Al-Nahl 75

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This locus brings together 4 instances of the use of this verse in Muhammad Shahrur’s books, linking it to the concepts and arguments that appear around it.

Text of the verse as cited

God sets forth the parable of an owned slave who has no power over anything…

Reader’s Answer

Question

How does Shahrur employ the Qur’anic statement, “God sets forth the parable of an owned slave who has no power over anything,” to understand the distinction between the servant, the owned slave, and freedom?

Shahrur employs the verse to argue that the description “owned” is not a repetition of the word “servant,” but a qualification specifying the condition of the enslaved person who does not possess freedom of action. He therefore distinguishes between the “servant” as a human being who may be free or enslaved, and the “owned servant” as the enslaved person deprived of capacity and choice. This evidence alone, however, is insufficient to establish the broader formulation that slavery as a whole is “of human making,” or that the verse itself sets out a complete theory according to which freedom is humanity’s original legal condition.

Shahrur reads the construction “an owned servant” in Al-Nahl 75 as distinguishing the general term “servant” from the servant who has become owned: for him, a servant may be free or enslaved, whereas the description “owned” identifies the condition of enslavement.

Evidence and Location

State and Society — p. 264.

Limits of the Reading

  • In the cited evidence, the verse is employed within a Qur’anic parable; this passage alone does not offer an independent discussion of the history or legal rulings of slavery.
  • The statement that “freedom is the human norm” is closer to a conclusion within Shahrur’s broader conceptual project than to a proposition independently established by Al-Nahl 75 in the evidence presented.
  • The argument appearing on the page “Islam and the Human Being” should not be attributed to this locus unless direct textual evidence from it is available; the directly available evidence here is from “State and Society” and “A Guide to the Contemporary Reading of the Wise Revelation.”
  • The distinction Shahrur draws between al-ʿibād and al-ʿabīd is mentioned in the evidence, but a full account of his argument for this distinction requires a passage broader than the excerpt presented.

Continue From Here

Brief Reading

Shahrur relies on the verse to distinguish the free servant from the owned slave, and to affirm that freedom, rather than slavery, is the human norm.

Axes

  • Human and ethical
  • Linguistic and semantic
  • Political and social
  • Freedom: 2
  • The servant: 2
  • Servant and ownership: 2
  • Slaves: 2

Its Place in the Conceptual Network

It serves the conceptual network that distinguishes linguistic servitude from social ownership.

The Verse’s Role in the Argument

  • Distinction: 2
  • Support: 1
  • Foundation: 1

Contexts of Use

  • Islam and the Human Being: He adduces it to argue that servitude and slavery are of human making rather than affirmed by the Revelation, and that freedom is the norm.
    • Concept: Freedom
    • Function of the verse here: Support
    • Textual evidence: “{ God sets forth the parable of an owned slave who has no power over anything … } (Al-Nahl 75)”
  • State and Society, p. 264: He adduces it to distinguish, in language and the Qur’an, between the free servant and the owned servant.
    • Concept: The servant
    • Function of the verse here: Distinction
    • Textual evidence: “God—Exalted is He—has distinguished the owned servant from the free servant in His statement: {God sets forth the parable of an owned servant …} (Al-Nahl 75)”
  • State and Society, p. 265: He adduces it to distinguish “the servant” from “the owned person,” and to show that the servant is a broader category than slavery and that the verse distinguishes the free from the owned.
    • Concept: Servant and ownership
    • Function of the verse here: Distinction
    • Textual evidence: “God—Exalted is He—distinguished the owned servant from the free servant in His statement: {God sets forth the parable of an owned servant who has no power over anything} (Al-Nahl 75)”
  • A Guide to the Contemporary Reading of the Wise Revelation, p. 58: He uses it to distinguish the owned servant from the free servant and to link servitude to coercion.
    • Concept: Slaves
    • Function of the verse here: Foundation
    • Textual evidence: “The owned servant has no freedom … according to His statement, Exalted is He: {God sets forth the parable of an owned servant who has no power over anything …} (Al-Nahl 75).”

This page is presented within the general atlas construction methodology.

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