Critical Renovation and Analysis of “The Pattern for Understanding Religion” in ‘Allāma Majlisī’s Thought

Allāma Muhammad Bāqir Majlisī is regarded as one of the greatest revivers of the Shi’a hadith and among the matchless and successful promoters of Imamiyya theology in Isfahan school of thought. Irrespective of the legal and hadith innovation and services of this
Shi’a scholar, his epistemological poetry collection is blended with lasting achievements in theology and religious studies. Unfortunately, however, this dimension of Majlisī’s thought has been of less interest to the researchers in comparison to his hadith dimension.
With respect to this research vacuum, the present writing is intended to undertake to renovate and provide a pattern of understanding religion in his theological thought. Among the most important findings of this research is regarded to be the critical reappraisal and analysis of the epistemological components and elements of this pattern such as: traditionalism and regarding tradition as prior to intellect; paying attention to the paradigm and peripheral atmosphere of issuance of text and speech; necessity for loyalty to the text with minimal approach in adopting ta’wīl as a method; conventional realization of the language of religion, and the principle of conscious control of preconception in the process of understanding. However, since Majlisī’s pattern and style of traditionalism has not been free from methodological deficiencies, for removing this deficiency and completing and expurgating his perception pattern, the author has
presented and expounded adoption of the discursive approach and the principle of authenticity and validity of intellect as one of the basic components in the dialectics of understanding religion