نشریه پژوهش های نهج البلاغه
سال بیست و یکم شماره 1 (پیاپی 72، بهار 1401)

"Perfect human being" is an interpretation that mystics have used in their discussions about ontological issues. The perfect human being is the Almighty's most complete objective manifestation, representing His beauty and glory. Perfect human being is necessarily a mediator between the imperative creation and congenital creation. According to previous studies, Nahj al-Balaghah and Shahnameh introduced, interpreted, and explained the characteristics of noble and perfect human being. So, these two books are considered important sources for learning the methods of being a perfect human. The present article examines the characteristics of the perfect human being and its authorities in Nahj al-Balaghah and Shahnameh with a descriptive-analytical approach in Imam Ali's speech and Ferdowsi's point of view. This research results in the exclusion of undesirable characteristics and the attraction of desirable characteristics such as goodness and kindness, justice, wisdom, keeping promises, and keeping secrets. These features have been examined through the lens of ethics, and each of them shows the position of a complete human being. This comparative research indicated that the characteristics and moral qualities of perfect human beings had a high frequency in both studied books.

Hakim Abu 'l-Qasim Ferdowsi, a prominent Iranian poet, wrote a book full of advice and admonitions titled Shahnameh. This book is an epic masterpiece and an indicator of the national and cultural identity of Iranians. The rule of kings and the issues related to the rulers and peasants have been manifested in a comprehensive way in the historical part of the Shahnameh, which is unique in its kind. Ferdowsi has been able to link Iranian culture and civilization to Islam. Considering the influence of religious teachings and Islamic culture on his thoughts and its influence on the writing of the Shahnameh and its similarities with religious works, this article examines the duties of subordinates towards the ruler in the historical part of the Shahnameh (that is, from the kingdom of "Bahman" to the kingdom of "Yazdgerd III") and compares them with Nahj al-Balaghah. This work is descriptive-analytical and library resources have been used for its preparation and compilation. The results of this comparison showed that in both works the emphasis is on the duties of subordinates and peasants to the ruler (obeying the ruler, secrecy, saying good words and not slandering about the ruler, loyalty, fighting and not running away from the battlefield). These were some of the similarities, but in the case of differences, Ferdowsi has sometimes indulged in approving the kings and considered the implementation of their orders absolutely necessary.

Loneliness means isolation, and it is the deeply rooted feeling that exists in the biological experience of humans. In different forms, from birth to death, it accompanies the human being. In this article, we discussed loneliness and its types in Nahj al-Balaghah, as it is one of the most important human problems. We have analyzed the desirable and undesirable types of loneliness according to Imam Ali (A.S.) and extracted the definition of loneliness and its types through a library and a descriptive-analytical method from Nahj al-Balaghah. According to Amir al-Mu'minin, loneliness is sometimes deliberate and conscious, sometimes it is due to the person's beliefs, attitudes, and lifestyle; and sometimes it goes beyond mundane aspects to promote self-awareness in one's life. According to the Imam (A.S.), there are undesirable and disabling types of loneliness. The primary one is not based on the individual's choice. The second one is desirable, and a person searches for it in a deliberate way by withdrawing from others, pursuing his social and personal goals to nurture his soul. In the end, according to Imam Ali (A.S.), some loneliness can be cured by being close to God, praying, acquiring moral virtues and avoiding vices such as hatred and enmity.

The public service motivation of rulers and agents is one of the most fundamental indicators of the maturity of political actors in the ascendency structure of Islamic societies. The following article aims to develop the concept of public service motivation (PSM) based on the Nahj al-Balaghah within the Islamic framework. After reviewing the literature and examining the content of Nahj al-Balaghah (sermons, letters, and wisdom), the primary theoretical framework has been carried out based on three levels of anthropology, behaviorism, and structuralism. Then a qualitative research method and a theme analysis strategy were used to extract textual data in the form of three axes of antecedents, dimensions and consequences, and the public service motivation based on Nahj al-Balaghah. The results of this research at the level of anthropology indicated the personality traits of political elements with the motivation of public service. It also indicated central component of high human motives in the form of five categories: believing  God, meekness, deep thought, commitment to the right, and core competencies. The behavioral level of the research also known as the central component of interactive motivations included three categories of strategic communication, behavioral justice, and kindness. The structural level also included the norms and policies governing institutions to increase the motivation of public service. This level consisted of the components of normative motivations and the five categories of transcendental social ethics; strategic dealings; the development of public justice and social welfare, structuring of desirable religious governance; and spiritual leadership in servicing the people.

Paying attention to the quality of the translation of religious texts such as the Qur'an, Nahj al-Balaghah, and Hadith is an important and obvious issue. Evaluating the translation of these texts to protect them is necessary, important, and valuable. Among these texts, from which various translations have been made into the Persian language, is the noble book of Nahj al-Balaghah.  But in general, these translations from Arabic to Persian have been criticized by many writers because they are not as good as they could be. In the present research, with a descriptive-analytic method, the cases of deletion and addition of translation of derivatives of the Estef’al in the translation of Nahj al-Balaghah's sermons were studied. Based on this, the data  11 of the derivatives of the Estef’al from all the sermons of Nahj al-Balaghah were selected and investigated in five Persian translations of Nahj al-Balaghah (Faiz al-Islam, Ansari, Shahidi, Zamani, and Dashti). The findings of this research showed that the examples of deletion and addition of translation of derivatives of the Estef’al have damaged the mentioned translations. For example, inappropriate deletions included meanings deletion of derivatives of the Estef’al, deletion of rhetorical devices, and deletion of grammatical elements. Inappropriate additions included unnecessary and incorrect explanatory additions of words; improper interpretative additions of vocabulary; and extensions in the translation of words. The statistical report of the performance of the translators in the examined samples indicates that Faiz al-Islam's translation had the least frequency of slips and Dashti's translation had the highest frequency of slips, but the total performance of the five translations is not such that it can be considered appropriate and successful.

In religious studies, words' conceptualization is one of the basic needs because it involves getting into the main topics. The conceptualization of the word wisdom (Aql) as the main problem of this research is essential in the analysis and explanation of the issues related to wisdom, because its incorrect and incomprehensible usage leads to fallacies and confusion in the topic. Using the qualitative method, this article is an attempt to identify and define microstructure. During it, in addition to terminology, usage of idioms, their place in the whole semantic system of religious texts were also examined. It can be concluded that the structure of wisdom in the foundations of Islamic thinking is a sensual state and a spiritual quality that expresses knowledge and wisdom. On the other hand, it has been used in foresight, thinking, cleverness, learning lessons, and problem solving. For the first time, this research has investigated the component analysis of this structure and is unique in its kind. If the word wisdom is correctly interpreted and explained, it guarantees the intellectual development of humanity.

Nahj al-Balaghah has a prestigious position in terms of literary and rhetorical illustrations, and Imam Ali (A.S.) elaborately created rhetorical and impressive images of the events. By thinking deeply about the nature of the rhetorical images in this exquisite book and by studying and being aware of new rhetorical achievements, we will witness the closeness of the rhetorical images of Nahj al-Balaghah with cinematic images. The dynamic and technical images of Imam (A.S.) surprisingly include effective cinematic elements. These images play a significant role in conveying the discussed themes. This article, relying on the theoretical foundations available in the books of film criticism, examined the most important cinematic components and then extracted the evidence of narrative tones from the sermons of Nahj al-Balaghah to determine the cinematic and theatrical capabilities of their images. The result of the present research shows that the rhetorical images of Nahj al-Balaghah, especially in the religious text, take advantage of the narration, elements, and cinematic features. Elements such as nested narration and moving narration, mise-en-scène, perspective, camera angle, montage, and editing process are used in Imam's rhetorical images. These elements play an active role in the effectiveness and dynamism of the presented images.

Roman Jakobson, one of the founders of the functional linguistics school in Prague believes  that all linguistic constructions have goals. These goals should be explained with reference to communication goals. Therefore, for linguistic constructions centered on six elements of the speaker, listener, message, message context, communication channel, and message components, he introduces six emotional, persuasive, literary, referential, empathic, and cryptic functions. Due to having the components of Jakobson's theory, the sermons of Nahj al-Balaghah can be adapted to this theory. The sermon of Jihad, as its title suggests, is about the virtue of Jihad and the negative consequences of turning away from struggle. It was assumed that its linguistic constructions had a persuasive function for the purpose of exciting the audience. The present research is organized with the analytical-descriptive method based on Jakobson's communication model with the aim of understanding the function of the linguistic constructions in the Jihad sermon. The result of the research showed that, contrary to expectations, most of the linguistic constructions defined in Jakobson's theory, including persuasive, referential, cryptic, emotional, and empathy, have been used in this sermon in such a way that they all have an emotional function. Therefore, despite the diversity of construction, functional unity has been preserved.

In Islam, patience is one of the qualities of the soul that is highly emphasized due to its impact on the quality of the individual and social lives of humans. Despite the undeniable role of patience in social interactions and its role in improving social life, what is more scientifically explained and practiced by researchers and Islamic preachers is the individual aspect of patience. Despite the one-dimensional focus on patience, for the believers of the Islamic lifestyle, the seerah and words of the elders of the Islamic religion are full of teachings that emphasize both dimensions of this virtue. For example, to guide and lead the nascent Islamic Ummah at that particular historical moment, social patience was more evident in the life and words of Amirul Momineen Ali (A.S.). Therefore, in the present research, the seerah and words of Amir al-Mu'minin, as an outstanding religious character, have been considered to explain social patience and enumerate its examples by using the descriptive-inferential method. In this study the answers to the following questions have been sought. "What does social patience mean? What is the purpose of it, and what are its examples based on the seerah and words of Amir al-Mu'minin? The results of the present research show that social patience in Imam Ali's seerah and words can be summarized into two categories: patience in social interactions and patience in social challenges. Patience in social interactions includes three types of rational, compassion, and prudent patience. Patience in social challenges includes patience while facing  social actions; patience in achieving distant and long-term goals; patience in facing problems and deprivations; patience in conspiracies; and psychological pressures.