نشریه مطالعات تاریخی قرآن و حدیث
سال هفدهم شماره 2 (پیاپی 50، پاییز و زمستان 1390)

Some Quranic verses are descended to dignify Ahlol Bait (literally, the household of the Prophet). The verses in Chapter Al-Insan (Human) are among these verses which are revelations from God the core meaning of which is about Imam Ali(as) and Fatimah Al-Zahra(sa) and her servant Fizzeh. In the first verses of this Surah we read: “the people of God (Ebadallah) enjoy the spring and the philanthropists (Al Abrar) enjoy the vase filled of that spring.” These verses represent two different states: The state of those who attain a higher rank and are close to the Almighty and that of the philanthropists who comparatively enjoy a lower rank. This paper is an attempt to thoughtfully investigate the verses of this Chapter of the holy Quran which includes both groups and follows a bilateral discussion about them.

There have been two supposedly inconsistent views about the “transcendence” and “immanence” among Islamic scholars concerning the apprehension of God. The transcendence believers hold that God transcends all the traits attributed to beings. On the other hand, those who believe in immanence hold the anthropomorphic view that God is inherently similar to his creations. There are some verses and narratives with a transcendental aspect and some others which supposedly bring the immanent dimension to mind. The latter put forward the question how these two kinds of verses and narratives could converge and be proved and referred to concerning the question of God. The works of Ibn Arabi (died in 1240 A.D.) are among the most prominent Islamic resources which provide a harmonizing theory in this respect, while rejecting the pertinent contradiction already present in the Islamic texts. The present article aims to discuss his thoughts and views in detail.

Among the divine traits which God has bestowed upon Adam(as), the first of human beings and their father, is the teaching of names which is by and large put forward in relation to his position as a religious leader. As the names were introduced by God to the angles and they found themselves incapable of learning them, he taught them to Adam(as), hence granting him the status of the teacher for the angles. In earlier interpretations there are three general assumptions about the nature of names: names as verbal concepts, conceptual notions and as objective truth. Through the examination of the existing evidence, the present article will conclude that the third assumption is in harmony with other evidences and is consistent with narratives. The article seeks to investigate the relation between the teaching of names in the Quran and the doctrine of “naming” in genesis and their differences, which leads to the Quran’s distinctive view with respect to its subject, method and purpose.

The translation of the holy Quran into Russian dates back to the 18th century. Back then the translators primarily made use of Quran’s translations in European languages. The 19th century, however, was the time when the translation of the Quran from the original Arabic into Russian began. Despite all the shortcomings mentioned about these translations, such translations have played a positive role in illuminating the Russians’ minds about the Quran. During the reign of the Soviet Union only one translation, by Krachkovsky, was published which still maintains scientific validity. In the post-Soviet era, the translation of the Quran has mostly been done by Muslim translators. In this article, a historical account of these translations is presented and their merits and demerits are carefully investigated. Moreover, a brief comparison of the Russian translations of the post-soviet period will also be made with respect to some Persian articles written in the field.

Nearly tow century, Western scholars have studied Muslim traditions as historical data for identifying the history of Islam. To correct use of this source of information, they have examined their historical values and innovated different methods for dating Muslim traditions. The purpose of this paper is identifying possibilities and limitations of isnād-cum-matn analysis for dating traditions. In this method, isnāds and matns data are simultaneously used, and from the correlation between them, we can conclude the origin and development of the tradition. Thus, at first methods of dating based on matn and isnād are briefly introduced, and then, the premises and presuppositions of isnād-cum-matn analysis are surveyed. Afterwards, opponents’ criticism to basic presupposition of this method, i.e. correlation between isnād variants and matn variants of a tradition, is discussed. Finally, possibilities and limitations of this method are examined. The result of this research is, although isnād-cum-matn analysis can identify and explain the context of formation of the tradition and turns back it to the common link time, but common link itself is the limit of this analysis too, and we can’t go back more than one generation. Furthermore, the results of this analysis depend on diversity of the variants and lengthy of texts of the tradition which is not the case for many traditions.

Old Quran translations are extremely enriched and wealthy regarding having pure and Sara Parsi lexicons and thus have no counterpart in this regard. They possess words and combinations used in old texts some of them may not be found in any other texts. This feature, especially in regard to rare Quranic equivalence, possesses utmost importance. One way to enrich lexical system is to choose and extract these past precious words buried beneath a lot of forgotten and ignorance soil and then insert them into today’s accepted language and using them for new concepts. This research, aiming at re-expressing lexical importance of Quranic old books, referring to some of these works of third and sixth hegira century, has studied the most important lexical features of translations and interpretations of the old Quran from the view point of linguistic research. The resources of present research are as follows: “Qods Quran”, “a bridge between Farsi syllabic and prosodic poem”, translation of “Tabari interpretation”, “Old translation of Quran”, a translation known as no 4 Quran, Pak (Clean) Quran interpretation, a predicate from a part of Quran known as “Shanghashi interpretation”, Pars museum Quran translation, a tenth of holly Quran interpretation, holly Quran interpretation known as “Cambridge commentary”, “Souradadi interpretation”, “Kashf-ol-asrar & Eddah-ol-abrar interpretation”, “Roz-al-jenan & Roh-al-jenan Quran interpretation”.

The present article is an endeavour in the subject matter of the history of Shia interpretation of the Qur’an, i.e. tafsīr. It goes to presents a historical framework for the development of Shia tafsīr between 4th-14th Islamic centuries. On the whole, the history of written Shia tafsīr can be classified into four main periods, each of which may be considered to include a paradigm due to the differences between exegetic characteristics in each period. These paradigms include the followings: 1) Selective and ma’thūr tafsīr up to the 4th century or pre-Ṭūsī tafsīr; 2) Ṭūsī school of comprehensive tafsīr or the Buyid exegetical school; 3) tafsīr of the Safavid era or akhbārī exegesis; and 4) contemporary and modern Shia tafsīr. Each of these periods possesses specific characteristics. General similarities exist among the first and third periods as well as among the second and fourth periods.