فصلنامه نقد و نظر
سال بیست و هفتم شماره 2 (پیاپی 106، تابستان 1401)

Today transformation in Islamic theology or kalām is a major issue in religious studies, given the developments in the Islamic community. Given his insights into the needs of the society, Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi believes that traditional kalām is incapable of discharging its functions. In his view, it is necessary to transform the Islamic theology, and hence, he makes great contributions to the field. The main question of the present article is Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi’s account of the background, necessity, and manner of transformation in kalām. I draw on Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi’s works to clarify that, on his account, kalām has always been in a process of transformation, and given the questions and skepticisms posed today, it is necessary to transform the field. In his perspective, the major change that should occur in kalām is in its problems and principles. Islamic theology should deal with new problems and discard outdated problems. On the other hand, those of the principles and axioms of kalām that have been undermined by skepticisms should be reinforced so that the field of kalām can rely on them and discharge its functions.

Early scholars of kalām (Islamic theology) believed that the subject-matter of kalām was the same as that of Islamic philosophy and mysticism: being qua being. In contrast to this, other notions have also been proposed as subject-matters of kalām, including the divine essence and attributes. The idea of essence was proposed by some Sunni theologians such as Qāḍī al-Urmawī, and the idea of essence plus possible beings as subject-matters of kalām was reported by the author of al-Ṣaḥāʾif fī ʿilm al-kalām in his introduction to the precious work Shawāriq al-ilhām. In this article, I adopt a descriptive-analytic method and draw on the introduction to Shawāriq al-ilhām to account for, analyze, and support this view and to replies to objections raised against it. Moreover, as corollaries of the research, I aim to reconcile the view with that of the early theologians, and finally, show that issues of Islamic theology are in harmony with issues of Islamic philosophy and mysticism at different levels.

Since the beginning of theological disputes, philosophical reflections on ethics and morality were found among scholars of kalām. One might say that the first serious discussion on the matter was the well-known controversy between Ashʿarite and Muʿtazilite theologians over the goodness (ḥusn) and badness (qubḥ) of actions. Ashʿarite theologians believed that goodness and badness were God-dependent, while Muʿtazilite and Imami theologians believed that they were God- independent. Moreover, philosophical contemplation of morality can be found in the works of Muslim ethicists, and a formulation of Aristotle’s virtue ethics often appears in some ethical works. In the last century, philosophical consideration of morality remarkably flourished in the West, such that a whole field is devoted to it under moral philosophy. Since one hundred years have passed since the established of the Seminary of Qom, now the question arises of the status of moral philosophy in the Islamic Seminary in the last century and its future directions. To examine such a significant issue, we should study two historical periods: before and after the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, since there is a considerable difference here. In this article, I aim to analyze and examine the status of moral philosophy in the Islamic Seminary in the last century. I conclude that, before the victory of the Islamic Revolution, moral philosophy was not commonly addressed, the only exception being Ayatollah Motahhari, while after the victory of the Islamic Revolution, moral philosophy was developed in diverse fields such as meta-ethics, theoretical normative ethics, and applied ethics.

The first or primary philosophy (al-falsafat al-ūlā) or ontology is the main branch of Islamic philosophy and the highest field of study, since other fields of study—even other branches of philosophy—depend on this field. Aside from some of its adaptations from Greek philosophy, Islamic ontology is a genuine independent field of study, resulting from a millennium of work by Muslim philosophers. In its long history, it went through various developments and periods. In this article, which adopts the descriptive-analytic method, I aim to identify the status of this field in the Islamic Seminary in the last one hundred years. The article’s contributions include the significance and necessity of the first philosophy, developments and advances of the first philosophy (in the last century), deficiencies of the first philosophy (in the last century), and the prospect of the first philosophy.

here is a mutual relation between the Quran and Islamic philosophy. Just as the Quran was influential on Islamic philosophy, the latter affected how we understand Quranic teachings. By a philosophical understanding of the Quran I mean the grasp of the ultimate meanings of the Quran by deployment of the philosophical method or exploitation of philosophical doctrines and propositions. In this article, I consider the nature, possibility and permissibility, conditions, and necessity of a philosophical understanding of the Quran. By adopting a descriptive-analytic method, I show that there is no problem in understanding the Quran through the philosophical method. However, there are two ways in which philosophical doctrines, including philosophical theories, principles, proofs, and propositions can be deployed in the understanding of the Quran: comparative-interpretative and analytic. The former leads to personal speculations or “interpretation with personal opinions” (al-tafsīr bi-l-raʾy), which is impermissible according to Muslim scholars, but the latter is permissible (if not necessary) under certain conditions.

The encounter with religious plurality and diversity, which is a main characteristic of life in the contemporary world, has posed a number of epistemological and theological problems. Awareness of religious diversity and religious disagreements presents challenges to the discharge of epistemic duties by the religious person. In epistemology of disagreements, as a branch of epistemology, an individual’s epistemic duties in the face of disagreements are specified, and various approaches have been adopted from quite conciliatory views to steadfast views. Comparative theology takes up a religious approach to respond to the challenge of religious plurality and diverse theological approaches in the face of such plurality in order to arrive at a deeper understanding of religious faith. In this article, we deploy the descriptive-analytic method to find an epistemic solution based on the epistemology of religious disagreements with which this newly emerged theology can attain its goals. We conclude that by adopting an intermediary approach between steadfast and conciliatory views and drawing on the graded nature of religious beliefs and rejection of the idea of epistemic peers, we can propose a normative approach to comparative theology so that it does not fall into suspension of beliefs, relativism, skepticism, or religious conversion.

Ibn Rushd or Averroes was a great philosopher in the western part of the Islamic world. He believed that Aristotle was a prime case of the human species in rationality. He defined his project as interpretation of Aristotle for the Islamic world. In his view, many problems were caused for Muslim intellectuals because of their failure to have an accurate understanding of Aristotle. He accounts for various dimensions of the autonomous Aristotelian rationality, highlighting the characteristic distinction between rational or epistemic certainty and persuasion as a result of religious doctrines. In his view, certainty is a product of the evolutionary process of human perception of the sensible and the universal rational nature of creatures, insisting on its autonomy and uniqueness on the path to the truth. In Ibn Rushd’s view, religion has a pragmatic character and it by no means claims to be veridical or truth-oriented. Instead, it just aims moral virtues—to put ordinary people on the way of attaining happiness. In this article, I adopt an explanatory-analytic method to articulate Ibn Rushd’s interpretation of the nature of the autonomous Aristotelian rationality and formulate its relation to religion. This is a path that might contribute to our understanding of the foundations and roots of our current problems with regard to the relation between reason and religion as well as traditional and modern thoughts.