This axis brings together 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
{If they turn away, We have not sent you as a guardian over them; upon you is only the conveyance [of the message].}
Answer to the reader
Question
Does Al-Shura 48 indicate that the Messenger’s function is conveyance, rather than guarding over or acting as an agent for people?
Yes. Shahrur employs the verse to establish that the Messenger is not a “guardian” over those who turn away, and that his duty is conveyance. The attached evidence cites this very verse within a group of verses that combine the denial of guardianship or agency on the part of the Messenger with the affirmation of conveyance in the verse from Al-Shura.
The verse says: “We have not sent you as a guardian over them; upon you is only the conveyance [of the message],” thus juxtaposing within its text the denial that the Messenger is a guardian over them with the affirmation that conveyance is incumbent upon him. Shahrur employs the verse, in the context of his collection of verses denying guardianship and agency on the part of the Messenger, to affirm that his task is conveyance rather than exercising guardianship over people.
Evidence and location
State and Society — p. 303.
Limits of the reading
- The evidence is a page compiling verses and does not contain an explicit interpretive passage stating that “guardian” means control or tutelage.
- Therefore, the material establishes Shahrur’s use of the verse to deny guardianship and affirm conveyance, but it is not by itself sufficient to support an extended account of the limits of authority or tutelage.
- No claim concerning the system of the state or specific political rulings should be constructed from this evidence unless a direct explanatory text appears in the source.
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Brief reading
The verse confines the Messenger’s function to conveyance, without control or tutelage.
Axes
- Methodological
- Political and social
Related concepts
- Conveyance: 2
Its place in the network of concepts
It establishes a distinction between conveying the message and exercising dominance over people.
Role of the verse in the argument
- Foundational: 1
Contexts of use
- State and Society, p. 303: It treats it as a decisive text confining the Messenger’s function to conveyance, without control or tutelage.
- Concept: conveyance
- Function of the verse here: foundational
- Textual evidence: “- {If they turn away, We have not sent you as a guardian over them; upon you is only the conveyance [of the message].} (Al-Shura 48),”
Related books
This page is presented within the general atlas construction methodology.