فصلنامه مطالعات تفسیری
پیاپی 20 (زمستان 1393)

The verse “Yet ye will not, unless Allah willeth” has been discussed and investigated in different interpretative and theological periods. For some commentators and theologians this verse points to “fatalism” and for some others it entails “human free will under the auspices of the Devine Will”. Semantic analysis of the verse with an emphasis on the commentaries reveals that the commentators’ inference from this verse has been different in different periods and been affected by the proposed theological and philosophical arguments within religious circles. During the early centuries, because of the limitations on theological discussions and commentators’ religious questions, the appearance content of the verse was merely dealt with, while during the middle periods, under the influence of the dominant theological progress, the public commentators observed the verse with a fatalism approach, though they attempted to find out a logic for human obligation. The most transparent interpretative view about the verse which is considered to be the peak of the interpretative thought maturity has been emerged in the commentaries of the 14th century and by taking inspiration from the Ahl ul-Bayt, they realized a clear statement from “One in the Middle of the Two Extremes”.

One of the most important Quranic discussions is to find the essential and spiritual proportions among the expressions of each verse from the Holy Quran. Some people have denied such a proportion in the case of the third verse of An-Nisaa “marry of the women, who seem good to you”; thereby, they have raised the doubt of distortion on deficiency. In other words: since they have not been able to find out spiritual order and bond among the expressions of this verse, they have found no choice except claiming that distortion has been occurred here. In this paper, this skepticism has been answered based on Quranic commentaries and Islamic resources and finally, the divine Hekmat as well as spiritual and logical coherence and proportion in the mentioned verse have been approved.

The problem-oriented approach is one of the efficient methods of “contemplation in Quran”. This approach is applied as opposed to the subject-oriented and concept-oriented approaches. Historical analysis of the commentators’ appeal to the verse 97 Surah An-Nahl shows that lack of having the problem-oriented approach has led to the fact that many of them ignored this verse without making any comments and those who have offered commentary were satisfied with sporadic and incoherent points. The study has clarified that three commentators have come upon the problem-oriented approach to the verse and realized the components and characteristics of “the Good Life”. After investigating the contents of this verse, 12 important and appropriate problems related to this verse have been proposed and proper methods for their solution have been suggested in brief.

The concept of “the Right Imam” is one of the most significant Quranic concepts and has attracted the attention of various jurisprudential, theological, mystical, interpretative, narrative and historical schools. However, it has not been dealt with by a semantic approach yet. Although the word “Imam” with the meaning of right leader has been used in 5 ranks in the Holy Quran, it could be said that most of the verses of the Holy Quran serve on fostering of perfect human. Using a semantic approach, this study has attempted to illustrate the concept of “the Right Imam” and to explore its meaning components by referring to the Holy Quran. Since semantics adopts an analytic and painstaking approach to texts, it is known as an appropriate method to decipher the actual meaning of words. Analysis of concurrent approaches in the 5 verses in which the concept of “the Right Imam” has been used, demonstrated that “the Right Imam” concept, in divine application, is identified by the meanings of falsification, guidance, and invitation on the syntagmatic axis and with the meanings of caliph, verse, word, Ummah, and path on the paradigmatic axis within the same semantic field. Discovering the semantic components of the word “Imam” uncovers the latent knowledge behind the verses and reveals the systemic thoughts of the Holy Quran.

Some of the Holy Quran’s verses such as the verse 47 Surah Al-Anbiyaa are about the quality and way of measuring the deeds in the day of resurrection. Various questions have been asked about the way of calculating the deeds and the number of the people in the day of resurrection. The paper intends to propose the viewpoints of the Fariqain’s commentators and Quran researchers and also to compare their viewpoints on “means of weighing the deeds”, “the people whose deeds are calculated and weighed”, and “the reason of weighing the deeds by God”. Measuring the deeds in the day of resurrection is inevitable and the good deeds are measured. Assigning plenty of justice-based criteria, God will make a precise divine calculation to pursuit justice and to yield rewards to the righteous people. The criteria being mentioned in the narrations imply the meaning of the weight of the good deeds’ reward and the value of the good deeds’ effects which have rightly been judged and fairly been calculated with committing injustice to nobody. Also, the unbelievers’ deeds will not be weighed because of being worthless and insignificant.

One of the fundamental issues within the theology system is evilness. This issue has been concerned by Muslim thinkers who have adopted different approaches. The intra-religious strategy is an important approach in this regard. Evilness in the Holy Quran has been focused on from different aspects. Evilness and attributing it to God is among the problems which have been pointed to in the Quran verses especially in the verses 78-79 Surah An-Nissa. Stating the verse “Say (unto them): All is from Allah”, the Holy Quran attributes all good and evil deeds to the only source which is God and by stating “and whatever of ill befalleth thee it is from thyself” it implies that human factors and features are somehow involved in realization of evilness. This problem has brought about the apparent paradox of the holy verse. To provide a response for this paradox, commentators have proposed some solutions. In this study, it is initially dealt with mentioning and criticizing four commentary strategies and then, Allameh Tabatabaie’s solution based on nothingness viewpoint of evilness is mentioned in that he evaluates it as a successful response.

The personality and tradition of the prophet, as messenger of Islam, have always captured the attention of scholars. Orientalists have also been concerned about this issue by maintaining different motivations. The main purposes of the Evangelical Christian Orientalists have included fighting against the true religion of Islam as well as denying the Prophet’s mission which have been always on the agenda of church leaders. They have made attempts to deny the Prophet’s mission by determining forged teachers for him and arbitrary commentary of the holy Quran. This paper aims at discussing and analyzing some reasons proposed to deny the Prophet’s mission and also based on the intra-religious evidences and valid outer-religious reasons it states that these skepticisms have been due to their incorrect presuppositions. In addition, this group of orientalists, in many cases, has distorted the historical realities and has discussed the Quran verses contrary to the commentary regulations.

Some verses of the Quran have mentioned the effective factors and strategies to achieve wishes. Using a descriptive method with a documentary analysis type, the paper aims at investigating these factors and strategies. The verse 24 Surah An-Najm entails that human would not fulfill his wishes through mere willingness but fulfillment of wishes demands enjoying the factors some of which could be explored through inferring the divine verses and some others based on the features of illustrating redemption following the concepts such as “Fouz” and “Fallah” and their derivations. Confirming and explicating the efficient wishes and stating various examples of them in the form of prayers of the divine prophets, the holy Quran also presents the strategies to achieve these wishes which include: faith, trust, patients, attempt, piety, abstinence and obedience to God and Prophet.