ماهنامه معرفت
سال بیست و چهارم شماره 8 (پیاپی 215، آبان 1394)

This article exposes the characteristics of Shi’ah in the light of the words of Imam Reza (pbuh). Imam Reza(pbuh) considers that the distinctive characteristics of one’s being a true Shi’ah are: obedience to Glorified God, performance of divine duties, and avoiding inviolable things and disobedience to God. Piety, obedience to God, humility and meekness, trustworthiness and constant remembrance of God, performing prayers and fasting, beneficence to one’s parents, attending to neighbors, to the poor and to orphans, truthfulness, reciting the Qur’an, beneficence to people are other characteristics of Shi’ah.Really trustworthy Shi’a are known to their relatives and people for their honesty and trustworthiness. One’s mere claim of being a friend of God and the Prophet’s household (pbut), can never be a plausible excuse for one’s deliverance from hell. The criterion of loving and being a friend of the Prophet’s household (pbut) is obedience to God and the criterion of enmity with them is disobedience to God.

Storytelling is considered among the most prevalent methods of the Qur’an. This method is used heavily because it has such characteristics like tangibility, indirect inspiration of values and establishing close relationship with the addressee, and thus contributing to the increase in the impact on the addressee. Among the main axes which characterize Qur’anic stories, is insight-giving to the values. This paper seeks to investigate “how the Qur’an uses this method for insight-giving about values’’; that is, how the Qur’an uses stories for fostering keen awareness of the desirability of a certain issue and attracting peoples’ attention to its value.Using a descriptive-analytical method, the present paper investigates the way values are presented and expressed in the Qur’anic stories in order to provide a new classification of the Qur’an’s styles of insight-giving about values through storytelling.

Concerning nature which is one of the main anthropological principles in education, this question is raised: What, according to the Qur’an does this concept mean and what are its dimensions and characteristics? The verses related with nature can be classified into fourteen groups. After investigating these verses through an analytical- deductive method, the following points can be dealt with in three sections. The first contains a general account about nature: it is intrinsic and God-given, not acquisitive. It is unchangeable and constant but it can become weak and forgotten. Natural tendencies and insights demand recollection. The second is about the cognitive aspect of nature, and shows that, in addition to man’s natural self-knowledge, some of man’s natural knowledge is related to Divine Lordship, monotheistic attributes, God’s divinity, God as Creator and God’s as a provider which is known as natural theology. The third is about the dispositional and motivational dimension, and shows that man has natural tendencies, such as; “natural worship of God”, ‘’perfection-seeking’’, ‘’virtue-orientation’’, ‘’inclination for immortality’’ and truth-seeking. Man by nature loves God and his religion and by nature dislikes impiety, debauchery, rebellion and sin.

The main part of the scientific area of value educational system is cherishing the values governing the society and derived from the culture of society and internalizing them in people’s minds. Policy-makers and the people in charge give due attention to this issue, but it is worth considering that despite the existence of plenty of materials in Islamic resources, we face serious problems in practice and external actualization of scientifically-based purposes. This paper seeks to review the methods which the Qur’an intends to use or recommends for internalizing the standards of social morality. Using a descriptive-analytical method, the present paper studies the methods used in the Qur’an. The methods to which the paper points are: admonition method, emotive method, faith incitation method, giving glad tidings and encouragement, punishment methods.

According to internalization, a moral characteristic or educational content is gradually established in the process of education, teaching, learning or personal experience in a sort of entity, character and person’s identity, so that one’s character becomes embedded in that character, and termed in ethics as one’s (soul-based faculty) and known in the Qur’an as (constitution), and the behavior resulting from it, in all cases, whether hidden or explicit, is ascribed to the learner. This research sheds light on the way of internalizing the value of seeking mediation with God through the Infallible Imams (pbut) by the instructor by means of model method.This paper refers to some important issues proposed in the model method, such as definition, the important points concerning the use of this method and so on, in order to clarify the role of this method in internalizing the value of seeking mediation with God.

Today, one of the main needs of man is achieving social justice. As a value accepted by all communities and nations, social justice like any other value, can be cherished and handed down from generation to generation. The aim of this research is to conduct documental investigation into some religious texts of Islam in order to find out the methods used in Islam for cherishing social justice. Because these methods are in accord with triplet aspects of human deeds; namely, cognition, motivation and behavior, they can be divided into three general parts: the methods of cherishing the social justice governing the spread and promotion of cognition in the trainee; that is, the informative methods, admonition and advice, warning and reasoning by analogy. Similarly, the methods related to promoting motivation in the trainees are: the methods of reward and punishment, giving glad Tiddings and warning, modeling, kindness and motivation as well as enjoining good and forbidding evil and adoration, which are considered among the methods governing behavior.

This paper investigates the method of self-commitment for fostering values. One of methods which can be used for perishing values is the method of self-command which is based on the Qur’an and narrations. Although the self dislikes to hold on a certain value, but it is made to do it, so that the value may take form and become one’s existence. This research, referring to the Qur’an and narrations, deals with some of the areas of values education, such as; values of worship, as well as moral, economic, family, social and political values.

Cherishing human dignity is considered one of the most important aims of the education system of Islam. What the paper refers to is acquired dignity not natural dignity. We may say that the aim of all educational activities is the actualization and realization of this kind of dignity within the human existential area. Using a descriptive-analytical method, this paper delves in to the different effective factors of mustering dignity, including ‘’family’’ and ‘’school,’’ which play a significant role in mustering dignity. Therefore, ‘’considering the modeling aspect of parents’’, ‘’the emotional relationship between parents and children’’ and moderation in showing kindness’’ within the family, on one hand, and on one hand, ‘’considering the aims of education’’, ‘’moral obligations of trainees and their relationship with trainers’’ as well as the factor of ‘’ friends and peers’’ at school, on the other hand, are among the components based on the characteristics of family and school, and can be effective in developing and mustering an individual’s moral dignity.