This thematic entry gathers 1 instance of the use of this verse in the books of Muhammad Shahrur, linking it to the concepts and arguments that appear around it.
Text of the Verse as Cited
{There has certainly come to you a Messenger from among yourselves …}
Reader’s Answer
Question
How does Muhammad Shahrur employ God’s saying, {There has certainly come to you a Messenger from among yourselves…}, in his discussion of the Prophet’s Arab identity and his partisanship for his people?
Shahrur employs the verse as evidence of the Prophet’s intense solicitude for his Arab people; he describes this solicitude as part of a “moderate partisanship” for Arab identity, involving no preference for Arabs on the basis of lineage or blood. For him, Arab identity is connected to language and cultural belonging, while the verse, in this usage, rests on the intensity of the Prophet’s concern for those addressed by it.
Shahrur maintains that the Prophet’s partisanship for Arab identity was “moderate” because the Arabs were his people, and that his intense solicitude for them appears in the verse: {There has certainly come to you a Messenger from among yourselves…}. In the same passage, Shahrur distinguishes Arab identity as belonging to language and culture from lineage or blood, and denies that Arab origin has any merit in itself; accordingly, he does not present the verse as evidence of ethnic privilege.
Citation and Location
The State and Society — p. 69.
Limits of the Reading
- The citation is from a single page and is excerpted at the end of the verse; it therefore establishes the locus of citation and its general direction, not Shahrur’s detailed explanation of all the verse’s wording.
- The description “mercy” does not occur in these exact terms in the available citation; what is established in it is “intense solicitude for his people.”
- This citation should not be turned into a claim that the verse itself negates lineage or ethnicity; this distinction is part of Shahrur’s theoretical construction in the same context.
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Brief Reading
It is cited to show that the Prophet’s partisanship for his people was solicitude and mercy, not lineage-based or ethnic partisanship.
Themes
- Political and social
- Human and ethical
Related Concepts
- Solicitude: 2
Its Place in the Conceptual Network
It links prophetic leadership to social mercy.
Role of the Verse in the Argument
- Support: 1
Instances of Use
- The State and Society, pp. 69–70: He cites it to show that the Prophet’s partisanship for his people was one of solicitude and mercy, not partisanship based on lineage or ethnicity.
- Concept: solicitude
- Function of the verse here: support
- Textual citation: “As in His saying—Exalted is He—: {There has certainly come to you a Messenger from among yourselves; grievous to him is what you suffer…} (al-Tawbah 128).”
Related Books
This page is presented within the general atlas construction methodology.