This entry brings together 2 instances of the use of this verse in the books of Muhammad Shahrur, linking them to the concepts and arguments that appear around it.
The Text of the Verse as Cited
Let there be among you a community that calls to what is good, enjoins what is right, and forbids what is wrong; those are the successful ones.
Reader’s Answer
Question
How does Muhammad Shahrur read Āl ʿImrān 104 regarding enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong, and what do the available evidence excerpts support?
Shahrur employs the verse to present enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong as a call to goodness, rather than a practice based on coercion. In another excerpt, he connects “what is right” (al-maʿrūf) to custom (ʿurf), namely, that which society recognizes and approves within what he calls human laws. The available evidence excerpts do not support describing the verse as establishing, in itself, an “institutional opposition” in the public sphere.
Shahrur cites Āl ʿImrān 104 to argue that enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong cannot be carried out with a stick or a whip; he places them in the context of calling to goodness and contrasts this with coercion.
Evidence Excerpt and Location
Drying Up the Sources of Terrorism — p. 158.
Limits of the Reading
- The claim that the verse establishes an “institutional form of opposition” does not appear in the two excerpts and should therefore not be attributed to Shahrur or to the verse on their basis.
- Connecting what is right (al-maʿrūf) to custom (ʿurf) is Shahrur’s interpretive construction in the second excerpt, not a settled linguistic definition derived from the wording of the verse alone.
- The first excerpt supports the rejection of coercion in the practice of enjoining and forbidding, but it does not provide an institutional or legal account of the mechanisms of this practice.
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Brief Reading
The verse establishes an understanding of enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong as an ethical call, and as a form of institutional opposition in the public sphere.
Themes
- Political and social
- Human and ethical
- Methodological
Related Concepts
- Enjoining what is right: 2
- Opposition: 2
Its Place in the Network of Concepts
It is connected to redefining the social function of calling away from coercion and tutelage.
The Verse’s Role in the Argument
- Foundational: 2
Instances of Use
- Drying Up the Sources of Terrorism, pp. 158–161: He presents it as a basis for understanding enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong as an ethical call free of coercion, rather than religious tutelage.
- Concept: Enjoining what is right
- Function of the verse here: Foundational
- Textual evidence: “We pause at His—Exalted be He—saying: {Let there be among you a community that calls to what is good…}”
- Corresponding traditional reading: He responds to those who made it an exclusive obligation of a class of scholars or religious authorities.
- Toward New Foundations of Islamic Jurisprudence, p. 163: He makes it a basis for the idea of political opposition as an institutional form of enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong.
- Concept: Opposition
- Function of the verse here: Foundational
- Textual evidence: “From here we understand His—Exalted be He—saying: {Let there be among you a community …}”
Related Books
This page is presented within the general methodology for constructing the atlas.