The Impact of Historical Attitude of the Jurist on the Interpretation of Religious Texts with Emphasis on Ḥadīth al-Bismila (Hadith on Bismillah)

Different impressions of religious texts have always been one of the controversial issues, and in the science of interpretation and principles of jurisprudence, certain rules and procedures for the correct interpretation of texts have been presented. However, different perusals of texts have a history as old as jurisprudence. The need for interpretation of texts in the historical horizon of issuance is among the important rules of interpretation that can help to prefer one of the jurisprudential perusals over the others. One of the differences in jurisprudence of Islamic schools is jahr (raising the voice) when reciting bismillah (In the Name of Allah) in prayer. The Shāfi‘īs and Imāmīs are in favor of jahr, while the Ḥanafīs, Mālikīs and Ḥanbalīs are in favor of non-jahr (i.e., lowering the voice). The main reason for both viewpoints is making reference to identical traditions that express the quality of the Imamate of the Prophet (S.A.W.). The present research has investigated the influence of the historical attitude of jurists on the interpretation of identical traditions with a descriptive-analytical method and by citing library sources; and by presenting historical evidence and forming a hadith family, it has shown that the mentioned traditions do not necessarily indicate the negation of bismila and it is clarified by the induction of the related hadiths that the mention of the phrases of the first verse in the hadiths was to refer to the sūra and the necessity of reciting Sūrat al-Fātiḥa in prayer, which due to the acceptance and popularity of the names of the sūras from the second century onwards, this phrase has been taken as the negation of bismila.