This axis brings together 4 places 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 it appears
وَالسَّارِقُ وَالسَّارِقَةُ فَاقْطَعُوا أَيْدِيَهُمَا…
Brief reading
At Shahrur’s hands, the two verses are read as a starting point for revisiting the understanding of theft and cutting, and for linking them to social protection and repentance.
Axes
- Legislative
- Human and ethical
Related concepts
- Theft: 5
Its place in the conceptual network
It is linked to a critique of the prevailing juristic understanding and to a re-interpretation of punishment.
Its role in the argument
- Example: 2
- Critique of the tradition: 2
Places of use
- Islam and Humanity: He joins it with unjust aggression to affirm that theft is one form of transgression against people’s rights.
- Concept: Theft
- Function of the verse here: Example
- Textual evidence: «{ وَالسَّارِقُ وَالسَّارِقَةُ فَاقْطَعُوا أَيْدِيَهُمَا … } (al-Ma’idah ٣٨-٣٩)»
- Islam and Humanity: He makes it a model of prohibited aggression, since it is an assault on people’s property.
- Concept: Theft
- Function of the verse here: Example
- Textual evidence: «{ وَالسَّارِقُ وَالسَّارِقَةُ فَاقْطَعُوا أَيْدِيَهُمَا … } (al-Ma’idah ٣٨-٣٩)»
- The Qur’an in Contemporary Thought, p. 32: He departs from juristic interpretation in understanding cutting, and returns it to the meaning of confinement and preventing harm, not bodily amputation.
- Concept: Theft
- Function of the verse here: Critique of the tradition
- Textual evidence: «{وَالسَّارِقُ وَالسَّارِقَةُ فَاقْطَعُوا أَيْدِيَهُمَا …} (al-Ma’idah 38, 39)»
- Counter-traditional reading: Books of jurisprudence support amputation
- Toward New Foundations for Islamic Jurisprudence, pp. 113-119: He reads it as a boundary-based, non-amputative reading, and rejects restricting the hand to the bodily limb or making it an absolute punishment of cutting, while linking it to repentance and to civil legislative norms.
- Concept: Theft
- Function of the verse here: Critique of the tradition
- Textual evidence: «قال – تعالى –: { وَالسَّارِقُ وَالسَّارِقَةُ فَاقْطَعُوا أَيْدِيَهُمَا … } (الماندة ٣٨، ٣٩).»
- Counter-traditional reading: Those who endorse amputation deem it obligatory for the thief and define cutting as the bodily hand, while differing over its extent and the theft threshold.
Related books
- Islam and Humanity
- The Qur’an in Contemporary Thought
- Toward New Foundations for Islamic Jurisprudence
This page is presented within the general method of constructing the atlas.