Al-Baqarah 219

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This hub gathers 4 places where this verse is used in Muhammad Shahrur’s books, linking it to the concepts and arguments that appear around it.

Text of the verse as it appears

They ask you about wine and gambling. Say: In them is a great sin and benefits for people, but their sin is greater than their benefit …

Brief reading

Shahrur reads it as a verse that distinguishes between sin and benefit and opens the way to ijtihad in addressing wine and gambling, while directing spending toward what lies beyond necessities.

Axes

  • Legal
  • Human and ethical
  • Methodological
  • Spending: 3
  • Sin and benefits: 2
  • Sin: 2

Its place in the network of concepts

It is linked to the concept of sin, to the logic of spending, and to a reading method that leaves room for ijtihad.

The verse’s role in the argument

  • Support: 4

Uses

  • Islam and the Human: He makes it the basis for saying that wine and gambling were not prohibited here, but were discouraged because sin and benefit are combined in them; the legislative treatment is left to human ijtihad.
    • Concept: sin and benefits
    • Function of the verse here: Support
    • Textual evidence: «{ They ask you about wine and gambling. Say: In them is a great sin and benefits for people… } (Al-Baqarah 219)»
  • Islam and the Human: He uses it to determine what is spent from within the logic of zakat and charity.
    • Concept: spending
    • Function of the verse here: Support
    • Textual evidence: «{ … and they ask you what they should spend. Say: the excess … } (Al-Baqarah 219)»
  • The Messengerly Sunna and the Prophetic Sunna, p. 96: He cites it to argue that the Qur’anic question itself opens the way to defining what believers spend from surplus, not from necessities.
    • Concept: spending
    • Function of the verse here: Support
    • Textual evidence: «passing through the phrase {and they ask you what they should spend} Al-Baqarah 219»
  • A Guide to the Contemporary Reading of the Wise Revelation, p. 49: He relies on it to define sin as deviation from conscious conduct and applies that to intoxication.
    • Concept: sin
    • Function of the verse here: Support
    • Textual evidence: «So intoxication contains great sin: { They ask you about wine and gambling. Say: In them is a great sin … } (Al-Baqarah 219)»

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

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