This locus brings together two places where this verse is used in Muhammad Shahrur’s books, linking it to the concepts and arguments that appear around it.
The verse as cited
MEN ARE QAWWAMUNA OVER WOMEN BY WHAT GOD HAS PREFERRED SOME OF THEM OVER OTHERS AND BY WHAT THEY SPEND OF THEIR WEALTH
Brief reading
Shahrur critiques the traditional reading that confined qiwama to sex, and returns it to moral and material competence.
Axes
- Political and social
- Methodological
Related concepts
- qiwama: 3
- striking: 1
Its place in the conceptual network
It is linked to redefining family authority outside inherited conceptions.
The verse’s role in the argument
- Critique of tradition: 1
Places of use
- The Book and the Qur’an, p. 503: He criticizes the jurists’ interpretation, which confined men and women to males and females, and returns qiwama to moral and material competence rather than to sex.
- Concept: qiwama
- Function of the verse here: Critique of tradition
- Textual evidence: «They therefore carried this term … into its specific meaning … in His saying, {MEN ARE QAWWAMUNA OVER WOMEN …}»
- The corresponding traditional reading: the jurists confined “men” to males and “women” to females and made qiwama the prerogative of the male over the female
- Toward New Principles for Islamic Jurisprudence: He links the verse to the possibility of transferring qiwama and to reinterpreting striking as a measure tied to qiwama, not as physical harm.
- Concept: qiwama
- Function of the verse here: Interpreting qiwama
- The corresponding traditional reading: taking striking to mean physical abuse within a marriage relationship defined by fixed authority
Related books
This page is presented within the general method of building the atlas.