Interpretation of verses on Mahdaviat in the words of Amir al-Mo'menin Imam Ali (as) with emphasis on the intertextuality method

In the hadiths that have been attributed to Imam Ali (to him the highest regards shall be addressed) the verses that expound on the notion of Mahdaviat, have been interpreted and paraphrased. From the typological standpoint regarding interpretations, a larger number of these hadiths fall into the category of verbal and paraphrastic interpretations. Upon studying the relationship between the verses and the narratives regarding Mahdaviat in the light of the intertextuality approach, within different types of interpretation, paraphrastic interpretation can be considered as a form of metatextuality and verbal interpretation as a form of intertextuality which studies the co-presence of two texts within one work. Therefore, the interpretational hadiths of Imam Ali (to him highest regards shall be addressed) can be considered as the interpretive or paraphrastic texts of the verses of the Quran that are alluded to either in an explicit or in an implicit manner (according to the categorization of the intertextuality approach). In this study, first, the notion of Mahdaviat and the extent to which it has been expounded upon within the verses of the Quran by using the two verse-oriented and approach-oriented methods is determined, and in the next stage, the typological study of the interpretive and paraphrastic interpretations of the words of Imam Ali (to him the highest regards shall be addressed) shall take place. In the main stage of the study, the hadiths that have been attributed to Imam Ali (to him the highest regards shall be addressed) which expound on the notion of Mahdaviat, are studied within two general categories: 1) The hadiths that expound upon the verses of the Quran that detail on the notion of Mahdaviat (an explicit form of intertextuality), 2) The hadiths that expound on the surrounding contexts of Mahdaviat (an implicit form of intertextuality). Within both categories, first, the hadiths are collected, and then they are thoroughly studied in order to find the relationships between the verses and the narratives. The results of this study introduce a plentitude of the interpretive and paraphrastic interpretations of the verses of the Quran that expound on the notion of Mahdaviat, a multitude of the verses that expound on the surrounding contexts of Mahdaviat and studying the relationships between the verses and contexts surrounding the notion of Mahdaviat.