An Analysis about the Developments of the Social Commentary of the Quran (Case Study, the Theory of Authority)

The present thesis aims to investigate the most important developments occurring in the social exegesis of the Holy Qur’an, as one of the most important achievements of the contemporary Quranic interpretation, from its generation to the present time. It attempts to probe the ups and downs happening to this newly-emerging trend and then to monitor the developments occurred, in order to reveal its strengths and weakness and to provide solutions to the problems available ahead of the knowledge of exegesis. The developments occurring in the social exegesis of the Quran can be investigated in the one field about analysis of the exegetes’ views that are active in social commentary of the Quran and have expressed theories regarding the politics and government in Islam.The scope of this issue covers the most significant contemporary of social commentaries, such as: Tafsir al-Minar, al-Tafsir al-Tadith, and Tafsir al-Munir from the Sunnis ,and Tafsir al-Mizan, Min Vahy al-Quran and Tasnim from the Shiites. This paper is devoted to the investigation of the theory of the government expressed by the social exegetes.Accordingly the views of the six Shiite and Sunni exegetes have been explored.The final analysis of these views indicate that the government theory of the Sunni exegetes in the last three decades, has not changed much and just undergone a little reformation, while this theory among the Shiite exegetes has been completely developed in both form and content.