فصلنامه مطالعات تفسیری
پیاپی 24 (زمستان 1394)

The greatest blessing gifts of God to human are religion and lawful guidance which have provided real elevation and achievement to the purpose of creation as well as reaching the final destination for its followers and this will guarantee them to achieve a pure life. Religious scholars are always in search to recognize the function of religion in human life and whatness of philosophy. The Holy Quran has clearly mentioned this function along with its philosophical explication in various verses. According to the Quran, human personality and dignity depends on the degree of his religiousness. The holy verse “O ye who believe; Obey Allah, and the messenger when He calleth you to that which quickeneth you…” is one of the samples of this group of verses. With an emphasis on the content and commentary of the above-mentioned verse, this paper has briefly discussed the existential philosophy of religion and the strategies to achieve such philosophy.

Failure of actions is one of the important theological topics which has been mentioned in the Quran’s Verses including the holy verse “If thou ascribe a partner to Allah thy work will fail and thou indeed wilt be among the losers.” In this verse which is addressed to the holy prophet and the previous prophets, polytheism is deemed as the factor of failure of actions. The possibility of polytheism and failure of the prophets’ actions and its incompatibility with infallibility has been one of the challenges that prophets and commentators have been confronted by. To Imamieh Approach, the Mu’tazilah’s viewpoint on failure of actions is invalid; therefore, the failure mentioned in the Quran has a different meaning with its theological meaning. Lack of discrimination between its Quranic application and what is common among the theologians has created many challenges in regard to semantics of failure, failure-dependents and the reasons of failure. Studying the contents of the above-mentioned verse and enjoying the commentators’ ideas especially Amin Al-Islam Tabarsi, the paper is an attempt to investigate two major approaches about possibility of polytheism and failure of actions of the prophets and believers, then, it explains the Quranic meaning of failure and its contradiction with the theological meaning and also to investigate the reasons of failure, failure-dependents, and the manner of such dependency to infidels and disbelievers.

There are various verses in the Holy Quran that prohibit Muslims from establishing any relationships with non-Muslims. This matter has been caused the creation of this doubt that the Quran has offended non-Muslims and accordingly, it is imagined that the Quran includes an immoral and offensive matter. Reflecting on the content of the verses under discussion and explaining them precisely, it will be clarified that Muslims are prohibited from establishing friendship with those people who are against them as enemy and try to irritate and annoy them while being good to the people who are not in adverse relationships with Muslims being emphasized by the Quran. In this regard, being a Muslim does not matter. The Quran’s recommendation on prohibiting form friendship with polytheist parents does not imply to disrespect them but it only means not to obey them in the affairs related to religion. In addition, Muslim parents are recommended to turn away from accepting their children’s requests which may cause injustice to others.

This paper has dealt with investigation of being in awe of God and its importance and role in being guided toward the Quran. Awe means a conscience reaction to appropriate knowledge. Being in awe of God means comprehension of our dependency to God’s lordship and having responsibility toward God. Various verses in the Quran have made realization of the Quran’s guidance subject to existence of some features in human and there are some actions which make human guidance impossible. According to the Quran verses, being in awe of God creates human’s capacity of recognition and acceptance. Those who are in awe of God are always in search of finding a more detailed request of God from His servants and when the Quran’s verses are proposed to them, they find it as their lost desire which guides them how to attract God’s satisfaction and to do good deeds.

To commentators and philosophers, it is possible for human to achieve divine knowledge. By resorting to different methods, human can obtain divine knowledge. In this regard, feeling is a way of achieving recognition and a path to face the external world. Feeling will makes human familiar with the external world and reveals the sensory secrets. Thinkers have proposed different viewpoints about the validity of feeling system; however, Quranic teachings and the reasons achieved from the verses of the Quran will guide us to the path in which feeling is considered to be valid. Presenting various valuable reasons, the Quran totally accepts the sensory cognition. On the other hand, according to the verses of the Quran, there is the possibility of mistake in feelings. Regarding the relation between soul and sensory cognition the philosophers believe that human soul is void of any wisdom in a stage before feeling but the Quran states that in the beginning, soul lacks an obtainable science and designing the issue of nature makes us to believe that the natural and unobtainable teachings are existed in soul before feelings.

One of the most important functions of the verses of the Quran is educating and refining the souls; therefore, commentary on the Quran with an educational approach is one of the richest interpretational approaches. Considering the purposes of the religious education which is the same as creating correct behavior, omitting the incorrect behavior and amending some behaviors, this approach intends to achieve these purposes and elevate them by gaining inspiration from the Quran. The holy Quran is an important resource for the teachers and learners both in its style and structure as well as in its theme and content. Reflecting upon the sixth verse of the Surah At-Tahrim and according to the principles and methods of religious education, the paper is an attempt to find out what is pointed out in this verse and /or what could be inspired from it. The authors hope that the proposed viewpoint could enlighten the movement toward organizing an educational approach in commentary.

The holy verse “O Children of Israel! Remember My favour wherewith I favoured you and how I preferred you to (all) creatures” is repeated twice in the Quran. In this verse, God requests the children of Israel to remember the gifts that God has bestowed them. The holy Quran has different verses in which a small number of these gifts are mentioned. Salvation of the children of Israel from Pharaoh’s despotism, sending lots of prophets, Torahو the manna and the quails, growth of shadow of clouds on the scorching desert and bubbling spring from stone are among the divine gifts to the children of Israel. The verse under discussion indicates the superiority of the children of Israel and Jews over all creatures. However, existence of some verses concerning the superiority of the prophet Mohammad’s nation and also uttering curses on some of the children of Israel have provided the ground of some conflicts with this verse. Precise explanation of “the children of Israel”, “the aspects of their preference” and “Creatures” (the two worlds) in this verse will clarify the commentary of this verse and its conflicts will be removed. The paper indicates that this holy verse is not general and absolute within these three areas.

The imamate of the twelve Imams is one of the principal beliefs of the Imamieh Shia. This belief is documented by rational principles, verses and narrations. Meanwhile, referring to few narrations, some of the Shia Scholars have dealt with interpretation of the verse “Lo! the number of the months with Allah is twelve months…” to apply it to prove the truth that the Shia Imams are twelve. They have attributed the word “year” to the holy prophet, “twelve months” to the twelve imams and “the four of shrines” refers to the four Imams whose name are Ali. Nowadays, some scholars have written books by referring to these narrations about “the Twelve Imams in the Quran”. These inappropriate and complex interpretations will damage the main and principal belief of Shia. In this paper, the document of the mentioned narrations and their resources are studied, then, by proving the invalidity of some of them, weakness of the document, inconformity with rational principles and the fact that great commentators and theologians of Shia have not utilized the interpretation of the above verse, it has been declared that there is no need to prove Imamate by such kinds of interpretations.

The original element or elements of the creation of the world has been studied by scientists from a long time ago. For some philosophers, the original element of creation is immaterial and made of “light” and / or “reason”. To another group, water, air, fire or the four elements are considered as the initial and original elements of creation of the material world. To show Hekmat, knowledge and power of God to human, the holy Quran has pointed to the original elements and the process of creation and it talks about the existence of “water”, “smoke” and occurrence of “mending” and “rending” at the beginning of creation. The cosmologists and physicists have proposed various hypotheses in this regard by enjoying experimental instruments and methods. The initial fireball with a very high density and temperature in the Big Bang Theory has been considered to be the central point. Some other scientists have proposed other basic particles as an explanation for the initial point and a part of creation process. These findings are compatible with some teachings of the Quran and this could be deemed as one of the scientific wonders of the Quran.

The occult assistances are mentioned in the Holy Quran as one of the most important traditions. This tradition suggests that if human uses the general divine assistances correctly and strengthens his own spiritual capabilities, undoubtedly, the cause and effect system of the universe will rise to support him. Investigation of the Quran’s verses on this approach has shown that the occult assistances could be divided into two major groups of internal and external factors. Sending divine army, protecting the believers, increasing the worldly blessings, and granting government to the righteous doers are among the external factors. On the other hand, giving heart tranquility and guidance, showing enemies less than real and instilling fear and terror in the heart of the enemies are among the examples of internal factors. By referring to the verses of the Quran and commentary resources, the paper intends to analyze the most important ways of sending such kinds of God’ special graces to the believers.