مجله تحقیقات علوم قرآن و حدیث
سال بیستم شماره 4 (پیاپی 60، زمستان 1402)

Verse 41 of Surah Mᾱ'idah (5), which was revealed with the purpose of comforting the Prophet (PBUH), depicts the devious actions of a number of hypocrites and Jews who were motivated by others to come to the Holy Prophet (PBUH) for the purpose of spying him. The presumption of these people was that if the Prophet (PBUH) ruled in their favor, they would accept, otherwise they would turn away: "They pervert words from their meanings, [and] say, ‘If you are given this, take it, but if you are not given this, beware!". The ambiguity about the reference of "this (هذا)" in this verse has prompted the commentators to find an example for it in the form of "the cause of revelation". Among them, the most important and famous narrative that has been discussed about the occasion of revelation is the issue of stoning two Jews for committing adultery (of a married woman). The questions of the research are as follows: "To what extent does the famous occasion of revelation of this verse have reliable evidence?" and "Is it possible to base an interpretive thought on this occasion?" Considering the importance of the issue of stoning and its jurisprudential consequences, this research analyzes and examines this exegetical hadith in Shiite and Sunni narrative and interpretive sources and presents its challenges, through the library method. Findings show that the partiality of some commentators has prevented them from other interpretative structures that are aligned and completely related to the content of the verse. In other words, this narration cannot be the definitive reason for descending the verse due to anxiety in the text, disagreement with other narrations, conflict with the Qur'an, conflict with real history, and lack of complete harmony with the context. On the other hand, the narration that considers the cause of the revelation of the verse to be a matter of retribution and ransom is preferred because it is concluded as the realer occasion of the revelation.

Religion, as a social process, is a symbolic subject of investigation from an anthropological perspective. Consequently, symbolic anthropologists seek to explore religion, aiming to understand the Qur'an through the lens of anthropology. In this process, they employ an anthropological method for interpretation. Therefore, the question raises: "To what extent is the method of symbolic anthropology effective in interpreting the Qur'an?" The necessity of discussing this issue lies in the existing differences among scholars, namely, "whether the language of religion is symbolic or not?" Through examining the role of symbolic anthropology in the interpretation of the Qur'an, one can realize the extent to which symbolism is applicable in understanding Qur'anic concepts. Determining its impact then will clarify whether all aspects of religious language are symbolic or not. The conducted examination reveals that these two orientations are positioned against each other in the interpretation of the Qur'an. In both approaches, understanding the meaning of each sign requires identifying its extra-textual context. The difference lies in the fact that, according to Girtz, the extra-textual context is cultural and individual, while according to Turner, the social meaning system is considered, making signs generally devoid of individual meanings.

Study of the role of political currents claiming Mahdism can identify the fabricated hadiths introduced by politicians to Mahdavi traditions and refine the traditions of this area as much as possible. Among the reasons for politicians' approach to Mahdism is the capacity of this discussion to advance their goals. In other words, there are concepts and teachings in Mahdism which are effective for politicians. The special capacity of some concepts of Mahdism, such as "the political function of some titles related to Mahdism", "the theory of connected state," and "the special ability to discuss the signs of emergence" are among the most important reasons for the approach of these currents to Mahdism. Using the analytical-descriptive method, this research seeks to trace fabricated narratives that have been forged or fabricated by political currents in the field of Mahdism. It takes also a look at reasons for the approach of political currents to Mahdism. Findings show many types of forgery in Mahdavi traditions and teachings, of which the most important types are as follows: "Forgery in the name, lineage, and example of the Promised Mahdi", "forgery in the physical characteristics of the Promised Mahdi", "forgery in the place of Appearance", "forgery in the issue of connected government", "forgery in praise and blame of lands".

The Holy Qur'an is the miracle of the Prophet of Islam (PBUH), in which challenges (tahaddῑ) to it are mentioned in several verses; however, thinkers have had differences in the qualitative and quantitative aspects of this challenge. Using the descriptive-analytical method, this research, which was written in response to the question of wisdom in the difference in the content of Tahaddῑ verses, after quoting and analyzing the existing concepts, by re-reading the verses of the challenge and emphasizing the context, which is one of the most well-known means of understanding the meanings of the Qur'an, proves that challenges are as follows: in Surah Al-'Isrᾱ' the challenge has not been done while a challenge in Surah Yunus with one Surah in terms of explaining the summaries of other holy books, a challenge in Surah Hud repeating the news of the past in different styles and chapters without differences, a challenge in Surah Toor in the way of repeating the contents which not only does not cause boredom but also cause simultaneous in the hearts to tremble and the hearts of the believers to calm down, and a challenge in Surah Al-Baqarah with a surah whose contents are mutually supportive and without any contradictions, even though it was revealed gradually, also from an 'Ummῑ person (as a person who did not go to school), and finally, the challenge in Surah Al-Qasas with a book containing beliefs, rules and morals that guides people in this world and the hereafter.

"'Ijmᾱl" (brevity/unclear) is a questionable issue in understanding and interpreting the Holy Qur'an, that its incorrect description may lead to problems, such as inherent ambiguity or defects in the Qur'an. Therefore, the study of this issue specifically is of importance. Using the "Linguistic Signification" approach to understanding and interpreting the Qur'an, this research introduces and analyzes the issue of "brevity & explanation" of the Qur'an. Findings have then been compared with the popular topics of Qur'anic sciences. This research shows that 'Ijmᾱl in the Holy Qur'an is accepted only in the sense of being concise and compact, not ambiguity or defects in meaning; Although the specific audiences of each group of verses have been able to interpret and discover its brief meaning in the "application" or the "address space" of the Qur'anic verses. Therefore, the "meaning" of such a compact word may appear unclear and doubtful for the late listeners or non-addressees. The article shows that the brevity of the speech is more related to its context (the speech situation and the background knowledge of the audience). Finally, only the "real scholars of the Qur'an" (the Infallibles) (AS) are those who can explain and describe all the brief verses of the Qur'an based on their divine knowledge to the listeners.

The verse "Covenant of the Prophets" (Q. 3:81) is considered one of the problematic verses in interpretative sources. Several types of interpretative narratives of this verse have led to the emergence of disparate opinions in the field of audience study of this verse. Some exegetes have considered the annexation of "Covenant" to "Prophets" as an annexation to the pledgers and have attributed the address of the verse to the Prophets. Some others however have deemed the annexation of "covenant" as an annexation to the "obtainers covenant" and then have assigned the address to the nations or imagined all the prophets and them to be addressees of the verse. This research has investigated the meaning and example of the verse by using the descriptive-analytical method and considering textual and meta-textual evidence while criticizing the exegetes' opinions. Then, by presenting a new reading of the "Covenant of the Prophets," it has introduced the central concept of the verse as a warning to "People of the Book" to observe "a Covenant concerning the Prophets." Then, by scrutinizing the chain of interpretative narrations and comparing these narrations with the verse, it has revealed the discordance of these narrations with the apparent meaning of the verse, and traces of the deviants like "Seif ibn Omar" and "Ahmad ibn Muhammad Sayyārī" in forging the narrations and distorting the verse. The other result of this research is the inaccuracy of citation to the verse in confirming some theological ideas like the theory of "Raj'at (return)" and "Dhar Universe."

"Al-Akhbᾱr al-Dakhῑla" is one of the works of Mohammad Taqῑ Shoushtarῑ, which is arranged in three chapters to show forged and fabricated narrations. The third chapter of this work is devoted to supplications, including two parts: "distorted supplications" and "forged supplications". In this part, Shoushtarῑ criticizes distorted and forged supplications, using Qur'anic, narrative, intellectual, lexical, and literary reasons. Considering the great position of supplications in the epistemological geometry of Shi'a and considering the necessity of a detailed and comprehensive evaluation of Allameh Shoushtarῑ's critiques, this research evaluates the distorted supplications of "Al-Akhbᾱr al-Dakhῑla," based on the descriptive and analytical method. According to the results of the research, some criticisms of Shoushtrῑ were incomplete and incorrect. If Shushtrῑ had a comprehensiveness and broad-mindedness in Qur'anic reasons (attention to the sum of the Qur'anic verses and the context of the verses), narrative (formation of the family of hadiths and prayers), intellectual (attention to the variety of intellectual analyses), lexical (examination of the total views of lexicographers), and literary (accuracy in different syntactic aspects), he would not consider some parts of supplications as to be distorted. In addition, even assuming the existence of changes and transformations in the discussed samples, these changes were caused by tashῑf (unintentional change) - not distortion - and there is no solid reason for the occurrence of intentional distortion in them.

Sources recognition of narrative works, which is one of the new areas of hadith studies, is dedicated to identifying existing or missing sources of accessible narrative works. If the researches in this field are done methodically and systematically in a precise method, it would obtain a comprehensive process that, in addition to results such as finding direct and indirect sources of narrative work, the possible amount of benefit from a source, the belonging of the sources to hadith periods, and the degree of benefit from the early and later narrative works, has many other beneficial achievements for other areas of hadith studies. This research introduces twelve important and diverse achievements based on the review and analysis of the studies that have been conducted so far in the field of recognizing sources of narrative works, while exemplifying such studies. These achievements include dating hadiths, reconstructing lost works, finding methods of early hadith scholars in obtaining narrations from hadith works, correcting sanad, completing chains of transmitters in the lists (fihrist), gathering more detailed information about narrative works, identifying the methods trusted by hadith scholars in frequent sanads, knowing how the hadith schools interact with each other, finding more evidence in the written sources of narrative works, identifying cases of oral transmission, achieving new findings as a result of statistical analysis, and identifying the transmission course of hadith science among scholars.