—“Witnesses from among you when death approaches any one of you” (Q 5:106) was revealed concerning the case of Tamim al-Dari and ʿAdi ibn Budaʾ; that Abu Ayyub said with regard to His words, “And do not cast yourselves into destruction with your own hands” (Q 2:195), “It was revealed about us, the Ansar,” and so on. There are many similar reports in which a verse is said to have been sent down about a group of idolaters in Mecca, or about some of the People of the Book—Jews and Christians—or about a group of believers. Those who make such statements never intend that the ruling of the verse is restricted to those particular persons and no one else, for no Muslim—or, indeed, any rational person—would ever claim that.

Although scholars dispute whether a general wording revealed for a specific reason should be confined to that reason, not a single Muslim scholar has asserted that the general texts of the Quran and the Sunnah apply only to a named individual. At most they say that the ruling is confined to the type represented by that person, so it extends to everyone who resembles him; the verse’s universality, therefore, is determined by the underlying category, not merely by the wording.

Explanation

This view is the correct one: the verse covers that individual only because it addresses the category he exemplifies, or, put differently, it encompasses that entire category. An illustration is the Prophet’s ﷺ saying, “It is not an act of righteousness to fast while traveling.” (1) The wording is general, yet the incident that prompted it was specific both to a particular category and to a particular individual. Should we limit it to that one person? Shaykh al-Islam states that none of the Muslims has ever taken such a view. Should we restrict it to that category? That is possible if we know that the effective cause and rationale lie specifically in that category.