نشریه پژوهش دینی
سال یازدهم شماره 24 (بهار و تابستان 1391)

Tafkik School rooted in the thoughts of the late Mirza Mahdi Isfahani and the like offers a special definition of intellect, which has been construed as innate wisdom. This innate wisdom reveals truth and details, is abstract light, lies outside material existence of man and has inherent authority. According to this view, demonstrative wisdom and philosophical, demonstrative reasoning are invalid and have no authority and they have no contribution to the understanding of religious teachings. Hence, no kind of demonstrative, intellectual reasoning should be used to understand religious teachings and interpret the Quran and beside other sources, innate wisdom should be used to interpret the Quran. This paper delves into the viewpoints of Tafkik School on human intellect and its role in the interpretation of the Quran, criticizes it and identifies its weaknesses.

Undoubtedly, pious scholars of Islam as the successors of the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) and the infallible Imams (a.s.) are the only individuals who have vast knowledge of the interpretation and explication of the Holy Quran. Muhammad ibn-e Ali ibn-e Shahr-Ashub Sarvi Mazandarani is one of the great scholars who has contributed a lot to the promotion of the valuable teachings of Islam and the Holy Quran by authoring a number of admirable books. Motashabeh al-Quran is one of his precious works authored in the field of interpretation of the Quran. It is a two-volume, rich work carrying a full load of Quranic themes and discussions on the ambiguous and complicated verses of the Holy Quran. In this study, an attempt has been made to carefully examine and evaluate some of the interpretation techniques utilized by ibn-e Shahr-Ashub to explicate the Devine verses. The findings of the this study suggest that the most significant interpretation techniques and types utilized by the author of Motashabeh al-Quran are utilization of the verses related to a single issue, use of the syntactic rules of Arabic language, employment of interpretive narrations, benefitting from the revelation circumstances of verses, reference to the consensus among interpreters, explication of the meaning of the single words of verses, benefiting from the surface of verses, reference to the non-manifest meaning of verses, criticism of narrations, pointing out manifestations of verses, reference to credibility of wisdom, interpretation of the verses of prescripts, explanation of the rhetorical address and utilization of the literary figures in the Quran.

The root of the word “ommi” is “omm” or “ommah”. The most common meaning of “omm” is “mother” because “mother” is the origin of children and gives birth to them. The most common meaning of “ommah” is “community” which is a unified group. The meaning of these two words can help one define “ommi” because “ommi” is related to them. The literal meaning of “ommi” is “illiterate”, i.e. one who can neither read nor write. Using exegetical and hadith sources, we find out that the Prophet is called “ommi” since he was “illiterate” and was not capable of reading and writing prior to his delegation as a prophet though, following his delegation as a prophet, he could read and write and he had accomplished acts of reading in some instances but he had not written anything.

The Quran is so widely manifested in Khaqani Shervani’s (520-595 A.H.) poetic imagery, especially in his similes, that Quranic stories constitute a major part of his similes. Hence, in this paper, the Quranic stories utilized in the similes of Khaqani’s Complete Poetical Work are identified and analyzed. Based on this analysis, it is concluded thatin addition to its role as a theosophical source for Khaqani’s poetry, the Quran is extensively manifested in his poetic imagery. Khaqani has widely benefited from Quranic stories in his similes which are among the most significant elements of poetic imagery. This has been done either verbally, non-verbally (conceptually) or using constructions composed on the basis of Quranic words and concepts. Some of the Quranic stories reflected in Khaghani’s similes have directly been taken from the Quran, some have been taken from interpretations of the Quran and some others have been derived from the Israiliyat which have found their way into some interpretations of the Quran.

Although art constitutes a part of human life, its function is more significant and deeper than daily issues. This importance has different manifestations and has furnished art with some kind of sacredness. Art was once utilized for hunting and having bountiful harvest and at some other times it was used by the church to teach religion to people. Even in contemporary secular societies, artists are considered the survivors of the lost sanctity. Sanctity of art lies in its essence since it is to elevate man and take him beyond the boundaries of everyday life. What we need to contemplate is that the importance of art in various societies has led to the enhancement of their social power. Unfortunately, this virtue has been accompanied by some flaws. Since the beginning of history, and probably prior to that, some individuals and groups have been trying to dominate others and misuse art to fulfill their carnal desires benefitting from this great power.

Iblis used to have the nature of angels and rational and traditional proofs confirm this idea. Considering the culture of its addressees, the Holy Quran has introduced Iblis as having the nature of jinn since the pre-Islamic Arabs called every invisible creature jinn. The word jinn has been utilized to refer to angels in some parts of the Quran. Iblis can dominate the disobedient servants of God, can mislead them or even can inflict physical illness on them. The pre-Islamic Arabs considered Iblis the symbol of vices and snake the symbol of Iblis.