Principles of interpretation derived from holy quotations and used in the book ‘Osoul-e Kafi’

The prophet (pbuh) and his descendants are the real interpreters of the word of God, and the remarks quoted from them serve as a source of rules and principles of how to interpret the Quran. Since there is no complete interpretation of the Quran left behind by those saints, it seems necessary to derive certain interpretation principles from the sources at hand. Of 3786 quotations reported by Koleyni in his book ‘Osoul-e Kafi’, 678 are the interpretation of Quranic verses and words. Through a descriptive-analytic method, this study examines those Quranic items and presents a dichotomy of the interpretation principles used in them. The first type includes basic principles referring to the intelligibility of the Quran for everybody, the ability of reason to verify the Quran, and the semantic strata in the Book. The second type of principles is methodic addressing the Quran as a reference for its own interpretation, the place of the prophet (pbuh), the cultural concepts and the linguistic features in the Book, generalization of verses, and the intellectual level of the audience.