This axis brings together 2 instances in which this verse is used in the books of Muhammad Shahrur, linking it to the concepts and arguments that appear around it.
Text of the verse as cited
Have you not seen that whoever is in the heavens and the earth glorifies God, as do the birds with wings outspread? Each has known its prayer and its glorification.
Reader’s Answer
Question
How does Muhammad Shahrur employ God’s statement, “Each has known its prayer and its glorification,” in understanding the meaning of prayer?
Shahrur employs the verse to distinguish between “prayer” (ṣalāh) as a connection with God and “ṣalwah” as a ritual involving standing, bowing, and prostration. His argument is that the verse speaks of birds, which, in his view, do not perform the specified human rituals; he therefore interprets their “prayer” here as a connection, glorification, and supplication known to the birds. He pairs this with al-Nur 37, where the establishment of ṣalwah occurs in a context that he connects to ritual.
Shahrur interprets “its prayer” in al-Nur 41 as a connection with God that includes glorification and supplication, rather than ritual prayer with specified movements. He bases this interpretation on the verse’s discussion of birds and on his assertion that birds do not establish the ritual prayer consisting of standing, bowing, prostration, and sitting. Shahrur contrasts al-Nur 41 with al-Nur 37: for him, “establishing the ṣalwah” in the latter verse is an indication of ritual, whereas “its prayer” in the verse about birds is an indication of connection with God.
Citation and location
Islam and Faith — p. 254.
Limits of the reading
- This presentation describes Shahrur’s use of the verse as it appears in the cited passage; it does not determine the validity of the linguistic or exegetical distinction he proposes.
- The cited passage does not state that every use of “prayer” in the Qur’an means a non-ritual connection; rather, it constructs a specific contrast between al-Nur 41 and al-Nur 37.
- The verse should not be reduced to a denial of ritual; Shahrur’s inference concerns specifically the occurrence of “its prayer” as attributed to birds.
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Brief reading
He cites it to maintain that prayer here is connection with God rather than ritual, because the example given cannot accommodate the rituals of bowing and prostration.
Axes
- Faith-related
- Linguistic and semantic
Related concepts
- Prayer: 3
Its place in the network of concepts
It serves his distinction between prayer in the sense of connection and prayer as a ritual practice.
Role of the verse in the argument
- Distinction: 2
Instances of use
- Islam and the Human Being: He makes it evidence that prayer here is connection with God rather than ritual, because birds do not perform the prayer of bowing and prostration.
- Concept: Prayer
- Function of the verse here: Distinction
- Textual citation: “{ Have you not seen that God is glorified by … } (al-Nur 41) (here, ṣalāh is spelled with an alif).”
- Islam and Faith, p. 254: He makes it evidence that prayer spelled with an alif is connection, glorification, and supplication, because birds do not perform the rituals of bowing and prostration.
- Concept: Prayer
- Function of the verse here: Distinction
- Textual citation: “And in His saying, Exalted is He: {Have you not seen that God is glorified by… Each has known its prayer and its glorification…} (al-Nur 41) (here, ṣalāh is spelled with an alif).”
Related books
This page is presented within the atlas’s general atlas-building methodology.