Location of the citation: «القصص القراني ج2», p. 49.
What Is Meant Here?
What is meant in the available text is the term “livestock” (al-anʿām): for Shahrur, it does not include all animals, but is restricted to domesticated herbivorous animals. Therefore, in this passage, the term cannot properly be generalized to animals without qualification.
What Is Attributed to Shahrur
Shahrur says: “Livestock (al-anʿām)—in origin—are domesticated herbivorous animals.” He explains this restriction by excluding “gazelles, giraffes, squirrels, and wild bulls,” and by excluding “cats, dogs, and everything with claws and fangs—according to the Prophetic hadith—even if it is tame.” Muhammad Shahrur, The Qur’anic Stories, vol. 2
Atlas Explanation
The Atlas records that the scope of the documented claim is “livestock” (al-anʿām), not “the beast of livestock” (bahīmat al-anʿām). The page title was therefore reformulated to correspond to the available citation, without attributing a distinction between the two expressions that does not appear in a complete quotation.
Conclusion
Shahrur’s definition and his excluded examples show that “livestock” (al-anʿām) is not, for him, a comprehensive designation for all animals, but a category restricted by domestication and herbivory. This applies a reading that limits the term by the context and the definition supplied by the author, rather than by lexical generality alone. The methodology of contemporary reading
Open Question and Limits of the Evidence
Does Shahrur establish an independent semantic distinction between “livestock” (al-anʿām) and “the beast of livestock” (bahīmat al-anʿām)? The evidence presented does not settle this question: the citation labeled with the latter expression is incomplete, whereas the complete citation addresses “livestock” alone. An explicit, complete text concerning “the beast of livestock” is needed before establishing that distinction or connecting it to sacrificial animals.