This axis brings together 2 locations 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
And he does not speak out of desire * It is nothing but a revelation revealed
Brief reading
Shahrur rejects the traditional interpretation that made the two verses a basis for the Prophet’s infallibility or for hadith-based revelation, and restricts them to the revelation of the Qur’an.
Axes
- Faith-based
- Methodological
Associated concepts
- Infallibility: 2
- Revelation: 2
Its place in the network of concepts
It enters into the critique of traditional conceptions of revelation and infallibility.
The role of the verse in the argument
- Critique of tradition: 2
Uses
- The Messengerly Sunna and the Prophetic Sunna, p. 44: Shahrur uses it as the text on which al-Shafi’i relied to prove the Prophet’s ontological infallibility, then rejects this understanding and restricts the two verses to the revelation of the Qur’an, not to all the Messenger’s sayings and actions.
- Concept: Infallibility
- Function of the verse here: Critique of tradition
- Textual evidence: “Al-Shafi’i and others rely on His saying, the Exalted: {And he does not speak out of desire * It is nothing but a revelation revealed} al-Najm 3, 4”
- The opposing traditional reading: that the pronoun {it} refers to speech and that the two verses indicate the infallibility of everything that issues from the Prophet.
- Drying Up the Sources of Terrorism, p. 233: He discusses a traditional interpretation that made the two verses a basis for hadith-based revelation, then rejects this use and links revelation to the Wise Revelation alone.
- Concept: Revelation
- Function of the verse here: Critique of tradition
- Textual evidence: “In light of their saying that revelation is two revelations, a Qur’anic revelation and a hadith revelation, and in light of their interpretation of His—Exalted is He—saying: {And he does not speak out of desire (3) It is nothing but a revelation revealed} (al-Najm 3, 4)”
- The opposing traditional reading: revelation is twofold, a Qur’anic revelation and a hadith revelation
Related books
- The Messengerly Sunna and the Prophetic Sunna
- Drying Up the Sources of Terrorism
This page is presented within the general method of building the atlas.