Islamic Theology and Religious Studies
Year:2013 | Volume:9 | Issue:34|Papers Count:10

An analysis of Ibn Arabi.s epistemic geometry shows that it has widespread applications from different aspects such as: explaining the interpretation theory, mystical ideas, philosophical ideas, Quranic sciences, jurisprudential views, anthropology principles etc. The paper is an attempt to have a survey on Ibn Arabi.s epistemologies in three fields of religion, intuition and wisdom. He takes religion as a constant element and a criterion of accuracy for every epistemology. He believes that discovery, kashf, as one of the epistemological resources is applied in certain conditions and various dimensions. Discovery could be used for interpreting ontological principles, anthropological principles, and meanings of the Quranic letters, words, and sentences. He uses wisdom as the epistemological tool in order to comprehend the divine verses and ontological principles. Accordingly, he believes that if wisdom includes the right material and right forms of perception and if wisdom is within its own boundary i.e. perceptions are based on wisdom, it will be reliable and it is not valid beyond the perceptions of wisdom.

Among the issues proposed in the Holy Quran is Moses’ sharp behavior against Aaron after the fact that children of Israel became calf worshipers.Various justifications have been given about the analysis of this behavior. Proving the major premise of. “Different manners of the prophets for implementing Divine laws”, Allamah Tabatabai takes this behavior as a case in the field. In this case, Moses had given him some absolute orders while he believed that this order must have been executed with applying the maximum amount of power to resist against children of Israel, but it was executed with lack of resistance by Aaron. Therefore, because Aaron had not operated based on the Moses’s preference and politics, this behavior was for punishing him. However, Aaron has committed no sin or fault and he was innocent. This amount of disagreement, being out of the Allah’s order, would not harm the prophets. Infallibility. Although the mentioned major premise is provable, it is very difficult to adapt this case to it.

In religious thought, the universe is divided into two parts: the visible and the unseen. One of the fundamental issues in the field consists in the possibility of relationship between these two parts, especially human relationship with the unseen world. Since one of the evidences of the unseen is the existence of angels, the possibility of human relationship (i.e. that of nonprophets) with the unseen could be probed and proved through human relation to the angels that we have investigated in this paper. In this regard, the rational reasons imply on the possibility, and the narrative ones imply on the occurrence and, consequently, on the possibility of this relationship. In the rational terms, because of the type of creation and spiritual dimension of the human that is immaterial and celestial and also similar to the angels, this relationship can be taken to be possible. In the narrative terms, the verses related to Saint Mary.s, Sarah.s (wife of the prophet Ibrahim) conversation with the angels etc. and the verses dealing with the exemplification of some angels to faithful warriors in battles of Badr and Uhud, and also the Hadith about the angels. talking with Zahra and Imams support the view of the paper.

Avicenna is one of the prominent thoughtful characters of the Islamic world who has always attempted to make his philosophical theories compatible with Islamic teachings. In fact, Islam has been a source of inspiration for him in many of his philosophical ideas. He believes that desirable governance would be realized along with the presence of prophet; therefore, in order to explain the necessity of Islamic governance, he proposes the theory of text-based raised caliphate and imamate. Then, provided that a text-based raised imam or caliph is not presented, he discusses the role of the jurists of full needed qualifications. Having an analytic view, the paper attends to Avicenna’s idea in this filed as well as its achieved results.

The role and interference of the author’s prejudgment, expectations and subjectivity when interpreting text are among the constituents of the philosophical hermeneutic. Proposing his particular theory on. The category of understanding. in the twentieth century, Gadamer sought to explain philosophical hermeneutics. He believes that no understanding occurs without prejudgment. The interpreters. expectations, interests, and prejudgments are always involved in this process. Therefore, in his view, there is not an ultimate meaning to be achieved. Diversity and plurality of understanding (meaning) is the phenomenon that should be taken into account and there is not an ultimate and superior understanding. As an outstanding Muslim philosopher and interpreter, Allamah Tabatabai, though has not explicitly commented on the amount of prejudgment and prior knowledge in interpretation, has considered a kind of prior knowledge and presupposition (such as rational and Quranic presuppositions) which is necessary in interpretation and he has applied them.The paper aims at studying Gadamer and Allamah Tabatabai.s ideas about the amount of partiality interference in text interpretation and also attempting to explain the relationship and proximity between these two viewpoints regarding the usage of prior knowledge.

This paper includes two parts. Some reasons are given in brief for the feasibility of the Islamic social-human science in the first part, and as for the second part, a strategic package is proposed for realization of the ideal of Islamic social-human science. The preliminary concept of these strategies was taken from discussions with experts and in the stages of classification, revision and explanation of the strategies, panel meetings were held with experts in the fields of science policy and future studies. The suggested strategies were classified as subcategories of the following five macro-strategies: 1. Explanation of the necessity of Islamic social- humanities sciences, 2. explanation of principles, theories and methods taken from religion in the field of social- humanities, 3. strengthening the policy-making activities in the field of social-humanities, 4. strengthening and directing the scientific community of the country in this area of science and 5. Utilizing the achieved social-human sciences with an Islamic approach.

The Problem of God`s Visibility is from those theological issues frequently discussed from past to present times by Muslim theologians of different sects. In this regard, the main question is that whether it is possible to see God from positive perspective? That is to say, if God be taken of such a quality to be seen by human, it will be an impossible happening? Regardless of God`s being or not being really visible, may one agree with God`s visibility theoretically? Some Muslim theologians have rationally denied the possibility and the occurrence of God`s visibility and believe that it is against Quranic and narrative reasons. On the contrary, other sects of theologians have considered it to be possible theoretically in this world and necessary in the hereafter. Since mentioning rational and narrative reasons of both opposite parties is out of the scope of this paper, it has mentioned only the Quranic reasons. More than dealing with the reasons in details, it attempts to state the main headings and to give a sample of difference from two Shiite and Sunni viewpoints. With an emphasis on the comparison of Allamah Tabatabai and Ibn Ashour’s doctrines under each of these verses. And finally, to introduce appropriate resources about the subject to be followed up.

Emile Durkheim.s attitude toward religion is thoroughly popular.It may be explained and studied under two subjects; one is his theory about the origin of religion and the other, the distinction that he has made between sacred and non-sacred affairs. Proposing the theory of “social origin of religion”, he has known religion as the evolution of totemist tradition and a production of human. In this way, he has implicitly rejected any form of supernatural and divine sources of religion. Also, by setting boundaries between the sacred and non-sacred affairs and constraining religion to the domain of sacred affairs, he has narrowed the field of religion and has driven it to the marginal and unserious sections. Entering these two entries of Durkheim’s thought, this paper embarks on analyzing and criticizing his thought in this filed. The research method for referring to the views is documentary and for illustrating the content critico-analytical.

The problem of human will and option and its relationship with divine destiny and its stages within the intellectual structure of transcendental wisdom are of special importance. Divine destiny indicates that the entire universe with its two scientific and objective stages is attributed to God. In terms of comparison with the general worlds of existence, if we consider the divine destiny as the same stage of rational forms which is beyond the natural and mental forms, this form will be taken as a stage of the divine science stages which is called scientific destiny and in a higher stage, it is led to the divine innate science. And if we consider the causal system of the universe and attribute it to its complete and existence-giving cause, the destiny will become objective. Therefore, the human choice could be discussed at the two above-mentioned levels. The main question of the study is that how is it possible to provide a bilateral relationship between human choice and thenecessity of existence which is the objective destiny insofar as accepting one of them does not lead to the rejection of the other. The response to this problem is proposed in two levels of theosophico-philosophical and monotheistico-mystical in transcendental philosophy. This study intends to shed more light on this topic with an analytico-descriptive method.

One of the fundamental issues of the history of human thought is the discussion of determinism and free will that has been (and also will be) encountered by various and sometimes opposite ideas of different schools of determinism, free will and middle position. The paper attempts to analyze the important anti-determinist approaches of the western philosophers during the recent fifty years as well as Molla Sadra’s certain strategy in Islam’s world in order to defend free will concept.Reevaluating the meaning and necessities of determinism and free will concepts, these approaches try to reconsider and solve the problem.