فصلنامه مطالعات تفسیری
پیاپی 26 (تابستان 1395)

Verse 55 of Al-Maidah is a challenging verse and subject to controversies among the Fariqain’s scholars, thinkers and commentators. The main reason of these controversies comes from the word “friend” (Vali) and the expression “those who believe” in this verse. The Sunnis’ commentators and scholars have had different inferences from the meaning of “friend” and finding examples for the expression “those who believe” with viewpoints of the Shiite scholars and commentators and they have criticized the viewpoints of the Shiite commentators. Some of the Sunnis’ commentators believe that in the verse of vilayat “vali” means friendship, help, kindness, etc. and they do not believe that the expression of “those who believe” is exclusive to Ali while for the Shiite scholars and commentators, “vali” means guardianship, vilayat in possession, vilayat in guardianship etc. which only implies to the person who gave charity while he was saying his daily prayers i.e. Imam Ali. These two different inferences from this verse have become the source of controversies among the Fariqain’s scholars. Adopting an analytico-documentary method, the paper deals with investigation and criticism of Shiite commentators and finally, relying on some reasons it proves the viewpoints of the Shiite commentators.

Taking advantages of divine verses from holy books is one of the most important techniques of the deviant denominations. This exploitation to justify the sectarian beliefs includes misuse of the position of the divine verses before the believers that is often along with subjective and reasonless interpretation of the divine verses. In line with sectarian purposes, Baha’ism considers that verse 5 of Surah As-Sajda points to the end of Islam religion and a reason for Alimohammad Shirazi’s claim and an enunciation on his emergence. Having an analytico-descriptive approach, this paper has investigated this claim of Baha’ism. The findings of the study show that there is not a relation between Baha’ism interpretation of the mentioned verse and its words, neither there is evidence on that. Accordingly, since this justification is carried out because of sectarian documenting, it is a “subjective interpretation” and this claim is faced with many other problems such as contradictions, copying, and unscientific citations.

Tafsir Al-Mizan is deemed to be the criterion and measurement of many other commentaries including Mafatih Al-Gheyb Commentary written by Fakhr Razi which is significantly analyzed and criticized by Allameh Tabatabei. In this analysis, Allameh has three viewpoints about Fakhr Razi’s Commentary beliefs. Allameh has confirmed Fakhr Razi’s viewpoint in cases such as compliance with the verses of the Quran, compliance with narrations, compliance of Fakhr Razi’s comments with those of Allameh’s and he has also cited some statements of Tafsir Mafatih Al-Gheyb. On the other hand, Allameh has criticized and rejected Fakhr Razi’s ideas about lack of determining the correct meaning of the Quran’s words, lack of accurate attention to the rules of Arabic literature, incompatibility with the context of the verses, inattention to the relation between the verses, etc. and in some cases, he has mentioned Razi’s opinion without either confirming or rejecting the same.

Having adopted an interpretatio-narrative approach, this paper investigates Allameh Tabatabaei’s inferences about the preserved divine memory and its related topics such as divine treasuries and some features of this divine memory such as its attribution to being wise. In accordance with verses and narrations, preservation of this divine memory means immunity of the Quran’s transcendental reality from theft, manipulation and witness of the outsiders to the sight of God and it does not mean it is protected from change. Also, the adjective “hakim” in verse 3 and 4 of Az-Zukhruf is not related to the degree of the preserved divine memory but it describes this Quran which is revealed in Arabic language and the expression “Mafatih Al-Gheyb” which is mentioned in the beginning of verse 59 of Al-An’am is the plural of “Miftah” with the meaning of key and there is no dichotomy between Mafatih Al-Gheyb in the beginning of the verse and the “clear book” at the end of the verse; however, in accordance with Quranic and narrative evidences, one can say that the beginning of the verse is a detailed summary given at the end.

Reflection on the Holy Quran’s verses indicates that structure and meaning of some words and expressions of the Quran may cause receiving two meanings from one word in a single expression. This method in the Quran and commentary sciences is called “assurance”, tazmeen. The Islamic commentators have widely used this figure of speech in providing commentaries of divine verses to show literary-rhetoric features of the Quran. Ibn Ashour, the writer of “At-Tahrir va At-Tanvir” has considerably enjoyed this principle. In addition to dealing with semantics of “assurance”, its types such as literary, syntactic, rhetoric and prosodic ones are analyzed here. The Islamic commentators’ consideration from “assurance” is in accordance with definition of the grammarians from this phenomenon. Grammarians have divided “assurance” into three types including noun, verb and letter. The paper dealt with only that of verbs. Different Shiite and Sunni’s commentaries were used in analyzing the verses but emphasis is on the Ibn Ashour’s ideas and viewpoints.

In the verse of Keramat, the Holy Quran mentions that all human beings have a description of specific keramt (dignity). In a superficial look, this verse is in conflict with other verses of the Quran such as: Ibrahim/ 34, Al-Ma’arij/ 19-21, Al-Alaq/ 6-7, Al-Ahzab/ 72, Al-Qiyamah/ 5, Al-Asr/1-2, and Al-A`araf/ 179. Various viewpoints have been proposed by commentators to resolve this conflict. Faith, human education, pureness of nature, correct application of the instincts, lack of contentment in regard to creation, distinguishing the initial Keramat from final rascality and also actualizing the positive aspects of human life are taken into account as criteria of Keramat within these viewpoints. This paper emphasizes that human dignity refers to the type of his creation which has been bestowed to him with special capacities, talents, and abilities. Accordingly, human dignity is based on these unique features of human creation among divine creatures and reprobating human in some of the verses is because of inappropriate usage of these blessings.

According to verse 7 of Al-Imran, the divine verses are divided into two groups: explicit verses and ambiguous ones. The first type makes the base and majority of the verses and there are two arguments about the second type: they are considered as pretext for malevolent sedition finders and interpretability; therefore, explicit and ambiguous arguments are required to be analyzed. The paper has mentioned different responses of the Quran researchers and commentators then criticized all of them and finally it has proposed the best viewpoint in this regard. To the author’s viewpoint, explicit and ambiguous arguments include: text or emergence of the explicit verses is indicative of their true meaning while the ambiguous ones are inexpressive in relation to the purpose of the glorified God when they are enjoying emergence and pureness from any ambiguity, abstractness, lexical and semantic complexities. This statement is clarified by virtue of the internal guidelines of Surah Al-Imran.

Reinvestigation of the social ideas of the Muslim scholars in the field of international affairs is an important topic. Allameh Tabatabaei, a commentator familiar with the range of contemporary thoughts, has dealt with this issue based on the Quranic verses. Applying an analytical method, the present study has investigated the outlines of Allameh’s Quranic worldview at international level and the principles governing the Islamic government interactions with other countries. In brief, one can say that the majority of the Islamic rules have social spirit. Also, the Holy Quran has the capacity to extract all fundamental teachings of humanities. Allameh’s attitude toward benefit of the society from an objective and transpersonal reality, and granting originality to the society’s interests is another principle that has become the cause of formation of the principles of the Islamic government in the field of international interactions from this viewpoint. For him, peaceful coexistence, justice finding, pacifism, the principle of invitation, and adherence to the international treaties are among the most important principles governing the international interactions of the Islamic Government.

The verse of Tebian is one of the verses discussed by commentators. There are controversies among the determinants of the Quran verses. Along with accepting the common reciting of the verse of Tebian, referring to some reasons such as “God’s invitation to have reflection in the Quran”, “the possibility of referencing the ambiguous verses to the explicit ones”, “the Quran’s Verses with inner meanings” and “inner stages of guidance and understanding of the Quran”, for Allameh Tabatabaei the implication of the verse is for all people who are talented and profited by contemplation tools and in relation to all things it is for lexical implication. Accordingly, he believes that the necessity of assuming accuracy of the narrations which is indicative of existence of the knowledge about past, future and the forthcoming events to the resurrection day in the Quran is that we need to reflect on the word Tebian and consider its implication as both lexical and meta-lexical. The above mentioned two points from Allameh’s beliefs clearly show this reality that he has taken the middle ground in providing commentary of the verse of Tebian and has avoided minimal and maximal inferences of this verse. Along with analyzing Allameh’s viewpoint on commentary of this verse, the paper has dealt with criticizing and analyzing one of the maximal inferences of this verse which has some advocates among some commentators.

Strengthening the belief in legitimacy of the history through achieving divine traditions and taking their finality and irreversibility into account are among the most important purposes of the Holy Quran about inviting human beings to investigate in history. “Modaveleh”, Vicissitudes` following one another, is interpreted as circulation of time and it is one of the divine rules which has been mentioned explicitly in verses 140 and 141 of Surah Al-Imran. In addition to making many of the social developments and events meaningful during human life including success or failure, the present study shows that understanding and realization of this rule will open a new door to wise purposes of God in the course of educating human. Separating, cleansing, modeling, and destroying in the confrontation of the right and wrong are among the educational purposes of this developmental tradition that paying attention to it can be the entrance of studies on social sciences and humanities with Islamic background so that modeling humanistic behavior with the aim of future control and prediction could be possible.