نشریه انسان پژوهی دینی
پیاپی 46 (پاییز و زمستان 1400)

Esoteric commentary is a more profound look into the universe and can be brought into regulation. This regularity can be divided into ontological, anthropological, epistemological and other categories. The current study has submitted proofs on the regularity of esoteric commentary from an anthropological point of view. A descriptive-analytic method was employed and ten regulations were identified. Esoteric commentary domain of Man, the relationship between esoteric commentary and descent, role of human perfection in knowing the truth, Man’s existential movement in esoteric commentary, referring the world to the hereafter, Man as a sample from universe, and referring science to the existence are amongst these regularities. This study also intended to shed light on the effect of Sadra’s anthropology on his esoteric commentary that in some cases are accompanied by his commentary on the holy Quran.

Mulla Sadra as an Islamic philosopher believes that both soul and body attend in the resurrection and tries to submit rational evidences on it. The question that is raised is whether the body in the resurrection is the worldly body or a different and new body. Concerning this question, Mulla Sadra believes in a distinction between worldly and otherworldly body. He maintains that human elemental body exterminates after the death and therefore its attendance in the next world is different from its evolutionary state in the world and thus, the soul belongs to the ideal body after the death. A new look at philosophical writings and commentaries of Mulla Sadra reveals that Sadra has explained corporeal resurrection in his substantial motion according which souls are the agent and originator of their bodies in the next world. In his commentary on Surah Ya Sin, Sadra maintains that creation of body in the resurrection is the direct result of divine order which is in contrast with the procedure of soul’s motion in philosophical writings. Therefore, there seem to be a contradiction of views in Sadraic philosophical writings and commentaries on this issue. However, one can approach a unitary stance from the two seemingly distinct views through a more profound analysis. It is concluded that since the soul is an immaterial being, and different form matter and its qualities, it can create its effect which is body through an ordered creation in consistence with divine will, a view which solves the aforesaid contradiction.

Assuming responsibility for other human beings has been amongst ethical issues which is underlined in different ethical schools of thought and justified through various argumentations.  The current research is an attempt to investigate this issue in the light of the normative theory of divine command and enjoy the divine books to answer this question that why Man is required to feel responsible and benevolent toward other human beings. Accordingly, major reasons and components of this issue are explained in keeping with the divine books. It was revealed that God is the primary source of human responsibility toward others. The incentive of divine promise, divine love and giving thanks to the most beneficent as well as human resemblance to God and His succession on the earth  as a divine creature are amongst major reasons and components in theories of divine command which motivates Man toward feeling responsibility and benevolences for others.

According to prophets, divine saints, philosophers, mystics and scholars and different domains of religion and science, Islamic instructions are fundamental necessity and condition of prosperity for human communities in every time. The epistemological rule of the unity of the concept and the multiplicity of the referent is the source of abstraction for profound ethical concepts, particularly those associated with theoretical and scholastic domains. Critical rationalism theory of Popper, save his relativistic thought, has exerted significant effect on an expanded array of human knowledge in the contemporary world. The major question in the current basic research which has adopted a qualitative, descriptive, analytic and tradition-based method, is investigating the ethical functions of the aforesaid rule in comparison with the derived from Popper’s “critical rationalism” and Quranic instructions. The findings of the research involve; the necessity of more profound thinking, critical rationalism in debates and interactions, building thoughts and tendencies on rational evidence, systematic and logical doubt in thinking, learning from past mistakes, distinguishing the necessity of critical discourse from scientific autonomy, distinguishing the difference between discrediting scholars and passivity and absolute obedience to their view, respecting others and the right of their independent understanding, refraining from saying, believing and  rejecting unknowing or denying and deviating scientific truth and refraining from ignorant or passion-stricken argumentation.

Man’s true life is a multifaceted one which embraces intellectual, moral, political, social, individual and other dimensions and terminates into nearness to good in an evolutionary fashion. Man is endowed with the potential to exploit this life by God (the most high), and Islam, like other divine religions, has provided him with a particular strategy to bring this potential into realization and ascend him from an evil beast toward perfection and succession of God and in the meantime, bless him with the true life. The current study adopts a descriptive-analytical approach to dig into Quranic verses and tradition of the Immaculate to arrive at the religions’ strategy for realization of Man’s true life. It was revealed that the religion has a five-step strategy to this end which include showing the path, appointing the leader, preparing the instruments and necessities for departure, showing the barriers and the way they are tackled and showing he terminal objectives. Through these steps, Man can arrive at perfection and realize his true life.

The present authors hold that the current interpretation of transcendental wisdom denotes the journey of the soul from the creation toward the truth while in the later interpretation the reverse is the case for the souls’ journey from the truth toward the creation. To this aim, a descriptive-inferential method is used which shows the later interpretation beyond doubt, the one which is implied in Mulla Sadra but it is presented more explicitly in the thoughts of Hassanzadeh Amoli on self-knowledge. Thus, it can be postulated that Amoli’s thought is the continuation and implementation of the later interpretation of Sadraic thought about transcendental wisdom. Analyses and inferences from self-knowledge in Amoli’s view has resulted in five philosophical principles which are personal unity of being, spiritual subsistence of the soul, and motion of love and creation of perception and unity by inclusion. These principles provide an image of human soul which is different from that of the intensified soul and is depicted by the theory of Discoverance.  The current research is a philosophical explanation of the underpinnings of the theory.

The current research studies the veils of knowledge comparatively and explain the quality of their negative functions. Veils of knowledge fulfill their negative functions in three ways; 1) negative function in obtaining knowledge, 2) negative function in perfection of knowledge, and 3) negative function in promotion of knowledge. The article has primarily reviewed the comparing views on the veils of knowledge and then discussed the negative functions in the views of Francis Bacon, particularly his views on “idols of mind which include idol of tribe, idol of cave, idol of marketplace and idol of the theater. Subsequently, the veils of knowledge in the views of Ayatollah Javadi Amoli are discussed which include general veil, specific veil and the most specific veil. Finally the two views are analyzed, evaluated and criticized comparatively.

Investigating the issue of “unity of being” from Ibn Arabi’s angle of look has a particular significance because he was a mystic who tried to bring rational dimension into his mystical experience. The theory of unity of being is faced with several problems and ambiguities amongst which is the dissolution or non-dissolution of the essence of the mystic. Some evidences in the writings of Ibn Arabi submit proof on his adoption of plurality and non-dissolution of essence while some other prove the reverse, i.e. absolute unity and dissolution of the essence. Though it seems that Ibn Arabi believes that a level of annihilations is the annihilation of the essence, a more profound analysis of his view reveals that he is not intending an absolute annihilation or extinction of the mystic’s essence. In addition to that, justification and understanding the evidence on the dissolution of existence is possible on the basis of the foundations of theoretical mysticism. Accordingly, four different justifications are available: consider all the interpretations proving absolute unity and dissolution of human essence or any other type of plurality as proofs on unity of intuition; or as proofs on annihilation of the attribute of the mystic; or explain these evidences through analyzing the meaning of existence and nothingness in thoughts of Ibn Arabi; or conclude that when the Sheikh (Ibn Arabi) rejects plurality in an absolute terms, he has been in a state of annihilation or revelation and the mystic say in the state of annihilation denotes a different meaning from the say in the state of annihilation.

That Shahid Qasem Soleimani’s character can serve as a model for civilizing transcendental soft power, has been the main concern of the current descriptive-analytic study. In the theory of transcendental soft power, the transcendental, human and organizational factors are the efficient cause of transcendental soft power. Shahid Soleimani as an elite human factor who was adorned with the constituents of the reason, served as an ideal model for creation, production and reproduction of social capital in its abundance and changing it into soft power for new Islamic civilization with honor, delight and efficiency. Since he was a proud trainee in the school of the leaders of the revolution, the soft power he created was a transcendental one from a divine source. Thus, seeking assistance from the side of God, he used the power to defeat the symbol of mundane soft power and discredited it in the contemporary world. He revealed that even the divine symbols like “Allah, the greatest” and “there is no god but Allah” when served by a mundane soft power, are to no avail for the arrogant system. For establishing the Islamic civilization, like any other civilization, two critical element, i.e. “thought production” and “training human” are necessary. Shahid Soleimani helped developing both elements in practice and served as an ideal model for the faithful youth.

The current research adopted an analytic approach to probe into Rumi’s thoughts on gender from an anthropological viewpoint while underlining Fiona Bowie. Research findings show that Rumi has noticed gender through a religious and mystical anthropology and adopted a more comprehensive view toward it due to his Islamic and mystical underpinnings. Fiona Bowie believes that woman, due to her motherhood and reproduction characteristics, is the symbol of the nature and of the earth. Rumi, however, believes that woman is the symbol of human soul. Also Bowie believes that man is the symbol of culture due to attributes such as persistence and firmness while Rumi holds that the man is the symbol of human reason which has both positive and negative sides, i.e. it is either transcendental or directed toward ignorance. It was also found that both Rumi and Bowie hold a divine view toward gender.

Beliefs are the major source of individual and social behavior. Those who believe that the existence belongs to God and Man returns to him in next world has a different behavior from those who fail to adopt such a belief. Shahid Soleimani is not an exception to this rule. Thus, the current study is intended to examine the effect of Shahid Soleimani’s interpretation and understanding of the universe on his social behavior. The main questions is that how his ontology has resulted in his jihadi social life. To answer this question a descriptive-analytical method using theme analysis is employed. To this aim, a collection of his speeches, his will (testament) and interviews were collected as the samples of the study and analyzed through open coding. It was revealed that monotheism is the central theme is Shahid Soleimani’s view which has affected all domains of his social and individual life. That is why his behavior becomes an innovative and valuable model for the 21 century audience.

One of the phenomena related to man the epistemology and ontology of which has been affected by anthropology, is the position of woman. Literature has served as a viable tool for epistemological and ontological representation of woman in social and individual domains.  Thus, the current research is an attempt to adopt a qualitative approach and use documentary research to criticize feminism and its anthropological foundations in the contemporary Islamic communities. This study, in addition to explaining the relationship between literature and anthropology, reveals that the Muslim countries’ literature since 1960s, due to the impact of colonial and post-colonial atmosphere, has failed to provide an Islamic representation of women agency in individual and social domains. Also, the critical review of the literary periods of this century shows that these anthropological approaches, due to their androgenic stance, suffer from methodological deficiency and due to their adherence to Feminism, political commitments, critical Marxism, and secular tendencies in producing literary texts, suffer from epistemological deficiencies and therefore stand in sharp contrast with Islam. At the end, in addition to noticing the role of the Islamic revolution in recovering real Islam, the view of Islam on women agency and Egalite is described.