فصلنامه اندیشه نوین دینی
پیاپی 44 (بهار 1395)

Due to broad cultural¡ social and religious similarities¡ most of the Mulla Sadra and Molavi’s viewpoints are similar to each other and consequently they are complements of each other with meager differences in the principles of their thoughts. Although the thoughts of these two thinkers are close to each other paradigmatically¡ Mulla Sadra uses a philosophico-mystical method in his discussion while Molavi uses a mystical method in an allegorical form so that it could be more comprehensible for the public. One of the important subjects of his thought is dealing with “alienation” that is not used in Molavi and Mulla Sadra’s expressions explicitly but its equivalence i.e. “negligence of self and self-loss” can be found in their works. To analyze the thoughts of these two thinkers comparatively¡ it is attempted to consider imagination as instrumentalist. Accordingly¡ along with describing the pros and cons stances of the topic¡ the main purpose of the study is explaining these stances; therefore¡ the issue of alienation is defined and explained from both thinkers’ viewpoints and its consequences¡ reasons of occurrence¡ and treatment strategies are analyzed comparatively.

One of the important events in the Middle East is emergence and excessive growth of the apparently Muslim Salafi and Takfiri extremist groups called Wahabbism or Daesh. One of the most important beliefs of this group is that worshipping next to the shrines is considered too be excommunication and atheism. Based on this wrong belief¡ they ruin the shrines of the religious leaders and saints of God and they believe that the prayers next to shrines are atheists. Adopting an analytico-documentary approach toward the Sunnis’ reliable resources¡ the paper investigates the decree of worshipping and daily prayer next to the shrines aiming at collecting and analyzing the traditional reasons of permitting to worship next to these places. Accordingly¡ the reasons of permitting to worship in the shrines are organized here from four sources of the Quran¡ narrations¡ Sahaba’s conduct¡ and the viewpoints of the four religions. Probing these resources shows that there are valid and significant traditional reasons on permission and legitimacy of worshipping in the shrines and many scholars of religions believe that it is legitimate.

In the field of philosophy of religions¡ questions about rationality of religious beliefs and its criteria are very important. Based on some extremist approaches such as maximum rationalism and extremist fideism¡ acceptance of religious beliefs is out of the rational judgment and evaluation. Inefficiency of these two approaches in explaining the rationality of religious beliefs has brought about other criteria for explaining the rationality of these beliefs being proposed by religious scholars. Based on some theories in the field of epistemology like “theories of justification and preference”¡ “trusting the power of belief-producing in human”¡ “considering the language of religion and its dimensions”¡ “revision of the basic beliefs”¡ “coherentism approach”¡ and “trusting the rational virtues of knowing agent”¡ a new type of rationality of religious beliefs called “moderate rationality” is defined according to which the rationality of a great part of religious beliefs is explainable.

Evaluation of human nature and its goodness and badness has been an ancient and important issue being discussed in various religious and philosophical schools. For some of them¡ human is good-natured while for some others he is bad-natured and for another group human has no common nature. This paper probes accurate responses to three main questions including: firstly¡ what is the reality of human nature from an ontological perspective? Secondly¡ what is the main belonging of “goodness and badness” in regard to human nature? And thirdly¡ what is the source of bad actions of human? According to transcendental philosophy¡ human nature−which includes his natural and instinctive talents− refers to the manner of his existence. Every creature has a specific existential degree within every stage and it is a kind of blessing¡ goodness and perfection to the amount of its existential degree. The existential philosophy of natural and instinctive talents−the most important of which is reason−includes human perfection and his blissful survival. Therefore¡ from an ontological perspective¡ human nature is described only as “goodness” and because it includes the natural reason−which is the manager of human inclinations− it will be the source of rightful actions. The main belonging in regard to human nature is the goodness or badness of his actions and the source of bad actions of human are his inherited and acquired traits not their nature.

Divine guidance has source¡ destination¡ device¡ and path. Discussing the topic of guidance in the holy verse “show us the straight path”¡ without explaining the reality of “straight path” which is the second object of “show us” and belong to guidance¡ is in fact dealing with a discussion without subject which could be led to ambiguous results such as multiplicity of paths. The main purpose of this research is philosophical explanation of the reality of the straight path from Mulla Sadra’s viewpoint. For him¡ the straight path in the world conceptually means a path towards God which is an optional and religious movement in a religious framework and evolution of human existence within scientific and practical dimensions by obeying the instances of the path and the instances are “the Quran”¡ “religion”¡ “prophet and the infallible Imams” which are representations of worldly paths in the hereafter life and cover the hell. The second purpose of the study is logically proving the unity of the straight path along with its explanation by three reasons of: 1. Context unity of God’s Hekmat (Hekmat Al-Kawn) in development and legislation¡ 2. The correlation between the unity of God and unity of the right path¡ and 3. The right path is similar to knowledge and righteousness. Therefore¡ to this scholar¡ unity is the logical and philosophical necessity of the reality of the right path and multiplicity of the right paths is rejected from a rational perspective.

For Allameh Tabatabaei¡ the only path toward perfection is self-consciousness and like Mulla Sarda¡ he believes that since a contingent being is realized by connection to God¡ its knowledge is the same as connection; therefore¡ knowing God is prior to all other types of knowledge even realizing self-consciousness. Allameh has mentioned at least five reasons for this claim that their recognition for the first time has been taken placed in this paper and some questions and doubts are answered while it should be mentioned that having knowledge about God is a light by which everything is known and there is no other veil between God and creatures except them.

Visualization and embodiment of actions are among the most complex topics of resurrection about which there are many ideas whether it is rational or irrational. Even some theologians¡ because of believing in accidental state of the actions and incapability of accident for life¡ have rejected the embodiment of the actions in terms of reason. Every object¡ idea¡ action and creature has a single truth in three worlds of matter¡ imagination¡ and intellect that this reality in each one of these worlds will take a certain status and form appropriate to the conditions of that world and will be dressed by the clothes of that world while these worlds have sequence and compliance with each other. As a result¡ after repetition of actions by human¡ they will have lasting effects on soul and become regular¡ then¡ by being established in the essence of soul¡ they will transfer to the other worlds with human soul and will turn into Mumaththal¡ the thing appeared as imagination¡ there. Some verses of the Quran also confirm the three worlds and existence of objects with a single truth in these worlds. The purpose of the present paper is to analyze and explain the existence and form of human actions rationally within each one of these three worlds.

Believing in the Return is proved based on traditional reasons in Allameh Tabatabaei and Imam Khomeini’s viewpoints. However¡ these two great scholars have dealt with proving the origin and manner of return by using a rational method. Due to the meaning system of the verses and narrations¡ Allameh Tabatabei considers the Return as one of the degrees of God’s representation in the universe which is itself based on rational arguments while Imam Khomeini¡ in addition to accepting the principle of raj`at based on traditional reasons¡ has proved the quality of raj`at by assumption of stages of the worlds of existence and correspondence of those stages with the stages of the soul as well as by explicating the developmental status of human soul subject to the return in the expression of angelic imagination of human soul. Therefore¡ the principle of return in view of these two great scholars¡ is provable with both theological and interpretive methods as well as philosophical and mystical ones within two fields of ontology and anthropology that both of them are within the realm of the truth of monotheism. In addition to having traditional principles and reasons¡ this specific Imamyeh’s idea includes rational principles and reasons either.

In Islam history¡ there have always been problems about status and function of reason in religious educations. This study deals with analyzing this topic from Ibn Taymiyyeh and Allameh Tabatabei’s viewpoints. Although Ibn Taymiyyeh has introduced himself as a rationalist¡ he believes that intellectual perceptions are not independent reasons. In his opinion¡ religious recognition and knowledge are possible only through a religious path and this path also involves rational reasons and definite proofs but the path of theology¡ scholars¡ and also the path of austerity and mysticism are innovations. On the contrary¡ Allameh believes that rational understanding¡ along with religious aspects¡ austerity path and carnal endeavors includes intrinsic authority.

The book “the Quran History”is the most important writing of the orientalists about the Quran and the history of the Islam History. The writer of this book¡ Noldeke¡ is an eminent orientalist who has written books in different fields of orientalism. The above-mentioned book which is his most important work in this regard includes topics such as revelation studies¡ collection and compilation of the Quran as well as the date of the revelation of verses and surahs of the Quran that the paper deals with the topics of the first type. From Noldeke’s viewpoint¡ the nature of prophecy relies on four principles including: having connection with the previous prophets¡ adherence to emotional instinct¡ using imagination in receiving revelation¡ and creating social changes. This type of viewpoint toward the nature of prophecy which is related to the theory of religious experience about revelation¡ in addition to being out of the essence of the teachings of the divine religions¡ is in opposition with Islamic religious thought and faces some problems within each one of these principles.