This locus gathers 1 instance of the use of this verse in Muhammad Shahrur’s books, linking it to the concepts and arguments that appear around it.
Text of the verse as cited
Permission [to fight] has been granted to those who are fought because they have been wronged, and indeed God is surely able to grant them victory * those who were expelled from their homes without right, except for saying, “Our Lord is God.”
Reader’s answer
Question
How does Muhammad Shahrur employ Al-Hajj 39–40 in his discussion of fighting and defending the homeland?
Shahrur employs the two verses as evidence that permitted fighting is connected to the occurrence of injustice and expulsion from “the homes.” He reads “the homes” as the homeland, and thus makes their defense a defense of human life, one’s family and kin, and one’s rights in one’s native land. For him, the point of citation is not the formulation of a general theory encompassing every form of fighting, but specifically the connection of the two verses to the idea of defending the homeland when it is subjected to aggression or threat.
Shahrur cites Al-Hajj 39–40 in a section he calls “the collective combat doctrine (the doctrine of defending the homeland or the homes).” He interprets the “homes” mentioned in the verse as the homeland, and links expulsion from them to the duty to defend them when they are exposed to danger. In Shahrur’s framework, defending the homeland is not an abstract value: it is a defense of the person, their family, their kin, and their life, because a threat to the homeland threatens the lives of those who reside in it.
Citation and location
Islam and Humanity — p. 42.
Limits of the reading
- The citation establishes Shahrur’s reading of “the homes” as the homeland and his linkage of the two verses to its defense, but the excerpt alone does not provide a complete theory of all types of fighting or their legal and political conditions.
- The quoted text does not explicitly deny every ideological use of fighting; it is therefore more precise to attribute to it an affirmation of the defense of the homeland and homes, without turning this into an unqualified denial that is not stated in the text.
- The quotation ends before the paragraph is complete (“and he expressed”), but the available portion directly includes the two verses and the line of argument based on them.
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Brief reading
Shahrur invokes it to establish the legitimacy of defensive fighting for the homes, understood as defense of the homeland rather than of a combat ideology.
Axes
- Political and social
- Legislative
Related concepts
- Defense of the homeland: 2
Its place in the network of concepts
It establishes a specific political meaning of legitimate fighting.
The verse’s role in the argument
- Foundation: 1
Instances of use
- Islam and Humanity, p. 42: He cites the two verses to establish the legitimacy of defensive fighting for the homes, understood as defense of the homeland rather than as a random collective combat ideology.
- Concept: Defense of the homeland
- Function of the verse here: Foundation
- Textual evidence: “The homeland, which the Wise Revelation calls ‘the homes,’ is among the highest things that a person must defend, as in His exalted saying: { Permission [to fight] has been granted to those who are fought… } (Al-Hajj 39–40)”
Related books
This page is presented within the general atlas construction methodology.