This hub gathers 2 instances of Muhammad Shahrur’s use of this verse in his books, linking it to the concepts and arguments that appear around it.
The verse text as cited
YOU ARE THE BEST COMMUNITY BROUGHT FORTH FOR HUMANKIND: YOU ENJOIN WHAT IS RIGHT, FORBID WHAT IS WRONG, AND BELIEVE IN GOD
Brief reading
The verse is read as establishing that the community’s goodness is tied to a public function, not to a religious monopoly by any particular group.
Axes
- Political and social
- Human and ethical
Related concepts
- The community’s goodness: 2
- The community: 2
Its place in the network of concepts
It falls within a conception that makes the community a behavioral framework linked to enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong.
The verse’s role in the argument
- Support: 1
- Foundation: 1
Instances of use
- Purifying the Sources of Terrorism, pp. 158-161: It is cited to argue that enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong is a general function of the community, not a privilege of the clergy.
- Concept: The community’s goodness
- Role of the verse here: Support
- Textual evidence: «And His – تعالى – statement: {YOU ARE THE BEST COMMUNITY BROUGHT FORTH FOR HUMANKIND…}»
- The corresponding traditional reading: He criticizes al-Razi’s interpretation, which linked goodness to a philosophical cause and gave precedence to one element over the other.
- Purifying the Sources of Terrorism, p. 170: He takes it as an example of how the community is defined by behavioral homogeneity associated with enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong.
- Concept: The community
- Role of the verse here: Foundation
- Textual evidence: «{YOU ARE THE BEST COMMUNITY…} (Al Imran 110)»
Related books
This page is presented within the general method of building the atlas.