Al-Baqara 127

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This locus gathers 3 instances of the use of this verse in Muhammad Shahrur’s books, linking it to the concepts and arguments that appear around it.

The verse as it appears

And as Abraham was raising the foundations of the House, and Ishmael: Our Lord, accept from us; indeed You are the All-Hearing, the All-Knowing.

Brief reading

The verse is used to refute the reading that treats the qawāʿid as new foundations, and to affirm the meaning of restoration and purification.

Axes

  • Narrative and historical
  • Linguistic and semantic
  • al-qawāʿid (the foundations): 3
  • raising the foundations: 2

Its place in the conceptual network

It is linked to resetting the meaning of “the foundations” in the story of the House.

The verse’s role in the argument

  • Critique of the heritage: 2
  • Support: 1

Instances of use

  • The State and Society, p. 137: He cites it to refute the exegetes’ understanding of the foundations as bases, and sees it as indicating restoration and purification, not original construction.
    • Concept: raising the foundations
    • Function of the verse here: Critique of the heritage
    • Textual evidence: “Then to what comes after it: {And as Abraham was raising the foundations of the House …} (al-Baqara 127)… If the foundations were the bases—as the exegetes imagined—which must be raised in order to build the Kaaba upon them, he would have said: the foundations of the House”
    • The corresponding traditional reading: the exegetes who understood the foundations to mean the bases
  • The State and Society: He uses it to affirm that “raising the foundations” does not mean creating the foundations from scratch, but is consistent with the idea that the House existed earlier and was then purified/restored.
    • Concept: the foundations
    • Function of the verse here: Support
    • Textual evidence: “Then to what comes after it: {And as Abraham was raising the foundations of the House…} (al-Baqara 127)”
    • The corresponding traditional reading: the exegetes explained the foundations as the foundations required for building the Kaaba upon them.
  • The Qur’anic Narrative Vol. 2, p. 8: He rejects interpreting the foundations as bases, and sees them as occupancies, since the House already existed before.
    • Concept: the foundations
    • Function of the verse here: Critique of the heritage
    • Textual evidence: “{As Abraham was raising the foundations of the House and Ishmael…} (al-Baqara 127), not the foundations on which buildings ordinarily stand, as the exegetes imagined, but rather the occupancies”
    • The corresponding traditional reading: the exegetes understood it as the foundations of construction.

This page is presented within the general methodology of building the atlas.

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