ETHICAL RESEARCH (RESEARCH JOURNAL OF THE ASSOCIATION FOR ISLAMIC THOUGHT)
Year:2006 | Volume:2 | Issue:2|Papers Count:11

One of the important theological concepts is faith, whose semantic structure has a special role in the discussions of theology and philosophy of religion. Pointing to the necessity and the background of the discussion, the present article, using the method of semantics, analyzes the structure of faith on the basis of propositions obtained from the Qur’anic verses. In the part of semasiology, it uses the general principles of Izutso’s methodology. Adding up the Qur’anic verses, it outlines the semantic features of faith as follows: faith is based on knowledge; faith is acquired and optional; faith possesses emotional components; faith requires action; faith is higher than submission to God’s commands; faith is increasable and reducible. Objects of faith are invisible world, God, world of future life, Divine Scriptures, divine prophets, and Angels.

The holy Qur’an is considered as one of the criteria for criticizing of the Hadiths. In Qur’an-based criticism, the sense of a tradition is appraised by the significance of the verses form the Qur’an. If there is a correspondence, one can accept it, and if not, it is not acceptable. In the “Traditions of Referral” (Riwāyāt al-`Arz), these two types of relations are called “agreement” and “disagreement”. The reasons for the Qur’an- centred criticism of the Hadith are the content of the Traditions of Referral as well as the essential differences of the Qur’an and the Hadith; in other words, the reasons for the scripture-centred criticism of the Hadith are partly dogmatic and partly based on independent reasoning. These two groups of reasons can also be called narrated proofs and rational proofs. The present article is an attempt made to analyze and to criticize different aspects of the rational proofs of the scripture-centred criticism.

Shi’i interpreters have always favored tradition-centered exegesis, and have enjoyed exegetical traditions in their commentaries. However, they had diverse ways in using traditions; some of the interpreters considered it sufficient to mention traditions below the verses; some enjoyed other things, in spite of making the most of traditions; some others have interpreted the verses in a rather consistent, independent reasoning way, but at the same time the traditions have been one of their main references. Still some others have engaged in interpretation with a little reference to the traditions relative to the verses, but analyzed and explained the exegetical traditions separated from the job of interpretation. In this paper, the author is going to deals with the developments of the Shiite tradition-centred exegesis, its preferences, and its shortcomings.

There are many problems in front of a rationalistic approach to justify the infinite duration in the Hell. It seems that some of the philosophical beliefs which are held about God conflict with infinite duration of some people in the Hell.The philosophers take God to be an absolute being who is almighty and absolutely good and in the other hand they hold that human being is created in the image of God. Human being is the manifestation of God’s goodness in the earth so his nature is good and all errors or sins in his life are not essential. They are accidental and finally he returns to his goodness and leave all of the errors. Vices and sins in his life is the result of preventing power who act in contrary to his essentials demands and according to a philosophical principle it cannot continue in all of his life. Assuming this situation, it is difficult to justify an infinite punishment for human being.The paper after reviewing and criticizing Tabataba’i and Mulla Sadra’s opinions in this regard, conclude that all attempts for justifying the infinite duration in the hell failed. It is a challenge for philosophy and can be held on the philosophical principles.

Like Peripatetic philosophers, ‘Allamah Tabataba’i holds that there is a longitudinal order between the existents, having three circles; however, he differs from them in that he does not consider longitudinal intellects limited to the ten intelligences, believes in the world of ideas, and cuts the connection between the emanation order and the old physics. ‘Allamah Tabataba’i’s view resembles illuminationist theosophies’ view in that they both explain the emergence of the multiplicity of the existents on the basis of longitudinal order, and suggest the longitudinal and latitudinal intelligences and the world of cosmic imagination, and also none of the two viewpoints do not consider the number of longitudinal intelligences limited to ten intelligences; yet his viewpoint distinguishes from theirs in rejecting the old physics and suggesting the principality of existence. ‘Allamah Tabataba’i’s theory is similar to Abu al-Barakāt Baghdādi’s in that they both disconnect the emanation order from the old physics; but the former is different from the latter in regard to his acceptance of the longitudinal hierarchy among the existents. The present paper attempts to develop six characteristics of `Allamah Tabataba’i’s viewpoint.

Moral Principles and training constitute the basic pillars of human culture. Because of this, the above subjects have been considered in the Islamic culture as well as in many countries by researchers from a long time ago till now. The first step toward researching in this field is to get to know of the issues being discussed in this area; to gain this, one should investigate into the current approaches. Hence, this article is going to numerate, classify and examine centieally the approaches in this field, and thereby to draw out and classify the basic problems and issues of moral training.

Amonga main concerns of phenomenologists and historians of religion is the relation between the history of religion and phenomenology of religion, which are two approaches to the study of religions. For the scholars of religion, there are different meanings for these approaches but the author uses them in their more particular meanings. Although the scholars are not of the same opinion about the limits of distinction, they all hold that phenomenology of religion is a distinct and self-sufficient approach, though connected to the other approaches to the study of religion. The author in this article is going to present some criteria for distinguishing the two above mentioned approaches.

Examining Shaykh al-Ra’is’s works, one can find that sometimes he has severely rejected the union of the intelligent and the intelligible and sometimes he has accepted it in some way. So it may be raised the question how one can, supposing that the attribution of these opinions are true, explain such incompatibility. This article first represents a classification and analytic report on Ibn Sina’s words concerning the problem; next, it sets forth and examines some resolutions represented for this contradiction; then, it concludes that none of the resolution can completely dissolve the contradiction, though some of them enjoy more success and accomplishment.