This axis gathers 1 locus 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
Have they not travelled through the land so that they might have hearts with which to reason, or ears with which to hear? For it is not the eyes that go blind, but the hearts within the breasts that go blind.
Reader’s Answer
Question
Where does Shahrur place Hajj 46, how does he distinguish the meaning of the heart through it, and what function does it serve in his argument?
Shahrur cites the verse in the Book and the Qur’an, p. 230, within his interpretation of the term “heart.” He treats it as evidence that the intended heart is the brain, linking it to reason, thought, and will, rather than to the muscle that pumps blood. Its function in his argument is to support his claim that the Book calls the brain a “heart.”
Shahrur maintains that the term “heart” in the Book refers to the brain, not to the cardiac muscle that pumps blood. He cites Hajj 46 as one of the verses in which he sees an explicit mention of the brain under the name “heart,” relying on the attribution of reason to hearts in it. According to this interpretation, Shahrur connects the heart to the brain and its outer cortex as the locus of thought and will.
Evidence and Location
the Book and the Qur’an — p. 230.
Limits of the Reading
- This is a record of the verse’s place in Shahrur’s argument, not a statement of the verse’s meaning as an agreed-upon interpretation.
- The evidence establishes Shahrur’s interpretation of the heart as the brain and the verse’s function in his reasoning; it does not, by itself, establish a general ruling for every use of the term “heart” in the Qur’an.
- This locus does not address the verse’s relations to other verses except to the extent that Shahrur mentions them in the evidence.
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Brief Reading
For Shahrur, the verse serves to distinguish the meaning of the heart in the Qur’an as the center of reason and perception, rather than the bodily muscle.
Axes
- Methodological
- Linguistic and semantic
Related Concepts
- The heart and the brain: 2
Its Place in the Conceptual Network
It is connected to the conceptual network indicating the semantic reading of terms for the body and knowledge.
The Verse’s Role in the Argument
- Distinction: 1
Loci of Use
- the Book and the Qur’an, p. 230: He uses it to establish that the heart in the Qur’an is the brain and the center of reason, not the muscle that pumps blood.
- Concept: the heart and the brain
- Function of the verse here: distinction
- Textual evidence: “He set out the following attributes and things described: … ‘hearts with which they reason’ … ‘and here it is the human brain.’”
- Corresponding traditional reading: the heart is not the muscle that pumps blood
Related Books
This page is presented within the general atlas construction methodology.