107).”
  • Guide to the Contemporary Reading of the Wise Revelation, p. 42: He employs it to explain the alleviation of punishments in the Muhammadan message and to reject abrogation within the Wise Revelation.
    • Concept: mercy
    • Function of the verse here: support
    • Textual evidence: “As for the verses of the Wise Revelation, there is neither abrogating nor abrogated. For the Muhammadan message is the final message and came as a mercy to the worlds, as God Most High says: {And We have not sent you except as a mercy to the worlds} (The Prophets 107).”
  • Toward New Foundations for Islamic Jurisprudence, p. 15: He uses it to affirm the universality of the message and its extension to all human beings in every place and time.
    • Concept: universality
    • Function of the verse here: foundation
    • Textual evidence: “{And We have not sent you except as a mercy to the worlds} (The Prophets 107).”
  • Toward New Foundations for Islamic Jurisprudence, p. 126: He uses it to interpret the Muhammadan message as an alleviation of punishments and an expansion of the limits of human legislation.
    • Concept: mercy
    • Function of the verse here: support
    • Textual evidence: “{And We have not sent you except as a mercy to the worlds} (The Prophets 107).”
  • Toward New Foundations for Islamic Jurisprudence, p. 171: He cites it to refute the doctrine of abrogation and occasions of revelation, since he sees them as turning the message into temporary rulings and disabling its universality.
    • Concept: universality of the message
    • Function of the verse here: critique of tradition
    • Textual evidence: “A disabling of His, Most High, saying: {And We have not sent you except as a mercy to the worlds} (The Prophets 107).”

This page is presented within the general methodology for constructing the atlas.

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Muhammad Shahrur Atlas