PAZHUHESH-DINI (RELIGIOUS STUDY)
Year:2009 | Volume:- | Issue:18|Papers Count:8

John Burton, a researcher of the Quran, believes: The Quran to which we have access today was compiled by the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) during his lifetime. Existence of different copies and versions of the Quran in the Companions hands led to the exclusion of the Prophet's role in the attempts aimed at compiling the Quran. Nullification of recitation and judgment, nullification of recitation and preservation of judgment, and differences of the readings of the Companions' copies of the Quran did not really exist and they have been fabricated by those jurisprudents who have used them in their debates with other jurisprudents to support those judgments of themselves which were not supported by the nas (text) of the existing Quran. If the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) had compiled the Quranic verses in a single volume, these jurisprudents could never speak of the differences of the readings of the Companions' copies of the Quran and exclusion of parts of the present day Quran in two forms of nullification of recitation. They had no choice but to forge narrations and exclude the Prophet's role in compiling the Quran and thus they declared that the compilation of the Quran had taken place after the life of the Prophet (p.b.u.h). Although Burton's views include some positive aspects, some serious criticisms have been leveled against some of the foundations of his views.

Murder and homicide is the worst and heaviest crime which may take place in a human society. The Holy Quran considers the soul of a typical human being equal to the soul of all human beings and looks upon the murder of an individual as the murder of all human beings. Murdering kinspeople, in general, and filicide, in particular, add to the enormity of this crime and psychologically and socially doubles its destructive role in society. Filicide is a kind of crime through which a father or mother kills his or her child or children. In this article, an attempt has been made to examine the criminological and retributional aspects of filicide and to explain the respective criminal policy of Islam.

Haghaegh al-Tafsir is believed to be one of the oldest works of interpretation in Islamic gnosis. This work of interpretation is a compilation made up of Imam Sadegh's (a.s.) interpretations, ibn-Ata's interpretation, abol-Hossein Noori's interpretation and Hossein ibn-Mansoor Hallaj's interpretation. The documentary and content analyses on Haghaegh al-Tafsir reveal serious doubts about the part of this work attributed to Imam Sadegh (a.s.). However, some statements of his interpretation are seen in other authentic Shiite texts. The interpretive narrations of Imam Sadegh (a.s.) are either the statements of great Sufis attributed to him or they are real narrations from Imam Sadegh (a. s.) which have gradually assumed a different character among Sufis. Since Solami is among the outstanding Sufi figures of the fourth and fifth century (AH) and he has trained scholars such as Goshairy and Sa'labi, he has created his work of interpretation out of those works of interpretation in order to collate and verify the principles and fundamentals of the Sufism based on seir-o-solook (spiritual journey). The ta'vils of this work of interpretation are different from esoteric ta'vils and an attempt has been made not to let its ta’vils become a pretext for denial of the literal meanings of the Quran. Thus, the opinions of scholars such as Siyooti and Zahabi who have considered this work of interpretation and esoteric interpretations identical are not reliable.

Today, man has tried to develop his awareness about death as the most mysterious occurrence in two ways so that he can overcome his anxieties about the event he will definitely experience sooner or later. The first way is the cognizance of ehtezar (death agony) by making use of the revealed religious and divine explanations. The second way which is prevalent in non-Muslim communities is «near-death experiences». The main objective of this article is to help readers understand the similarities and differences between near-death experiences and the accounts of ehtezar provided by the Quranic verses and narrations.

The Quran as an everlasting source includes various cross-sectional and longitudinal levels and layers. Islamic sciences have always emphasized making use of all the layers of meanings of the Quran. The scholars and researchers of Quranic studies of each era have benefitted from a particular set of instruments and approaches to explore and exploit some new horizons of this holy book. The modern era gave rise to literary criticism, linguistics and semantics and provided new instruments with novel functions for exploring the infinite meanings of the Quran. Although semiotics, historical methods and some other modern methods and instruments have commonly been used during the modern era, semantics is of particular importance in Quranic studies. What we need to consider in using these methods and instruments is their adaptation and making them well-suit the Quranic studies and Islamic culture. The present study examines how these methods can be employed in the specialized field of semantics introducing semantics of Ben's school, cognitive semantics, stratified semantics and philosophical semantics in Quranic studies.

Although translating the Holy Quran dates back a few centuries, for some reasons including translation from inauthentic texts, lack of mastery of Arabic language, lack of familiarity with the concepts and interpretations of the Quranic verses, etc, the translated versions of the Quran contain various defects. This article examines and evaluates four different English translations of the al-Ensan surah of the Holy Quran on the basis of the authentic interpretations of this surah and comparatively analyses the strong and weak points of each translation.

Salam is one of the Quranic terms which has a wide array of meanings and various functional features and manifestations. This heavenly term is one of the names of God, the Generous. A lot of hadiths from the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) and infallible Imams have been reported about the meanings and features of salam and its manifestations are widely seen in many religious texts including prayers and also in social interactions. Namaz (ritual prayers) as the most highly valued act of worship and the most beauteous manifestation of man's servitude to God has a number of pillars one of which is salam. In this article, the most salient meanings and concepts of salam have been identified and compiled using the most outstanding Arabic and Persian dictionaries. Then, the most important meanings and consequences of salam, in other words, the philosophy of salam in namaz have been analyzed on the basis of the existing meanings.