ماهنامه معرفت
سال بیست و دوم شماره 4 (پیاپی 187، تیر 1392)

The present paper elaborates on Imam Sajjad's Munajat al-Muhebbin (intimate supplication of lovers). Those who have not attained the understanding of friendship with God do not understand the value of intimate supplication and spiritual stations, but those who have attained pure monotheistic knowledge not only have a true understanding of love for God, but also believe that there is essentially nothing lovable but God. If they love anything, they love because it is attributed to God. The Most High God has a special relationship with His friends and servants; he talks with them in private and in public, and addresses their spirit with His gentle words. One's friendship with God always leads to friendship with His friends and saints. It is impossible for one to love God without loving His friends and saints. Love for God resides in man's heart when he roots out from his heart the love for other than God.

In the view of the Holy Quran, the real life is the life which God has decreed and it is accessible to all creatures. The world of creation is a manifestation of God's merciful blessing and the way through which every creature can achieve its perfection. Man, too, can achieve his perfection, i.e., the station of God's vicegerence and manifestation of divine attributes, through divine mercy. The life which God considers to be a goodly life is a manifestation of the true divine life which is free from any kinds of evil and begins with faith and good deed in order to draw man nigh to his God in the stages of perfection. Using a descriptive-analytical method and the Quranic verses and referring to the sources of religious books, the present paper expounds on how divine attributes are manifested in goodly life and cast light on its systematic relationship with such positive attributes as faith, good deed and guardianship and such negative attributes as negating God-centeredness, neglecting hereafter and death, and pursuing one's whims.

Innate disposition has a genetic property and it is part of man's nature and it is connected to his mental and spiritual dimensions. If this God-given deposit in man's nature is truly realized it can contribute to man's motion, perfection and progress and lead to man's servanthood to God. The present paper, which is conducted by referring to Quranic verses and infallible Imam's traditions and using a descriptive analytical method, aims at elaborating on innate disposition in the Quran and traditions. Some of the research findings are: explaining the different views held by scholars on innate disposition and its two perceptive and attitudinal dimensions and on the features of natural affairs (universal and all-inclusive, ultra- animal, non-acquired, experieneable, attribution to God, and unchangeable), factors of realizing innate disposition (divine teachings passed by prophets and self-purification), and pointing out to the obstacle to the realization of innate disposition (neglecting the self, scientific and Satanic temptations, illusionism (idealism), conventional intellect, arrogance, egoism, secularism (materialism), and rust of heart).

The present paper studies the nature and domain of a knowledge which is referred to in the Quran (Chapter of the Ant: verse 40; Chapter of the Thunder: verse 43) as "the Knowledge of the Book". Among the main aims of this research are: recognition of man's status, familiarity with man's capacities and abilities and familiarity with the nature and domain of God's selected servant's sciences. An analytical-descriptive method is used in this research which is concerned with the commentary of the verses about this point. The research concludes that the Knowledge of the Book means the acquaintance with the "Manifest Book" which is also called "Protected Tablet" which is the divine source of every kind of knowledge in the world. The sciences of holy Quran and other revealed books are rooted in this all-comprehensive source. This knowledge is not exclusive to prophets but other selected servants of God can have access to some or all of it, higher degrees of the Knowledge of the Book IS God-given, and impeccable. The domain of this knowledge includes all the realities of existence and Holy Prophet's household make use of it, according to traditions.

"Trinity" is one of the fundamental doctrines common in Christian theology according to which His majesty, Jesus, the son, is one of its three figures and like Father and Holy Spirit he has divinity. This doctrine came to Christianity under the influence of polytheistic cultures and religions. The holy Quran challenges the ideological principles of the belief in divinity of Jesus by offering a different narration and stressing the human character of His Majesty, Jesus. Using a descriptive-analytical method, the present paper investigates this issue with the aim of elaborating on the critical view of the Quran. The holy Quran considers the belief in the divinity of Jesus as a polytheistic belief and combined with deviance, challenges the basis of any belief in the divinity of Jesus and his mother, Mary, and emphasizes on their human nature and the fact that Jesus is Mary's son, his being a servant of God and a creature, and by providing the story of Mary's pregnancy and birth of Jesus. The Quranic account shows there was no trace of the belief in the divinity of Jesus during his lifetime and that this idea was mooted in later times.

Some verses of the holy Quran are recited in different ways and according to the true view which is consistent with Imam's traditions only one of them is correct. It is necessary to recognize the correct recitation by means of criteria used for determining the correct commentary and recitation of the Quran. Morphology can play an important role in this regard. Using an analytical-descriptive method, the present paper studies some of the disputed recitations of the Quran with the aim of showing the role of morphology in achieving the correct recitation, and concludes that morphology can contribute to determining and preferring the correct recitations, showing which of the disputed recitations is better and stating the equality of some of the recitations through a study of their agreement or disagreement with morphological rules.

A Quran's commentary has to be based on "commentary sources". Commentary sources are those sources which provide the commentator with the necessary ways of recognizing the meaning and intent of Quranic verses. One of the most important commentary sources are the traditions related from holy Prophet's household (peace be upon them), including a commentary ascribed to Imam Hassan Askari. The present paper reviews and criticizes 'Allamah Shooshtari's views on a number of traditions narrated in this commentary and proves that although the reasons cited by Shooshtari – including single narration of a tradition in the Shiite commentary source ascribed to Imam Hassan 'Askari not in general sources, literal interpretation of a tradition, the content of a tradition itself regardless of its following accounts, and improbability of the content of a tradition- render the issuing of these traditions less reliable, they cannot be used to prove that these traditions are fabricated and substantiate the claim that all the content of commentary ascribed to Imam Hassan 'Askari is fabricated.

The term "love" and its meaning have a special status in the culture of holy Quran. The present paper investigates the conceptual interaction between the term "love" and such terms as mawaddah (affection), walayah (friendship), 'ibadah (worship), rahmah (mercy), hannan (tenderness), rafah (clemency) and shafaqah (kindness), and its conceptual contrast with such terms as karahah (aversion), bughd (hatred) and 'adawah (enmity). A study of other linguistic elements of the Quran such as will and choice, innate disposition, knowledge and piety which have a certain relationship with love in terms of Quranic applications shows how the word love has a conceptual relationship with other synonyms and antonyms in the words of the Quran. Love means inclination of nature along with wisdom, and proximity of two things which will result in obedience and affiliation to the beloved. It is also the spiritual dimension of a kind of relationship, meets man's psychic need, and a natural stimulus for attaining a kind of perfection. On the other hand, love is the meeting point of such outstanding Quranic concepts like faith, will, obedience and abstinence form sin. This paper proves that love has a fundamental role in Quranic culture because it is the meeting point of many Quranic concepts like muhabbah (having strong affection) hub (love) and mahbub (beloved).

There are some words in the Quran which are not of Arabic origin. They are called arabicized or loan words. Different views are shown on the number of Persian arabicized words in Quran but there is a broad agreement on their existence. When these Persian arabicized words are translated, the same word is used in the source target languages. So the questions that arise here are: is it possible to say that there is no need to translate these words? Can their original form before arabicization be used regardless of the changes in their meanings? This paper tries to answer these questions by focusing on two Persian arabicized terms-Ebriq, goblet and Estabraq, thick brocade or coarse woven brocade. A library method based on description and analysis is used in this research. Having reviewed the semantic study of these words and criticized their existing translations, this paper concludes that it is not possible to use the arabicized forms and the original forms of these terms – regardless of their new meanings for the audience of contemporary - in translation. As a result, it chooses the term "goblet" as an equivalent for "ebriq" and "thick brocade" or "coarse woven brocade" as an equivalent for "estabraq"