This axis brings together 2 places where this verse is used in Muhammad Shahrur’s books, linking it to the concepts and arguments that appear around it.

The verse text as cited

Your women are a tilth for you, so come to your tilth as you wish, and send ahead for yourselves, and fear God …

Brief reading

Shahrur makes it a focal point for separating menstruation from sexual relation, and for rereading women within the sense of use and readiness.

Axes

  • Legislative
  • Linguistic and semantic
  • Tilth: 2
  • Pregnancy and tilth: 2

Its place in the conceptual network

It enters the network of legislative interpretation tied to the signification of tilth.

The verse’s role in the argument

  • Foundational: 1
  • Context: 1

Places of use

  • The Book and the Qur’an, p. 506: He makes it the focal point of his interpretation, separating menstruation from sexual relation, and reads women here as newly introduced things that are used whenever a person wishes.
    • Concept: tilth
    • Function of the verse here: Foundational
    • Textual evidence: “As for His saying تعالى {نِسَاؤُكُمْ حَرْثٌ لَّكُمْ فَأْتُوا حَرْثَكُمْ أَنَّى شِئْتُمْ …} (al-Baqarah 223), it requires interpretation.”
    • The corresponding traditional reading: reading the verse as pertaining only to sexual relations between spouses
  • Toward New Foundations for Islamic Jurisprudence, p. 62: He cites it as an example of treating a Companion’s statement as a revealed cause, not to establish a new ruling but to discuss the method of attributing occasions of revelation.
    • Concept: pregnancy and tilth
    • Function of the verse here: Context
    • Textual evidence: “They compared it with what Muslim reported from Jabir… then God revealed: { نِسَاؤُكُمْ حَرْثٌ لَّكُمْ فَأْتُوا حَرْثَكُمْ أَنَّى شِئْتُمْ } (al-Baqarah 223).”

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