COMMENTARY STUDIES
Year:2016 | Volume:7 | Issue:25|Papers Count:10

The verse 124 of Al-Baqara is among the cited verses by Shiites to prove imams’ infallibility and that imamate position is Quranic text-based. Reference to verbal arguments such as the part “My covenant includeth not wrongdoers”, appropriateness of this part of the verse, as God’s response, and Ibrahim’s request as well as the rational arguments are the reasons being claimed by the Shiite commentators in this regard. On the contrary, by adapting the word “Imam” to “prophet”, the Sunnis interpreted that the position of prophethood and infallibility of prophet are Quranic text-based. Analysis of the Sunnis’ commentators reveals that in order to prove their belief in that the caliphates of the two Sheikhs are legitimate and to reject the viewpoint of the Shiite’s commentators, the majority of Sunnis’ commentators have embarked on interpreting the verse. The incorrect interpretation of this verse is proved with strong arguments by Shiite’s commentators.

The Wahhabis have excommunicated most of the Muslims, have considered them as polytheists and even have issued permit to kill them. One of the principles of their opinion is misunderstanding of the phrase min dun illah / those other than Allah, in the Quranic verses. For Wahhabis, this concept is contrary to monotheism of lordship and prudence and it is an example of polytheism of lordship. These are verses that do not consider vilayat of those other than Allah permissible or reject the mediation of this verse and consider the worship of those other than Allah as polytheism. Wahhabis think that dun illah means ghair ullah; therefore, for them, the Muslims, especially the Shiites who believe in vilayat and intersession of the saints of God are against the clear text of the Quran and judged them as infidels and polytheists. In accordance with the verses of the Holy Quran and commentary norms, the paper investigates the precise meaning of dun illah and prove that this part always does not mean ghair ullah but in case being along with evidences it can have the meaning of ghair ullah or min qibali ghair ullah versus min qibal illah. Also, about worshiping dun illah, the same discussion will be proposed.

The word raj'at, meaning of turning back of a group of people to the world after death and before resurrection, is one of the Shiite teachings which is inextricably tied with Mahdism, apocalypse events, emergence of Imam Mahdi and his insurrection. To prove this teaching, the Shiite scholars have proposed valid reasons from which we can refer to verse 83 of Surah An-Naml. According to the Ahlul-Bayt’s narrations, this verse points to unity of a group of people in this world. By the help of Imamiyah narrations and consensus this verse is interpreted as a valid Quranic text referring to rij’at; however, for Sunnis’ commentators, the verse is a reason of resurrection. In accordance with the rest of the Quran verses, all human beings are gathered in the great resurrection; therefore, the day in which all creatures are gathered is separate from the day in which members of a group are gathered.

In verse 143 of Al-Baqara, the Holy Quran has described the Islamic nation as “the Middle Nation” and also it is mentioned that this is the reason of this nation’s competency in providing testimony about people. There is controversy among the Fariqain’s commentators about whatness of “being middle” and example of “middle nation”. The Sunnis’ commentators have interpreted that “middle” means justice, goodness and moderation of Islamic nation in comparison to other nations and moderation of Islamic precepts in comparison with the precepts of Jewish and Christian religions and they have viewed all Muslims as the “middle nation” mentioned in the Quran while for some others the Sunnis are the only “middle nation”. Relying on evidences and traditions, the Imamiyah commentators have believed that the verse only refers to the infallible Imams. Having a review on the proposed viewpoints about the middle nation, the paper raises a criticism on them and finally it has been concluded that middle nation is only referred to Ahlul-Bayt who are the mediators between the prophet and people. Accordingly they enjoy the position of providing testimony against people in the resurrection day.

Some Sunni commentators such as Fakhr Razi have attempted to use verse 54 of Surah Al-Maidah to prove the caliphate of the first caliph. In presenting a commentary on this verse, Fakhr Razi claims that this holy verse admires the fighters against the apostates after the demise of the prophet and Abu bakr, the leader is the fighters and has the characteristics proposed in this holy verse. Therefore, he has been favored by God and consequently has honesty in claiming his caliphate. Here, a critique is made on the Fakhr Razi and other Sunni scholars’ commentaries and inference and inefficiency of the reasoning behind their claim about this verse is illustrated in this study.

A structuralist approach toward the Holy Quran’s verses is a modern and influential attitude in regard to commentary science. The principles within this approach include the facts that Quran is non-distortable and the verses are detained in the Surahs. Also, the three principles including unity of purpose, variety of the subjects and harmony of Surahs are considered as the dominant principles. Each Surah, such as Al-Kahf, is deemed as a structure and system which includes two structural units: formal structure and meaning structure. Each one of these two units consists of surface structure and deep structure that the former is discrete while the consequence of the latter is distance. The formal surface structure of the Surah contains lexicon, syntax and harmony of the verses. The formal deep structure includes the artistic aspects of the Surah. The semantic surface structure of the Surah is accounted for a set of verses of the Surah, and finally, the semantic deep structure of the Surah which connects different parts of the Surah to each other in the form of distance.

One of the important and common approaches in commentary of the verses of the Holy Quran is presenting commentary based on the interpretive analysis of the Quranic lexicon. This issue has been always taken into account by the commentators since the beginning of the Quran revelation and in this regard, in addition to the commentaries, some valuable works have been independently written. Many attempts have been made about lexical studies of the Quran in Tafsir-e Nemooneh and this method has been used to express the divine purpose and denotation of the verses. Some samples of lexical commentary from Tafsir-e Nemooneh have been analyzed from lexical commentary on Ad-Dahr so that in addition to identifying the role of the Quranic terms, the amount of the commentator’s attempt in Tafsir-e Nemooneh is clarified.

The holy verse sokr/intoxication has been considered to be as one of the verses about wine sanction. Undoubtedly, sanction of wine was occurred during revelation of different verses but this claim that this verse refers to one of the stages of sanction of wine enjoys no scientific support. The literal meaning of sokr is not limited to intoxication by wine because its root means preventing and stopping the natural flow of wind and heat that naturally hindrance of thinking because of wine is one of the related consequences. The reliable narrations stated about this holy verse imply abomination, boredom, nap, and sleeping at the time of daily prayer. On the other hand, the revelations related to drinking wine by great companions in some of the commentaries are not reliable. Therefore, this holy verse referring to different types of drunkenness and drowsiness such as drunkenness by wine and drowsiness by nap and considering it within the set of wine sanction verses is a deep and suspected matter.

Existence of various verses about divine fate and human free will has brought about common discussions among the Islamic theologians, philosophers, and commentators and different opinions have been proposed. This issue has a more prominent representation in theologian commentaries. Among these commentators, Fakhr Razi and Allameh Tabartabaie, as representatives of two commentary schools of Asharites and Imamiyah, have had different inferences in this regard. Relying on theologian principles of Asharites, Fakhr Razi believes that all human actions in individual and social life as well as occurrence of all events of the world are due to the divine fate which is a definite and necessary thing and violation from this fate is impossible while for Allameh Tabatabaie, by relying on deduction from the verses and narrations as well as rational arguments, there is no concomitance between these two issues. In addition, believing or not believing to issues such as the role of Quran verses in commentary of each other, the role of the verses style in correct understanding, Quran’s enjoyment from a specific language, authoritativeness of the speeches of Ahl ul-Bayt in commentaries, authoritativeness of reason in rational commentary, and goodness and evilness are among the reasons which have led to different inferences of Fakhr Razi and Allameh Tabatabaie from the verses related to the mentioned topic.

The holy Quran is derived from the infinite science of God and to be understood by the limited knowledge of Human beings and to resolve the ambiguities, it needs interpretation. To interpret the word of God, there are two methods called thematic commentary and ordinal commentary. The latter is divided into two commentary methods based on the order of the Quran Verses and order of the verses revelations. The present study has been conducted as a critique on the paper entitled “A Study on the Commentary of the Quran Based on the Order of Revelation” which is opposed to the Quran commentary based on the order of revelations. Here, it is emphasized that there is no obstacle or limitation for providing commentary in accordance with the order of revelations because this style of commentary is a type of thematic commentary that is led to discovering ordinal engineering of the Quran which is performable in all times and palaces.