The Concept of Brotherhood and its Restriction to Believers in the Holy Qurʾān An Inductive Analytical Study

Abstract

This paper aims to study the concept of brotherhood in the Holy Qurʾān, classify brotherhood in Qurʾānic texts into faith-based brotherhood, as well as tribal and national brotherhood, and its other meanings, and clarify that restriction of brotherhood to the circle of faith in the Qurʾānic text does not prevent the use of the word in its other linguistic and conventional meanings of human brotherhood, national brotherhood, and patriotic brotherhood. In doing so, it relies on the style of the Qurʾānic Arabic language in restriction with the exclusive conjunction "innamā", the semantic aspects of the word "brother" in the Qurʾān according to the traditional Qurʾānic science of polysemes (“ʿilm al-Wujūh wa an-Naẓā'ir”), the study of the word's occurrences in the Qurʾān and the classification of its semantic aspects in those occurrences, and in accordance with what the scholars of the principles of jurisprudence have decided on the division of words in position and use into linguistic, customary, and legal, and the role of the Qurʾānic context in clarifying the meaning of the Qurʾānic text. The research ultimately aims to clarify the role of Qurʾānic and linguistic sciences in correct guidance and disciplined interpretation of the Qurʾān's intentions behind its words and statements and to absolve these intentions of attempts to employ the texts for tendencies of bigotry, discrimination, and hatred. Keywords: Faith-based brotherhood, restriction, “innamā”, stress, polysemy in the Qurʾān, ‘linguistic, customary, and legal’, Qurʾānic context, “Surah al-Ḥujurāt”.