فصلنامه علوم حدیث
سال بیست و ششم شماره 3 (پیاپی 101، پاییز 1400)

For long the exegetes have made serious attempts to divide the Qur’anic verses into Makkī (Meccan) and Madanī (Medinan). This approach to the Qur’an can be applied to the Prophetic hadiths, as well. It may be followed by such advantages as recognition of the abrogating and the abrogated (al-nāsikh wa al-mansukh) among the traditions, understanding the date of legislation, and achievement of the wisdom behind it, familiarity with the method of the (Islamic) call and its phases, the exact recognition of the Prophets’ life story and conduct (sīrah) as well as a better understanding of the Qur’an. A historical survey on Mecca and Medina during the Prophetic Age indicates that the Makkī hadiths compared with the Madanī ones are fewer in number. Taking advantage of such tools as existence of a temporal condition in the hadith, attention to the first narrators and the addressees, as well as the content of the traditions, one can classify most of the Prophetic hadiths temporally. What is propounded in this study includes: a definition of the terms Makkī and Madanī in traditions, advantages and characteristics of this classification, the reason for fewness of Makkī traditions and finally, an explanation of the most important criteria for Makkī and Madanī traditions along with mentioning their instances.

The status of the Islamic teachings in the monitoring system of the country gives priority to the introduction of their capacities in the studies of social damages and makes it necessary to investigate the Qur’an and hadith as the sources of this study. The capacities of enjoining good and forbidding evil (al-amr bi ’l-ma‘rūf wa al-nahy ‘an al-munkar) is an example. It is despite the fact that the implementation of the strategy of social-oriented police indicates the inclination of the nation to the idea of maintaining the social order and that the fundamental motives of this idea and that obligation are highly compatible. The three categories of “informal control”, “society-orientedness” and “social responsibility” - which indicate the status of the informal control in the ideal of miniating the social order – have been selected and that the Qur’an and hadith have been analyzed from the aspect of qualitative (compound) content. The findings made it manifest that the statements related to the categories in the Islamic and social sciences are compatible. As a result, they indicate the capacity of the function of this obligation as the Islamic and native strategy of “maintaining the social order”. The method of research has regarded the criteria of text interpretation in these branches of knowledge and has reached an understanding that is admissible in both of them.

Familiarity with the Muslim scholars’ viewpoints is the prerequisite of all kinds of judgment about the perspective of Islam on women. One of the influential scholars in the discussions of women is Shaykh al-Ḥurr al-‘Āmilī, to the extent that some of the problems of the women are deemed a bequest from this Akhbārī scholar. It is attempted in the present writing to study the hadith-oriented viewpoints of Shaykh al-Ḥurr al-‘Āmilī in the issue of women and investigate its effects on this issue. By analyzing the hadith-oriented opinions of Shaykh al-Ḥurr al-‘Āmilī in the matter of the women and by comparing his views with those of his predecessors we conclude that the increase of the number of traditions in his books, the arrangement type of traditions, the classification type of traditions and the commentary on the traditions have remarkably affected the issues of the women. These changes can be seen especially when such problems as: male domination, women being confined in their home, encouragement for temporary marriage (mut‘ah) and polygamy are exacerbated.

Frequent citation of the hadith “niyyat al-mu’min khayrrun min ‘amalih” (the intention of a believer is better than his deed) in different academic fields suggests the importance of this hadith among the Muslim scholars. As for the concept and tenor of this hadith the viewpoints are different so that more than ten points of view can be mentioned in this filed, some of which, however, can refer to one another, and most of which are either totally harmed and rejected, or are imperfect and lack the required comprehensiveness. In these conditions, that view seems to be acceptable and defendable that is adequately supported by traditions. Based on this view – which is termed “aṣālat al-niyyah” (genuineness of intention) - it is the intention that is considered as the basis of deed and that forms it. Therefore, the foundation for evaluating of an act and the criterion for being it good or evil is the intention.

For long the scholars have endeavored to get access to authentic hadiths. They have made valuable academic efforts in this field to detect the damages in the text and isnads of the hadiths. One of the contemporary scholars who has written scholarly annotations to detect the distortions crept into the isnads, is the Grand Ayatollah Shubayri Zanjani. Having applied a descriptive-analytical method this article presents some of his annotations on the isnads of hadiths contained in the book al-Kāfī, and analyzes his special method in the field of detecting distortions crept into the isnads. The first step taken in this method, when dealing with an isnad, in most of the cases is analyzing and juxtaposing reliable old manuscripts. When difference and oddity among them is seen and it is somehow known (bi ’l-‘ilm al-ijmāli) that distortion did occur in the isnad, the next step is relying on the principles and rules applied to the narrators’ and traditionists’ generation (ṭabaqāt al-ruwāt wa ’l-muḥaddithīn) and establishing the indications and the confirming factors (mu’ayyidāt). Finally, the distortion in the isnad is detected. Understanding these methods can assist the researchers to make use of artificial intelligence in the field of detecting the damages of the isnads.

Understanding the text of Nahj al-Balaghah is not always easy, rather it may be associated with difficulties. To overwhelm them one is required to employ an academic method, would be specified in accordance with what Nahj al-Balaghah requires and would vary according to its characteristics. Such characteristics as style, structure and content are among the components that affect the understanding of Nahj al-Balaghah, and cause a different perception of it. What has been discussed in this article is a methodological theory that aims at suggesting a new approach to the understanding of Nahj al-Balaghah by means of a comparative study between the two branches of knowledge: hadith comprehension (fiqh al-hadīth) and linguistics. The findings of this research indicate that attention to the structure of hadith as one of the linguistic elements has a remarkable part in understanding Nahj al-Balaghah, and causes the formation of an approach termed structuralism. It is an approach that puts emphasis on the constituents and words of the text and detects the semantic relationship between them in the realm of the context of the text, and this way it attains what the speaker has intended.

The study of a hadith zone remarkably contributes to the explanation of the developments of the history of hadith in that region. Introducing the scholars of hadith of the Kashan zone within the 5th/11th and 6th/12th centuries as well as the study of the books compiled by them, will cause the dominant hadith-oriented thoughts of this zone to be identified, and will specify the effects that this zone will produce on or experience from the current of other zones.Having applied a descriptive-analytical method this study has reached the conclusion that two specific currents have been dominant over the hadith zone of Kashan during these centuries: first a fiqh-oriented current including narrators under the titles of faqīh (jurisprudent), and qāḍī (judge) and that the distinguished personality of this current is Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāwandī in whose works one can find a big number of relationship between the zone of Kashan and that of Baghdad; second, a hadith-oriented-literary current including taditionists who were men of letter. The less-known but outstanding personality of the latter current was Sayyid Abu ’l-Riḍā al-Rāwandī, who was in possession of genuine copies of Shi‘a books and transferred the hadith heritage of Baghdad to Kashan, and this way caused he presence and frequentation of great scholars from other hadith-oriented centers with the purpose of residing there and editing the Shia’ hadith books.

This article aims at changing the common research procedure made on the subject of the Ahl al-Bayt’s history. In that procedure different sources and references are referred to, equally and not on the basis of sufficient perception of the content of each of them. This article deals with the question, what are the types, volumes (i.e. quantity), and characteristics of historical reports in the sources of the tradition-oriented historiography of the Twelver Shi‘a? To answer this question, a case study of the contents of the historical reports contained in the most important tradition-oriented sources of the history of the Ahl al-Bayt (‘a.s.) namely al-Kāfī, ‘Uyūn Akhbār al-Riḍā and al-Irshād was put in the agenda in the two phases of typology and quantitative-qualitative investigation. Among the most important findings of the present research, mention can be made of: 1) identification of the major and minor shared contents of the sources; 2) status of each source in responding the questions about the history of the Ahl al-Bayt (‘a.s.); 3) objective and tangible access to the author’s goals and the relation of the work to the requirements of the age; 4) the substantial difference between the general historiography and the Muslims’ general historiography; and 5) the necessity and possibility of the classification of the tradition-oriented historiography of the Twelver Shi‘a.

Wonder of phrases and depth of the truths of reliable traditions from the Ahl al-Bayt (‘a.s.) which are well-known as “ṣa‘b, mustaṣ‘ab” (difficult and being considered difficult) traditions, suggest the importance and necessity of understanding this kind of traditions from different dimensions, so that despite the opinions of the expert scholars of hadith, as well as the researches contained in the four articles written so far in this regard, one can deal with this topic from other aspects like: intellect (‘aql) and intuition (shuhūd qalbī), and investigate their role in describing the comprehensive concept of “endurance” (taḥammul), etc. This article observed the above dimensions by means of analyzing the opinions of Ayatollah Javadi Amoli in the matter of this kind of traditions applying qualitative content analysis as its method of research and by relying upon ijtihad-oriented lexicology, constituting a hadith family, and finding intratextual and extratextual indications. This writing also found out that the intellect and its dimensions as well as intuition had an undetachable connection with one another in the comprehensive concept of “endurance”. The expressions “amranā” (our affair), “ḥadīthanā” (our statement), etc. can be interpreted equally if the Ahl al-Bayt’s position of “Khalaīfatullāh” (God’s vicegerent) is taken into consideration.