Sayyid Morteza and his Use of the Knowledge of his Time for Interpreting the Qur an

Scientific interpretation was of great growth and prosperity in the third and fourth centuries as Muslims got acquainted with the science and knowledge of other societies. Using the scientific achievements with the aim of proving the miracle of the Quran and a better understanding of divine revelation was something accepted among Muslims, and many Muslim scholars and commentators had the same practice.Sayyid Morteza (355- 435 AH.) is one of the peaks of Shiite jurisprudence, theology, interpretation and literature. He is considered as a rationalist scholar, a follower of rationalism. For him, reason is the basis of knowledge and understanding the world.Sayyid Morteza’s commitment to intellectual approach to religion is so firm that he does not hesitate to reject any religious statement or belief which does not agree with reason. Wisdom, in his doctrine, has the same status as Divine inspiration, to the extent that we can claim God speaks to us, and directs us to the truth through the reason. One result of Sayyid Morteza’s rationalism is commitment to inalienable and absolute achievements of experimental sciences to understand the Qur’an. He can be considered as one of the believers in the scientific interpretation in its moderate term, who made use of the scientific achievements of his time to understand the Qur’anic verses and hadith (recite). Basically, one of his criteria to feel the necessity to interpret a recite or a verse was its inconsistency with the rules indisputable in terms of the knowledge and the wisdom of his time.