Journal of Researches of Quran and Hadith Sciences
Year:2016 | Volume:13 | Issue:3 (31) |Papers Count:7

The Leiden Encyclopedia of the Qur’an is among the best and most referred encyclopedias on the Qur’an, whose articles should be reviewed and evaluated as a preface to introducing the real Islam to the public. Its entry for “intercession” has been written by the American orientalist Ms. Valerie J. Hoffman. This paper has critically overlooked this entry in order to introduce to Muslim scholars the orientalists’ intellectual atmosphere and their approach to qur’anic teachings. In this study, reviewing the article, Hoffman’s incorrect opinions on intercession have been criticized employing authoritative Islamic sources and sound arguments. The author’s cursory examination of the qur’anic verses as well as her being inspired by the doctrinal principles of some Sunni schools of thought and the hadiths mentioned in their books which are in contradiction with qur’anic implications and authentic hadiths on the issue, has led to these incorrect understanding of intercession.

One of the most important issues in Islamic philosophy and theology is the Divine Knowledge. Knowledge is one the essential attributes of God which comprises the entire datum absolutely and without any conditions. Numerous verses of the Qur’an address the issue of Divine Knowledge, its extent and qualifications. Of these verses are those which suspend the knowledge of Allah to attainment of a condition or occurrence of a situation. In these instances, employing interpretational devices, the exegete of the Qur’an should propose an interpretation consistent with the doctrinal principles, while not confining him to the literal meaning of the verses.The Shiite theologians and exegetes, based on the rational and traditional arguments, have declared their views on these verses. Among these scholars, Shaykh Tusi is an important personality. He is the head of the Shiite community at his time, a great jurisprudent, theologian and exegete of the Qur’an. It is no exaggeration to say that he is a leading personality in theology and exegesis. In his masterpiece, al- Tebyan exegesis, he interprets the verses on the mentioned issue in complete consistency with theological principles. Addressing the issue, he proposes possible interpretations, which can be studied in four categories.Among these alternatives, identifying the achievement of knowledge as realization of the datum is the most eminent one. Considering Shaykh Tusi’s commentaries of these verses, especially those in literal contradiction with theological principles, is a good model example for all the scholars in this field.

From the perspective of scholars of hadith, accepting and trusting the narratives of a narrator depends on a variety of factors, lack of each result in distrust. However in special conditions, some of these inconveniences can be ignored and the narratives can be sentenced to correctness. Among these factors, lying and having reputation in heresy due to the great damage which imposes on the justice of narrators are the ones that according to scholars of both Shia and Sunni sects, without any exception, lead to distrust in a narrator’s narratives. In this article, reflecting on evidences in infallible Imams (PBUT) narratives and studying the statements of the experts on narrators (Rijal)., this theory has been proven that the two factors of lying and having reputation in heresy, can be seen more than all the Shiite narrators, in the extremists (ghalis) and therefore their fame for these two attributions is the most important cause of their weakness.

The general attitude and common perception among Islamic intellectuals especially traditionists, exegetes and jurisprudences is that it is hadith that can elucidate and interpret Qur’an, while Qur’an‘s role in this term for hadith has been neglected. Whereas taking into consideration the verses related to hadiths, it becomes clear that at times these verses clarifies the meaning of the narratives. The important instances of the Qur’an’s contribution to a better understanding of hadiths are as follows: illuminating the authenticity of hadith, interpreting, consecrating and altering hadith and confirming its meaning.

There are two approaches to the study of the semantic field: diachronic and synchronic. In a diachronic study, the semantic changes include the generalization or specialization of meaning, metonymy, metaphor, degeneration and elevation. In terms of semantic shift, some qur’anic words compared with their usage in pre-Islamic era have experienced widening of meaning and increase in referents, while others have experienced narrowing of sense and decrease of referents. Moreover other forms of semantic changes such as metaphor, metonymy, degeneration and elevation can be detected in qur’anic words. Identifying and classifying these changes contributes to the clarification of the meanings of the qur’anic words.In addition a synchronic approach to the semantic field, considering the syntagmatic collocation relations between quranic words makes it possible to obtain the relationship between qur’anic words and draw it in terms of a network of related concepts illustrated in the form of horizontal and vertical relationships. This paper describes the two, synchronic and diachronic approach to semantics and its usage in the study of the words used in the Qur’an.

Soyuti's al-Jame' al-Saghir is one of the well-known Sunni hadith collections sorted alphabetically according to the initial letter of narrations. This study evaluates this book's accuracy in its references to the previous narrators and sources mentioned by Soyuti although at first glance it all seems precise. The present study employing quantitative method of content analysis assesses a sample of 400 narrations of this book prepared by systematic and stratified methods and generalizes the results to the whole book considering a 5% error rate, based on the law of possibility.According to the results it can be said that with a 5% error rate, 9.6% of all references in the entire book are incorrect in terms of hadith sources in our time. The inaccuracy of the references is due to (1) the lack of narrations in the present version of those books in our time, (2) the lack of book name and mentioning the name of the author (while the author has numerous hadith compilations) or (3) to mistakes in ascribing hadiths to the narrators.

Soyuti's al-Jame' al-Saghir is one of the well-known Sunni hadith collections sorted alphabetically according to the initial letter of narrations. This study evaluates this book's accuracy in its references to the previous narrators and sources mentioned by Soyuti although at first glance it all seems precise. The present study employing quantitative method of content analysis assesses a sample of 400 narrations of this book prepared by systematic and stratified methods and generalizes the results to the whole book considering a 5% error rate, based on the law of possibility.According to the results it can be said that with a 5% error rate, 9.6% of all references in the entire book are incorrect in terms of hadith sources in our time. The inaccuracy of the references is due to (1) the lack of narrations in the present version of those books in our time, (2) the lack of book name and mentioning the name of the author (while the author has numerous hadith compilations) or (3) to mistakes in ascribing hadiths to the narrators.