Year:2009 | Volume:- | Issue:81/3|Papers Count:7

The contemporary linguistic achievements have taken the literary interpretation of the Holy Qur'an into a new stage. At present the Halliday's systemic-functional theory has received attention by many linguists. This article aims at acquainting the interpreters and Qur'an researchers with the new linguistic methodology in relation to understanding religious texts. Based on this theory and with a linguistic method, the writer has interpreted Surat al-‘Asr and presented new points on the semantics of this sura. These points include: man's love relation to God and other human beings; the reflection of the world of the speaker, the listener, and the reader; the calculated priority and delay of the words; the peaks and valleys of the cadence of the words; mysterious bond between the old and the new datum; utilizing various types of cohesion and continuous relation of concepts and meanings.

A search into the earlier tradition sources of the Sunnis indicates that part of them, entitled Kitab al-Fad’il, address the excellences (fad’il) and virtues (manaqib) of individuals and groups. Dedicating a separate chapter under this rubric along other chapters and sections of hdith collections reveals the importance of this issue and the endeavors of the compilers of Sunni hdith collections in preparing this category of traditions. After compilation and examination, this type of traditions can be grouped into seven categories: excellences arisen from the individual's relation with the Prophet (S.A.W.); religious; ethnic, tribal, and group; military-security; scholarly; ethical; and the traditions dedicated to the Ahl al-Bayt (A.S.). Influenced by different temporal and spatial circumstances, the traditions regarding the virtues and excellences of individuals and groups vary in significance, value, and credibility which have to be taken into consideration and closely examined when being referred to. Excellences and virtues is one of the hdith fields that have not been safeguarded against fabrication and forgery; thus, employment of such traditions and making reference to them seems to require close examination and precaution.

A brief look at the Holy Qur'an would clearly show that some of its verses have been revealed in criticizing the pagan (jahili) community contemporary to the time of Revelation, a criticism that is free from the deficiencies and defects of human criticism. Different kinds of criticisms-such as social, literary, historical, and psychological-are seen in the Holy Qur'an and this allows us to name the Qur'an as the first book of the Muslims. Although the appellations of many of the above-mentioned criticisms are newly devised, most of them are in truth rooted in the Qur'an. The present research is a brief glance at the most significant features of social criticism in the Qur'an and its difference with a human-type criticism as well as statement of various methods used by the Qur'an in examining the pagan and Islamic conducts of that era. In this respect, the writers examine the issue of bounty and generosity with the pagan Arabs and conclude that their attribute of generosity is not as strong as it has become known to be and the attribution of generosity to the pre-Islamic Arabs has been greatly exaggerated. The writers' reasons for this claim is the writings of some historians, Nahj al-Balagha, the thoughts and behavior of the vagabonds and tramps (s‘alik), and more important of all reference to the Holy Qur'an. That is to say, contrary to the pagan poetry that usually introduces the Arabs as very generous, the Qur'an's emphasis on the necessity of infaq (spend in charity) would reveal a kind of contradiction to the contemporary reader in a reverse balance manner.

There are many verses in the Qur'an with literally similar words that bring the question to the readers' minds as to whether there are repetitions in the Holy Qur'an, and whether these repetitions do not damage the rhetorical excellence and eloquence of the Qur'an. Answer to these questions has led to the development of a science called Verses of Literal Similarity.It is attempted in this article to present a clear definition of this science and to study these verses in a new classification. In the beginning, the differences in verses of literal similarity are explicated. Then, the approaches of the Qur'an researchers in justification of these differences, which are themselves divisible into several overall categories in terms of the type of answers, are pointed out.Furthermore, the viewpoints of three writers who have each written a book about this science are stated.

‘Ali b. Abi hamza b. Bata’ini, is among the heretic (fasid al-madhhab) transmitters of hadith, with the difference, however, that he has left behind two distinguishable periods in his life time. For some time he had been on the right path and during that period he had been regarded as among the transmitters of hadith from Imam al-sadiq (A.S.) and Imam al-Kazim (A.S.), but toward the end of his life he was deviated and denied the Imamate of Imam al-Rida (A.S.). During his upright period, he had related from the two noble Imams many traditions which have found their way into our collections of hadith through reports of the compilers of hadith sources, trustworthy transmitters of hadith, and the people of consensus. Because of the denunciations made of him in biography books, our jurists and scholars have taken different stances in dealing with his related traditions. Their disagreement is rooted in that some of them regard the time of relating the traditions to be during his upright period and others believe it to be during his deviation. This has created a kind of ambivalence in acceptance or rejection of his traditions. According to some evidences, however, most of his traditions seem to belong to his upright period; thus, his traditions can be trusted and counted on, if they meet certain requirements, as it has been so with other famous jurists and scholars.

One of the four major works of Shi‘a biographical studies (rijali) is al-Fihrist by Abu Ja‘far Muhammad b. Hasan b. ‘Ali b. Hasan Ṭusi known as Shaykh al-Ta’ifa. As implied from its title, this book was written to represent the names of Shi‘a works and compilations; however, since besides bibliographical information various biographical references are also included in this book, Muslim scholars have recognized it as one of the major four works of biographical studies.In this article, however, we have considered Shaykh's Al-Fihrist simply as a catalog (fisrist) of principles (usul) and works (muSannafat) and tried to figure out Shaykh Tusi's methodology in expressing general information concerning the authors and their writings and the way it is presented.

The hadith "Whoever deliberately ascribes a lie to me" is among the widely transmitted (mutiwatir) traditions, which both Shi‘a and Sunni transmitters of hadith have related from the Prophet (S.A.W.) in their hadith collections; but still some whispers of doubt are heard about the validity of its sanad, soundness of the text, and its evidential aspects. Some of the orientalists have regarded this very hadith as forged and fabricated and a few of the contemporary hadith researchers have considered part of it to be mudraj (inserted). Raising questions concerning the above hadith, the present article addresses certain aspects of its issuance and signification.