Enjoining to Virtue and Forbidding from Vice from Al-mizan ‘Mafatih-ul-qaib Kashaf

“Enjoining to Virtue and Forbidding from Vice” is one of the practical decrees of Muslims and the verses of the holy Quran, commands Muslims to enjoin to virtue and forbid from vice, but the domain of this divine obligation and the due state and dimension in which it should be considered, has caused differences of opinion among various Islamic faiths. Imamiyah’, ‘Mu’tazila’, and ‘Asha’erah’ faiths, despite some similarities in a few features of ‘Enjoining to Virtue and Forbidding from Vice’, they have some differences. Thus, constantly there have been contradictions of opinion among interpreters and thinkers of these three schools of Islamic theology.
Analyzing and criticizing scholastic opinions and viewpoints of these interpreters and thinkers may lead to clarification of the divine path. In the current research, it has been tried to explore and clarify the issue of ‘Enjoining to Virtue and Forbidding from Vice’ in verses 104 and 110 of surah ‘Al-e-Imran’, and verse 17 of surah ‘Luqman’, through a descriptive approach and content analysis using a comparative method, from the viewpoint of three prominent Muslim interpreters, Allamah Tabatabaie, Fakhr-e-Razi and Zamakh’shari in their books of interpretation ‘Al-mizan’, ‘Mafatih-ul-qaib’, and ‘Kashaf’, respectively. Though, above mentioned interpreters have similar viewpoints on obligation of ‘Enjoining to Virtue and Forbidding from Vice’, and assume it as a consensus of ‘Ummah’ (body of Muslim nation), but yet there are differences of viewpoints among them, about the quality of obligation, limitations, conditions and instances of ‘Enjoining to Virtue and Forbidding from Vice’.