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.
The text of the verse as cited
AND YOU COMMIT THE REPREHENSIBLE IN YOUR ASSEMBLIES
Reader’s answer
Question
How does Muhammad Shahrur employ the phrase {AND YOU COMMIT THE REPREHENSIBLE IN YOUR ASSEMBLIES} in distinguishing between the reprehensible and the forbidden?
Shahrur employs the verse as evidence that the “reprehensible” is broader than the “forbidden”: for him, the reprehensible includes what is forbidden, what is prohibited, and what is lawful but socially unacceptable or contrary to custom. He reads the description of the act of Lot’s people in their assembly as “the reprehensible” as relating to collective publicness and social condemnation, rather than as an independent text that by itself establishes a ruling of prohibition.
Shahrur maintains that everything forbidden is reprehensible, but not everything reprehensible is forbidden, because for him the reprehensible includes what is forbidden, what is prohibited, and what is lawful but socially unacceptable. He connects the verse to his example of “collective public homosexuality” among Lot’s people, citing the phrase {AND YOU COMMIT THE REPREHENSIBLE IN YOUR ASSEMBLIES} in his explanation of the breadth of the concept of the reprehensible. Within this framework, Shahrur makes enjoining what is right and forbidding what is reprehensible a social and political practice broader than merely commanding what is lawful and forbidding what is prohibited, linking it to the function of opposition and the denunciation of unsound policies.
Citation and location
Toward New Foundations for Islamic Jurisprudence — p. 162.
Limits of the reading
- This presentation establishes Shahrur’s way of employing the verse on the specified page; it does not establish that this is the only interpretation of the verse or the agreed-upon meaning of the word “reprehensible.”
- The phrase “collective public homosexuality” is Shahrur’s description in the cited passage; it is not derived here from an independent analysis of the wording and context of the verse.
- This citation alone is insufficient to establish additional details concerning the legal ruling or all elements of the story of Lot’s people, since the point of citation is limited to clarifying the relationship between the reprehensible and the forbidden.
- The shared use of the term “reprehensible” should not be turned into a relation to other verses or topics unless there is evidence explicitly stating that relation.
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Brief reading
The verse is used as an example that the reprehensible is broader than the forbidden, and that some matters are socially condemned without a direct text.
Axes
- Political and social
- Human and ethical
Related concepts
- The reprehensible: 2
- The forbidden: 1
- Society: 1
Its place in the network of concepts
It clarifies the difference between a social judgment and a prohibitive judgment.
The verse’s role in the argument
- Example: 1
Instances of use
- Toward New Foundations for Islamic Jurisprudence, p. 162: He uses it as an example that the reprehensible is more general than the forbidden, and that some matters are described socially as reprehensible even if they are not a textual basis for prohibition.
- Concept: the reprehensible
- Function of the verse here: example
- Textual citation: “Consider His—Exalted is He—statement concerning collective public homosexuality (Lot’s people), when He called it the reprehensible: { AND YOU COMMIT THE REPREHENSIBLE IN YOUR ASSEMBLIES }”
Related books
This page is presented within the general atlas construction methodology.