Iranian Journal for the Quranic Sciences and Tradition
Year:2013 | Volume:46 | Issue:1|Papers Count:7

There are two viewpoints with regard to verses 16-19 of sura 75. The first is the one which considers them as parenthetical remarks among verses concerning the resurrection which address the holy prophet in this world and when the Quranic revelation was sent down. And the second is the one which treats them as being in the line of other verses of the sura, which address the infidel man in the day of resurrection and when the Record of Deeds is read. Taking a deliberation-centered approach, the present essay surveys the second viewpoint first and through consideration of other verses on the Record of Deeds as well as man’s awareness of his own actions, hadiths narrated in this connection, and context of sura 75 as well as other verses on the resurrection, comes to the conclusion that this perspective is encountering serious problems. As for the first viewpoint, although it suffers from some problems, it is more valid and is more supported by the context of Quranic verses and hadiths.

Among factors causing disagreement of Shiites and Sunnis is commentatorial hadiths. Such hadiths are of great significance in the process of understanding as well as commenting on the Quran-and even inferring juristic precepts. Hence, attitude of Muslims towards such hadiths play a significant role in the process of formation of their beliefs and inferring Islamic precepts. Attitude of Sunnis towards commentatorial hadiths of Ahl-al-Bayt is of greater importance; for on the one hand Ahl al-Bayt are religious leaders of Shiites whose words are treated by the latter as gracious, significant guidelines and on the other hand Sunnis admit high status of Ahl al-Bayt and praise their majestic personality-hence, being supposed to consider their words at least at the level of other Companions and disciples of Companions. In the present research three significant Sunni commentary books are surveyed, statistics of hadiths of each Imam of Ahl al-Bayt narrated in them is separately presented, attitude of those three Sunni Quranic commentators towards such hadiths is analyzed, and through consideration of such statistics it is proved that those commentators have not displayed good attitude towards commentatorial hadiths of Ahl-al-Bayt and have not taken them into consideration in the manner they were supposed to.

Secret fight or night attack is one way to ambush the enemy. This kind of fighting seems to be mentioned in the Holy Quran. Threatening enemies through making them aware of existence of secret soldiers or concealed facilities results in the enemy becoming unable to estimate accurately facilities and capabilities of divine forces, and this is a kind of threatening and intimidation.The term sariyyan and other derivations of the stem sara mean "secret army" or "night expedition." The present research aims at presenting a precise etymology of the said word first, introducing its development in the passage of time secondly, expounding the relation between this stem and Maryam and Isra’ Quranic suras thirdly, and revising viewpoints of Quranic commentators on the meaning of this word on the basis of context of Quranic verses and Arabic literature finally.It can be concluded from this research that the term sariyya is related to the stem asra and can refer to God's secret and concealed troops.

Ethan Kohlberg, the Jewish Orientalist and specialist on Shia, sees the distortion in Holy Scriptures, including Quran, inevitable. From his point of view, some Quranic verses confirm this point. His second proof is the history of the Quran and the time when its whole text was written down. In his viewpoint, hadiths which prove that the Quran had been written down in Abu Bakr’s time ore oriented to escape from the problem of distortion of the Quran. Relying on hadiths and semantic ambiguity of some Quranic terms, Kleberg has tried to prove later collection and, therefore, distortion of the Quran. He maintains that up to the Buyad era, the twelver Shia believed in distortion of the Quran. Presenting and criticizing the aforementioned ideas, the present research intends to prove that the Quran is safeguarded from distortion.

Phenomenon of understanding the meaning of a text is highly taken into consideration and viewed from different perspectives nowadays. Hermeneutics is among those detailed discussions related to this field. Among discussions related to the phenomenon of understanding and its explanation as well as interpretation is ethics of them: whether or not man has any responsibility to the text he is trying to understand. In other words, is there any criterion for true understanding and interpreting the text or is man free to interpret the text and to attribute what he understands to the text and its author? When related to the sacred texts and the Holy Quran, the issue becomes of more significance. Relying on Islamic texts, the present paper attempts to expound the ethical theory of understanding and interpretation, clarify moral responsibility of those addressed by texts, and discuss the scope of understanding and interpretation with respect to moral criteria especially in relation to the Holy Quran.

The oldest works of Muslim scholars in the fields of kalam, ḥadith and tafsir during the 2nd and 3rd centuries AH rarely offer an explicit basis for regarding the Qur’an as an inimitable miracle of the Prophet. However, the issue appears fully fledged in the works of scholars such as al-Baqillani, Qaḍi ‘Abd al-Jabbar and al-Sharif al-Murtaḍa. This silence in the early Islamic centuries, when considered side by side with the profusion of other Qur’anic discussions in the same period, raises the question of when and under what conditions the early Muslim scholars began to deal with the subject of ijaz al-Qur’an. The essay identifies two factors that gave impetus to the emergence and development of theories about the Qur’an’s inimitability: first, Christian-Muslim polemics about the signs of Muhammad’s prophecy, and second, the literary and theological endeavors of the Mutazilis of Baghdad and Basra.After initiating discussion and speculation about the nature of the Qur’an’s inimitability, some Mutazili theologians extended the scope of the topic during the 4th century, until it assumed the form of a bona fide Qur’anic issue in tafasir. From the beginning of the 5th century until the present, speculation about the ijaz and its nature became a common feature of theological and exegetic works for all Islamic sects.

Commenting on some Quranic verses in which the term amr is used, some commentators have spoken of a specific world called world of command (amr) which is absolutely distinguished from world of creation (khalq). Could such a world, parallel to the world of creation, be admitted? If so, what are characteristics of such world? And what information of that world is presented by the holy Quran for human beings?The present essay intends to offer documented answers to those questions by referring to revealed verses. Based on this research, it can be admitted that from Quranic perspective, parallel to the system of creation which is based on the material causality there is another system which is absolutely separated from characteristics of material world and is merely dependent upon the divine will. Some phenomena, processes, and events around us belong to that world which is unknowable via material rules available to human beings. That world is part of the Unseen world which is frequently spoken of in the holy Quran and in which people are invited to believe.