This is a lexical entry that gathers the technical meaning of this term in Shahrur across his various books, and links together its multiple usages.
This entry belongs to Shahrur’s lexicon. For reading by theme, one may refer to Shahrur’s major themes and shared concepts.
The meaning according to Shahrur
Livestock in Shahrur’s thought are domesticated herbivorous animals associated with grazing and settlement, understood as a source of multiple benefits that include warmth, beauty, transport, hides, and wool, not merely as meat. This understanding makes them a marker of civilizational transition and a logic of benefit and grace in the Qur’anic text.
Distinctions
- They do not include all animals, but are limited to domesticated herbivores with direct utility for human beings
- They differ from bahīmat al-anʿām if the latter is intended to mean animals in general, and they are not confined to the meaning of meat alone.
Places in his books
- The Qur’anic Stories, vol. 2: Shahrur narrows the meaning to domesticated herbivorous animals, then expands their function to include warmth, beauty, transport, hides, and wool, not meat alone. In this way, livestock becomes an element in his interpretation of civilizational transformation and of the logic of grace and utility in the Qur’anic text
What is adjacent to it and what differs from it
- The default in things is permissibility, and prohibition applies to actions
- Livestock are domesticated animals with multiple benefits
- The Stories reread religious and civilizational history to build a coexisting human consciousness
- Bahīmat al-anʿām is not all animals
- Shahrur’s definition of livestock
- The story of Hud highlights settlement and civilization
- With Hud, livestock and grazing appeared
- The benefits of livestock are broader than meat
- Hud symbolizes a civilizational transition toward grazing and settlement