This entry brings together 2 instances 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
In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.
Reader’s answer
Question
How does Muhammad Shahrur read the basmala in the Qur’anic statement, “In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful”?
Shahrur reads the basmala as an intentional combination of “the Most Gracious” and “the Most Merciful,” rather than as a repetition of a single attribute in two forms. He rejects the interpretation of “the Most Gracious” as merely an intensive form of “the Most Merciful,” and treats “the Most Gracious” as a broader name encompassing mercy, punishment, and harm, while specifying “the Most Merciful” as not inflicting punishment or harm. Thus, he understands the mention of “the Most Merciful” in the basmala as an intentional distinction within this breadth, not as verbal padding.
Shahrur rejects the claim that “the Most Gracious” is merely an intensive form of “the Most Merciful,” because this would make their conjunction in the basmala a purposeless repetition. He maintains that “the Most Gracious” encompasses mercy, punishment, and harm, citing Qur’anic passages in which punishment or harm is attributed to “the Most Gracious,” in contrast to his assertion that “the Most Merciful” neither punishes nor harms.
Citation and location
Drying Up the Sources of Terrorism — p. 35.
Limits of the reading
- This presents Shahrur’s reading as it appears in the citation; it does not establish the meaning of the verse as an agreed-upon interpretation.
- The citation does not support linking the verse to the contrast between the themes of “messengerhood and fighting”; this connection should therefore not be introduced into the page’s answer.
- The cited text ends before its final sentence is complete, but its distinction between “the Most Gracious” and “the Most Merciful” is evident in the excerpt provided.
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Brief reading
He employs it to read the basmala within a framework of mercy, linking it to the thematic contrast between messengerhood and fighting.
Axes
- Faith-based
- Linguistic and semantic
Related concepts
- Basmala: 2
- Mercy: 2
Its place in the network of concepts
It connects the opening of the discourse with the governing significance of mercy.
The verse’s role in the argument
- Support: 1
- Context: 1
Instances of use
- Drying Up the Sources of Terrorism, p. 35: He uses it to oppose the traditional interpretation that makes “the Most Gracious” merely an intensive form of “the Most Merciful,” and rereads it within a framework of mercy and predominance.
- Concept: Basmala
- Function of the verse here: Support
- Textual citation: “{In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful} (al-Fātiḥah 1)”
- Corresponding traditional reading: the traditional claim that it is padding, or that “the Most Gracious” is an intensive form of “the Most Merciful”
- Drying Up the Sources of Terrorism, p. 39: He mentions the basmala to compare the mercy of messengerhood with the theme of fighting in Sūrat al-Tawbah, explaining its omission by the absence of mercy from the subject of the surah.
- Concept: Mercy
- Function of the verse here: Context
- Textual citation: “God—exalted is He—did not begin it with ‘In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful’ (al-Fātiḥah 1)”
Related books
This page is presented within the general atlas-building methodology.