This verse appears in Shahrur as an early entry point for understanding human error from the standpoint of will, not of ignorance alone. For that reason, it recurs in places that connect approaching the prohibited with the beginning of injustice in the personal sphere.
Text of the verse as cited
{And We said, “O Adam, dwell, you and your wife, in the Garden and eat from it freely wherever you will, but do not approach this tree, lest you become among the wrongdoers.”}
Brief reading
Shahrur reads the verse as evidence that transgression begins when choice occurs after knowledge, and that injustice here is directed first and foremost against the self. It is also used to clarify that the prohibition against “approach” precedes the act and surrounds its preliminaries, not only its result.
Axes
- Narrative and historical
- Human and ethical
Related concepts
- Approach: 3
- Injustice: 2
- Will and injustice: 2
- Paradise: 2
Its place in the network of concepts
It occupies a central place in the Adam narrative, and in constructing the meaning of injustice as a voluntary act. It also enters into the network that distinguishes approach from direct commission, and links the story of human beginnings with the meaning of individual responsibility.
The verse’s role in the argument
- Foundational: 4
- Example: 1
Summary of its presence in the atlas
- Foundation for the meaning of voluntary injustice
- An example of the meaning of the prohibition against approaching
- Presence in the story of Adam and Paradise
Places of use
- State and Society, p. 107: He makes it an early example that injustice is deliberate contravention of the divine command after awareness of it.
- Concept: injustice
- Function of the verse here: Foundational
- Textual evidence: “from His – Exalted – saying: {And We said, O Adam … lest you become among the wrongdoers}”
- State and Society, p. 107: He uses it to establish that injustice begins with human beings when they choose contravention knowingly and with free will, and that Adam’s injustice was injustice against the self, not against others.
- Concept: will and injustice
- Function of the verse here: Foundational
- Textual evidence: “To understand the relationship between will and injustice, we must begin from His – Exalted – saying: {And We said, O Adam … lest you become among the wrongdoers} (al-Baqara 35)… Adam contravened the divine command deliberately when he approached the tree, and that was the first error committed by a human being with premeditation, and so he was called a wrongdoer”
- The Qur’anic Narrative, vol. 2, p. 7: He cites the verse to support his reading of the meaning of Paradise in the story of Adam within his interpretation of Qur’anic narrative.
- Concept: Paradise
- Function of the verse here: Foundational
- Textual evidence: “such as Paradise in His saying, exalted is He, {… O Adam, dwell, you and your wife, in the Garden…} (al-Baqara 35, al-A’raf 19)”
- Toward New Foundations for Islamic Jurisprudence, p. 109: He makes it an example of the meaning of the prohibition against approaching as a ban on direct engagement and entanglement with the forbidden act.
- Concept: approach
- Function of the verse here: Example
- Textual evidence: “– { And eat from it freely wherever you will, but do not approach this tree } (al-Baqara 35).”
- Toward New Foundations for Islamic Jurisprudence, p. 110: He cites it to show that “do not approach” means forbidding even the mere approach to the thing.
- Concept: approach
- Function of the verse here: Foundational
- Textual evidence: “as in His—Exalted be He—saying: {And eat from it freely wherever you will, but do not approach this tree} (al-Baqara 35).”
Related books
This page is presented within the general method of building the atlas.