This axis brings together 1 instance of the use of this verse in the books of Muhammad Shahrur, linking it to the concepts and arguments that appear around it.
Text of the verse as cited
Within a few years. To God belongs the command before and after, and on that day the believers will rejoice.
Reader’s Answer
Question
How does Muhammad Shahrur employ the words of God Most High, “Within a few years. To God belongs the command before and after,” in his discussion of the unseen and Qur’anic narratives?
Shahrur employs the verse to divide the unseen, in relation to the “moment of now,” into an unseen past and an unseen future: the past is what occurred before the present and includes narratives, while the future is what comes afterward and constitutes, in his view, an aspect of divine knowledge encompassing all possibilities. He connects both divisions to the verse’s phrase, “To God belongs the command before and after.”
Shahrur reads “before and after” temporally, making the unseen two divisions in relation to the present moment: the unseen of the past and the unseen of the future. He considers Qur’anic narratives to fall within the unseen of the past, because they concern what elapsed before the “moment of now.” He describes the unseen of the future as an aspect of divine knowledge “encompassing all possibilities,” and maintains that command therein belongs to God just as command in the past belongs to God. From this conception, Shahrur proceeds to a conclusion concerning narratives: for him, they are truth, admonition, and remembrance, but do not in themselves establish specific binding legal rulings in the sphere of commands and prohibitions.
Evidence and location
Qur’anic Narratives, vol. 1 — p. 17.
Limits of the reading
- This presents Shahrur’s reading as he states it in the cited evidence; it does not assert that the verse admits of no meaning other than this one.
- The evidence connects the verse to the division of the unseen and to the function of narratives, but the excerpt does not provide the detail to which Shahrur refers when he says that he wrote about it “in detail later in this book.”
- The evidence does not establish an independent claim concerning the meaning of “a few years” or the details of the context of the Romans’ victory; therefore, these topics are not added to the page.
- The conclusion concerning narratives not establishing binding legal rulings is an inference that Shahrur declares in the same context, rather than a direct lexical explanation of every word of the verse.
Continue from here
Brief Reading
For Shahrur, the verse serves to ground an understanding of the unseen as connected to time, divided into past and future within the divine command.
Axes
- Methodological
- Faith-based
Related Concepts
- The unseen and time: 2
Its Place in the Concept Network
It is connected to the concept of the unseen and time, opening the network of reading onto a temporal epistemological conception.
Role of the Verse in the Argument
- Foundational: 1
Instances of Use
- Qur’anic Narratives, vol. 1, p. 17: He interprets it as dividing the unseen into past and future and connecting both to the divine command within a temporal conception of knowledge.
- Concept: the unseen and time
- Function of the verse here: foundational
- Textual evidence: “And when we considered the words of God Most High: {WITHIN A FEW YEARS. TO GOD BELONGS THE COMMAND BEFORE AND AFTER …} (Al-Rum: 4), … we understood that the unseen referred to … comprises two divisions: a division that has passed … and a division coming after the moment of now.”
Related Books
This page is presented within the general atlas-building methodology.