A Comparison between Ijtihadgara i and the Idea of the Possibility of Different Readings

There are many differences between ‘ijtihadgara’I’ and ‘the idea of the possibility of different readings’ in terms of their bases, claims and effects; ijtihadgara’i means a systematic effort to discover religious statements and teachings using valid evidences; on this base religious knowledge is possible and systematic. ‘The idea of the possibility of different readings’ is to believe that there are different and even contradictory readings of religion due to the nature of the text, the essence of mind, the mechanism of understanding and …; and different understandings appear from one single text. As a result it is not simple to reach to a final objective understanding for a religious text. The researcher of this article has divided hermeneutic theories into three groups: 1. author-centered; 2. text-centered; 3.interpreter-centered. He believes ‘the idea of the possibility of different readings’ is based on text-centered and interpreter-centered theories and ‘ijtihadgara’i’ is author-centered, especially on the basis of his suggested methodological pattern. He counts ten differences between the two discourses and then briefly criticizes ‘the idea of the possibility of different readings’.