This verse appears in Shahrur in more than one direction: the meaning of women, the order of creation, and a critique of the Meccan/Medinan criterion. For that reason, it seems to be one of the verses around which he brings together a lexical reading and a review of the classification tradition.
The verse text as given
O mankind, be mindful of your Lord, who created you from a single soul and created from it its mate
Brief reading
Shahrur interprets it to mean that women in this context are associated with being created later, not merely with the collective noun for woman. He also uses it to critique the claim that the form of address is a decisive criterion for Meccan and Medinan revelations, and through it he reaffirms creation from a single soul.
Axes
- Methodological
- Linguistic and semantic
- Political and social
Related concepts
- Femininity’s later creation: 2
- Meccan and Medinan: 2
- Critique of the Meccan/Medinan division: 2
- Women: 2
- Equality: 2
Its place in the conceptual network
It is linked to the network of women and equality on the one hand, and to a review of the tools of inherited classification on the other. It therefore combines lexical meaning with an objection to the old method of division.
The verse’s role in the argument
- Distinction: 3
- Critique of tradition: 1
- Foundation: 1
Summary of its presence in the atlas
- The meaning of women and the later order of creation
- Critique of the Meccan/Medinan criterion
- Linked to equality from a single soul
Places of use
- State and Society, p. 180: He uses it to define the meaning of “women” for him as those who came later in creation, not merely the plural of woman in the common sense.
- Concept: Femininity’s later creation
- Function of the verse here: Distinction
- Textual evidence: “as in His saying: {O mankind, be mindful of your Lord …} (al-Nisāʾ 1), meaning that the female came into existence after the male”
- The Qur’anic Stories, vol. 1, p. 83: He cites it as another example of a Medinan verse that begins with the address “O mankind,” rejecting the use of the formula as a decisive criterion for classification.
- Concept: Meccan and Medinan
- Function of the verse here: Distinction
- Textual evidence: “And His saying, Exalted is He, {O mankind, be mindful of your Lord …} (al-Nisāʾ: 1)”
- Counter-traditional reading: al-Wāḥidī’s statement: “Everything in which ‘O mankind’ is mentioned is Meccan.”
- The Qur’anic Stories, vol. 2, p. 83: He cites it to affirm that the address to mankind may also appear in Medinan passages, so the address is not a valid decisive criterion for dating.
- Concept: Critique of the Meccan/Medinan division
- Function of the verse here: Distinction
- Textual evidence: “And His saying, Exalted is He, {O mankind, be mindful of your Lord, who created you from a single soul} (al-Nisāʾ: 1)”
- Counter-traditional reading: the conventional link between “O mankind” and Meccan provenance.
- The Book and the Qur’an, p. 501: He mentions it as a basis on which early exegetes relied in connecting women to later creation, then critiques this inference.
- Concept: Women
- Function of the verse here: Critique of tradition
- Textual evidence: “And they inferred from His saying, Exalted is He, {O mankind, be mindful of your Lord …} (al-Nisāʾ 1).”
- Counter-traditional reading: their claim that Eve was created from Adam and that women were named women because of their later creation
- Toward New Foundations for Islamic Jurisprudence, p. 132: He interprets it to mean that the male and the female emerged from a single soul, not that woman was created from the man’s rib.
- Concept: Equality
- Function of the verse here: Foundation
- Textual evidence: ”{ O mankind, be mindful of your Lord, who created you from a single soul and created from it its mate … } (al-Nisāʾ 1),“
Related books
- State and Society
- The Qur’anic Stories, vol. 1
- The Qur’anic Stories, vol. 2
- The Book and the Qur’an
- Toward New Foundations for Islamic Jurisprudence
This page is presented within the general methodology of building the atlas.