This axis brings together 1 instance of Muhammad Shahrur’s use of this verse in his books, linking it to the concepts and arguments that appear around it.
Verse text as cited
Did they not travel through the earth, so that they would have hearts with which to reason, or ears with which to hear? Indeed, it is not the eyes that grow blind, but the hearts within the breasts that grow blind.
Brief reading
For Shahrur, the verse serves to distinguish the meaning of the heart in the Qur’an as the center of intellect and perception, not the bodily muscle.
Axes
- Methodological
- Linguistic and semantic
Related concepts
- Heart and brain: 2
Its place in the conceptual network
It is connected to the network of concepts indicating a semantic reading of bodily and cognitive terms.
The verse’s role in the argument
- Distinction: 1
Instances of use
- The Book and the Qur’an, p. 230: He uses it to argue that the heart in the Qur’an is the brain and the center of reason, not the muscle that pumps blood.
- Concept: Heart and brain
- Function of the verse here: Distinction
- Textual evidence: «He set out the following qualities and qualified terms: … “hearts with which they reason” … “and here it is the human brain”»
- The corresponding traditional reading: the heart is not the muscle that pumps blood
Related books
This page is presented within the general methodology of building the atlas.