Journal of Contemporary Islamic Studies
Volume:1 Issue: 1, Winter-Spring 2019

In some chapters of the Qur’ān, the opponents of the divinity of the Qur’ān are challenged to bring a text like that of the Qur’ān. Based on the revelation order, this challenge has been done in the chapters of the Night Journey, Jonah, Hūd, the Mount, and the Cow. The first four chapters have been revealed in Mecca, while the Cow chapter has been revealed in Medina. These have been descended during the middle one-third of the 23-year-long mission of the noble Prophet (s). A historical analysis of these verses along with their collocate verses – which have been revealed before and after these verses – clearly proves the divine nature of the qur’ānic text. More importantly, this analysis demonstrates that even if the qur’ānic challenge is limited to the Prophet (s) era and his nation, the failure of the Prophet's opponents to respond to this challenge is the best evidence for the confirmation of the divinity of the Qur’ān. Even the present-day audience of the Qur’ān can also realize the divinity of the Qur’ān by adopting a historical view toward what happened in the Challenge.

The issue of divine providence and its relation with human volition is among the issues which dates back to the advent of human kind and has been raised as an essential issue of humans for a long time and much is written and said about it in the works of tradition, dialectical theology, philosophy, and exegesis of Islamic scholars. The verses of the Noble Qur’ān are of two types regarding the providence and volition of God, human volition, and the extent of God’s direct or indirect interference in the being and creation system: one type of verses, obviously, attributes all diverse affairs and phenomena of the universe directly to God and is in such a way that has considered God as the only effective factor in the genesis of beings and the management of human and other creatures’ affairs. The second type emphasizes the volition and the unique role of human in the creation system, specially his fate, and attributes the acts of natural agents, especially humans, to human himself, and holds him responsible for his acts; As a result, God has specified duties for him and has given him promises. The study at hand has focused on explaining verses and proposing and comparing different viewpoints and opinions of Islamic tradition scholars, theologians, philosophers, and especially Allāmeh Ṭabāṭabā’ī’s viewpoint to reach a common ground between these two types.

Islamic jurisprudence contains rules and regulations which indicate the human bliss plan for a blissful life not only in the hereafter and the life after death but also as a bliss provider in this world. Since the issue related to production, distribution and consumption, if not considered as the first priority, is at least among the most important issues which should not be overlooked and neglected in a comprehensive plan, it has naturally received great attention in the comprehensive plan of Islam for the human life. The approach of religion towards this issue is different from the approach of the humankind. The human has addressed this issue based on a materialistic viewpoint and a one-dimensional look at human whose animal dimension only is viewed, but the viewpoint of Islam is a view which is based on both the materialistic and spiritual dimensions, and as a result the viewpoint of Islam is different from the view taken through the lens of the western culture, and this difference is effective in all parts.

One of the specialized Ḥadīth domains in the recent orientalist studies is the investigation of the reasons and factors of the appearance and advent of the Shī‘a Ḥadīths and the reason behind the Shī‘a followers and scholars in the learning and recording of the narrations and formation of "The Shī‘a cultural memory" in the later years and so, the advent of the "later narration collections". The first question of the study at hand regards the points and issues considered by them in studying and analyzing this cultural memory as well as the goals they pursued. In this regard, it is argued that this consideration has not been away from harms and incorrect conclusions, and so, in some cases it has challenged the origin and authenticity of Ḥadīth among the Shī‘a. Moreover, from among the main Ḥadīth cultural memories of the Shī‘a, the orientalist studies have mostly paid attention to Biḥār al-anwār. The extensive consideration of this work along with a criticism of it is the other question of this article. The article at hand presents and describes the main suggested orientalists' opinions regarding the two foregoing questions through an emphasis on Rainer Brunner's "The role of Ḥadīth as cultural memory in Shi'i history" so as to identify and analyze the discrepancies and commonalities of their thoughts.

The Faithful's practice is taken as the general manners of the religious people who live in the divine legislation era whose religiosity mode is the only reason for the occurrence of such a practice. The deep-rooted jurisprudential heritage manifests the strong position of this institution in the domain of inference. In addition to analyzing the most essential legist bases in confirmation of the Faithful's practice, the present study has challenged the main instances of its jurisprudential application. At the end, it can be asserted that the installed limitations in the authorization of this institution have severely limited its argumentation and so, absolute jurisprudential reliance on it is very scarce.

Kindness is the basic need of children, and it gives them an opportunity, away from any anxiety, to ponder about their acts and words and, if necessary, to refine them. Moreover, they learn what kindness is and how to use it in their lives. Considering the importance of kindness towards children for their training, this article discusses different kinds of kindness towards children from the viewpoint of the Qur’ān and narrations with a descriptive-analytical method. Findings of this research show that under the light of noble kindness, children find the future more promising. Kindness binds the children to the family and keeps them safe from the consequences of the future mishaps. Addressing children in a dignified way, playing with them, respecting and honoring them, having tolerance in dealing with them, ignoring their misconducts, making friends with them, encouraging them, making them happy, taking them out to play, appreciating their efforts, giving them gifts, keeping your promises, praying for them, and forgiving their mistakes are different kinds of kindness expression towards children.

One of the serious problems in the Islamic societies that has usually worried the rulers and has bothered the religious scholars and authorities is the existence of non-criminal prisoners who have been sentenced to prison simply because of financial liability. On the other hand, the Holy Qur’ān has called itself the explainer of everything. That is to say, whatever needed to guide the human to bliss in his worldly and otherworldly social life can be found in the Qur’ān. The article at hand aims at exploring the Qur’ān to find out if there is any solution in the Qur’ān for releasing the financially liable prisoners who have been prisoned in some cases due to a misfortune such as non-intentional homicide and don’t have the ability to pay the blood money to the avengers of blood. The result obtained based on the thematic interpretation and the legist principle "the ruling criterion in the noble qur’ānic verses is the generality of the language rather than the particularity of the case" is that we can generalize the qur’ānic verses on the slave release to setting free the merely financially liable prisoners. At the end, four solutions have been extracted from the Holy Qur’ān for releasing the merely financially liable prisoners.

This article attempts to investigate the proposed answers for the three questions about Islamic art and particularly Islamic architecture: first, does Islamic art have an independent identity? Despite the buildings with different applications in Islamic architecture, is there a common space? Can a single yardstick be introduced for investigating different spaces of Islamic art and architecture? In investigating the answers, this article backs up the independent identity of Islamic art and architecture and introduces the calligraphic-vegetative-geometric decorations as a “visual language” of Islamic art and architecture and presents it as the unifying factor of spaces in Islamic art and architecture and tries to provide a new proposition for the issue of meaning in Islamic art and architecture which is formed based on the viewpoint of ‘Ayn al-Quḍāt Hamidānī about the meaning. Imām.

The story of Ādam (a) in the Qur’ān has always been targeted with falsities about the historical reality of Ādam's (a) existence, the specific rulings of Ādam's (a) religion, and his prophethood. A review of the interpretations of the Qur’ān reveals that there are in general three groups of falsities about the personality, religion, and infallibility of Ādam (a). These falsities existed during the lifetime of the Descendants of the Prophet (a). This indicates the oldness of these falsities. The narrative evidences for these falsities do not have the required validity and their content is affected by the motive to eradicate the belief in the infallibility of the Prophets. The traditionalist approach has had a role in the promotion of these falsities. In the article at hand, each of these falsities about Ādam's story is evaluated and answered based on the Imāmīte principles for the interpretation of the Qur’ān.

The study at hand has adopted a comparative-analytical method to investigate the chain and argumentation of the narration "the Qur’ān is Dhalūl and has different aspects, so take it in the best way" in the Shī‘a and Sunnī sources. The foregoing narration is generally found in the Sunnī sources, but some Imāmīte scholars such as Ṭabrisī and Feiḍ Kāshānī have referred to it without mentioning its chain. This tradition is weak with regard to its chain and is considered a Delivered tradition. But it can be said that it enjoys a fair frequency with regard to its argumentation and text, in a way that the majority of the interpreters and Ḥadīth transmitters of the two denominations believe in the multidimensionality of the Qur’ān.  Accordingly, an interpreter should avoid one-sidedness in the interpretation of the Qur’ān and should regard different aspects of the verses and express his final interpretation in a probabilistic manner. The narration "the Qur’ān has different aspects" which has been narrated from Imām ‘Alī, too, confirms the narration "the Qur’ān is Dhalūl and has different aspects". It is noteworthy that the narration from Imām ‘Alī has been mentioned in Nahj al-Balāgha without any chain, but the multiplicity of the narrators, the argumentative power, and the trustable character of Sayyid Raḍī help confirm this narration.

Attention paid by the divine religions to the refinement of human morality and behavior has accentuated the necessity for investigating the role of environmental factors, in line with the orders of the Noble Qur’ān and Nahj al-Balāgha. In this regard, figuring out the doctrinal and practical principles of these two precious books depicts the dos and don’ts that should be formed for the environmental factors to refine the behavior. Ecological basics of the Qur'ān and Nahj al-Balāgha and the role, effect, and importance of environmental factors in refining the human morality have been explored in this article with a descriptive-analytical method. Ecology studies the effect of geographical and social factors on human thoughts and morality. According to the ecological application of the Qur’ān and Nahj al-Balāgha, the effects of natural and social environments do not change the basic principles of human nature like free will, but they bring about etiquettes, customs, and rules that can influence all life aspects of people. Therefore, individuals who live in an improper and polluted environment are away from divine forgiveness, and the only way considered for them to be freed and saved is that they desert and leave that environment.

One of the first concerns of the thinkers was to know the human. Muslim thinkers also have had a great deal of effort to offer a comprehensive theory and viewpoint about the human. This article is a secondary study about the patterns of Muslim thinkers to know the human and it compares the Ṣadrian pattern with the Neoṣadrian one. It does not aim at judging the content of these patterns; it investigates the principles of the structural turn of Neoṣadrians in the contemporary Islamic studies. Ṣadrian anthropology is of the kind of philosophical psychology, though it has many differences with earlier philosophical viewpoints. Although contemporary Shī‘a thinkers are completely influenced by the Ṣadrian theosophy in their ontology and theology, they are faced with a revolutionary change of content and structure in the issue of human which shows an anthropological turn. Both the subject of matter and the principles and theorems are developed in this turn. The root of this turn is the attention of the Neoṣadrian to the philosophy of humanities and the anthropological basics of behavioral and social sciences. In the second part, the essential teachings of Islam about the human as the Islamic anthropology principles and in the third part, the theoretical principles of contemporary anthropology are investigated.