This page includes four instances of the use of Aal Imran 14 in Muhammad Shahrur’s books, where it appears as an entry point for understanding human desires and their place in human civilization. Its importance lies in the fact that it does not stop at description, but links love of desires to the order of worldly life and to the economy.
The verse as cited
ZUYYINA LILNNASI HUBBU AL-SHAHAWATI MINA AL-NISA’I WAAL-BANEENA WAAL-QANATIRI AL-MUQANTARATI MINA AL-DHABBI WAAL-FIDDATA WAAL-KHAYLI AL-MUSAWAMATI WAAL-AN
AMI WAAL-HARTHI DHALIKA MATAU AL-HAYATI AL-DUNYA WAALLAHU `INDAHU HUSNU AL-MA’AB
Brief reading
Shahrur uses the verse to classify human desires and to show their presence in people’s behavior and in the economic system. He also returns to it to interpret some of its terms in a way that connects linguistic meaning with human activity in production and consumption, leaving the text open to more than one layer of understanding.
Axes
- Human and ethical
- Political and social
- Linguistic and semantic
Related concepts
- Desires: 3
- Love of desires: 2
- The trained horses: 2
Its place in the conceptual network
The verse is situated in a network of concepts that brings together desires, love of desires, and the trained horses. It is central because it places worldly enjoyment within an ethical and social context, and allows desire to be read as one of the elements of civilization, not merely as an isolated individual impulse.
The verse’s role in the argument
- Foundation: 2
- Support: 1
- Distinction: 1
Summary of its presence in the atlas
- A basis for classifying human desires
- Linked to the economy and human behavior
- Used in explaining some of the verse’s expressions
Instances of use
- State and Society, p. 179: He makes the verse the basis for classifying human desires and for showing that the economic system rests on these desires as the enjoyment of worldly life.
- Concept: love of desires
- Function of the verse here: Foundation
- Textual evidence: “He classified the love of development and renewal in things as the first and most deeply rooted of human desires, and in that came His saying: {ZUYYINA LILNNASI HUBBU AL-SHAHAWATI …} (Aal Imran 14)”
- State and Society, p. 181: He uses it to interpret “the trained horses” as trained, instructed, and bred horses, then links this to the desire arising from industrial progress.
- Concept: the trained horses
- Function of the verse here: Support
- Textual evidence: “As for the trained horses62, they are the trained, instructed, and bred horses, as in His saying — تعالى — {MUSAWAMATAN `INDA RABBIKA} (Hud 83)”
- The Book and the Qur’an, p. 498: He uses the verse to establish a division of human desires into six desires and links them to the concept of enjoyment in worldly life.
- Concept: desires
- Function of the verse here: Foundation
- Textual evidence: “The Qur’an has identified the main human desires … in the following verse … (Aal Imran 14)”
- The Book and the Qur’an, p. 505: He uses it to state that women here means the later things and sons means buildings, in a way that accords with human consumer and productive behavior.
- Concept: desires
- Function of the verse here: Distinction
- Textual evidence: “Men here by no means means ‘males,’ and women by no means means ‘females’ … for human desires are movable and immovable things”
- Traditional counterpart reading: understanding women and sons as women and male children
Related books
This page is presented within the general method of building the atlas.