فصلنامه قبسات
پیاپی 50 (زمستان 1388)

One of the most important discussions mentioned in religious studies is religious knowledge and understanding. A great amount of the questions raised in the field of religious knowledge is due to disregarding the principles and bases of religious knowledge and understanding. On the other hand, accepting some incorrect principles and presuppositions in the process of religious studies and religious beliefs ends up with the same problem. Therefore this article will try to extract and explain the most important principles and bases from the view of religion, and will also explain its result and output in the field of religious knowledge and understanding. Therefore one of the principles and bases of religious knowledge is the principles of religious cognition. It is necessary to become aware and understand the features and characteristics of religion before understanding religion’s teachings and statements and discovering the purpose of God. In fact understanding religion is based on knowing its characteristics. We will treat three important and effective bases here as follows: 1. divinity of the existential root of religion, 2. religion and its propositions have nafs-ol-amr (a reality behind it), 3. guidance of religion.

This article discusses how the school of historicism has influenced religious discussions in three parts: the origin of religion, receiving and delivering religion and the survival of religion. It also considers the outcomes of having such a perspective for religion and then criticizes some of its aspects especially the aspect of receiving and delivering religion.

Episteme has an important role in cognitive activities including religious knowledge because it clearly affects the degree of human’s beliefs. The main parts of religious knowledge are the beliefs related to the soul, the world, the one God or multiple Gods. Although we mostly pretend that religious beliefs are acquired beliefs and thus we focus on them, but some religious knowledge may have biological or even completely spiritual bases. It seems that the role of the episteme related to religious knowledge is not less central than the role of earthly knowledge. Some experimental evidences show that episteme is rooted in some specific systems of brain. The theories of body related episteme have a great significance in cognitive psychology, social psychology and neurology. Body related episteme has a great role in religious perspectives, religious beliefs and religious deeds. It cannot be claimed that being related to body explains everything about the role of episteme in religious experience, but it has a great effect on explaining this complicated phenomenon.

One of the questions discussed by scholars of hadith, philosophers and Quranic studies researchers since the age of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) until today is Quran’s esoteric meaning. By a comparative study between Shi’ite and Sunni, this article will mention Quran’s esoteric meaning and its different meanings on the basis of rational, Quranic and traditional reasons. It will also compare the perspectives of the scholars of the two sects, who sometimes excommunicate each other. The article will also evaluate them presenting some reasons and will mention that it is possible and acceptable to have different levels of understanding Quran which are called esoteric meaning. Since it is possible for the non-infallibles to understand Quran’s esoteric meaning (but of course with different levels of understanding), it will present some methods of attaining them. According to this article, Quran’s esoteric meaning is one of the things which makes it eternal.

Semantic net work in Quran has a special structure. Although different schools have presented various critical theories, there is no comprehensive and practical model available. The purpose of the present study is to compare the existing models and provide a more practical and structural one which is based on the principles of semantics. Here, the researcher has taken two approaches to study Quran: word and meaning. Semantic structure including concepts in the meaning network of Quran as well as their complexities and interrelationships were analyzed in a theoretical model. Al Jumu’ah Surah was taken as a sample and its verse were analyzed; then I was compared with other Surahs based on such model.In data analysis, a structural approach was employed to examine the conceptual and semantic relations among word. First, the relations of verses in Al Juma’ah Surah were analyzed and compared with pre and post verses. Then, the relationships among the verses in this Surah were analyzed which is revealed that Quranic concepts are in a chain relationship with each other. To understand these concepts, it is required to recognize other concepts in a semantic network.

It is very essential to pay attention to context because it has an important role in Quran’s interpretation. It has been mentioned from a long ago and is one of the foundational and infrastructural discussions of Quranic studies, interpretation and interpretive rules. We can even see the roots of this discussion in the narrations of the Infallibles (PBUT), and we can say that it has a high position in their view. The author of this article first defines context and then explains the position of this discussion from the perspective of the interpreters and Quranic studies scholars. He also mentions that the narrations somehow prove the role of context in Quran’s interpretation as well. He then mentions the different kinds of context and divides it into internal and external context. Then he explains the applications of context and writes that it can help us explore the meaning, accept or deny interpretational narrations, explore the relation between statements, prefer a perspective, prefer a specific reading and differentiate between Meccan and Medinite chapters. In the last part of the article, the author talks of the conditions of formation of a context and the new context-creation. Finally he talks of the relation between context and parenthetical statements.

Islamic philosophers have chosen different approaches to define philosophy such as subject-centered, method-centered, goal-centered, question-centered and a combinational approach. The goal-centered definitions are either unpractical and vast or cannot distinguish between philosophical and non-philosophical matters. The method-centered definitions do not exclude non-philosophical matters as well. The subject-centered definitions are practical and determinative but they have other problems. Thus the new Islamic wisdom or the insider wisdom tries to find a new definition and structure for philosophy through human’s incorporated being.

Some events which occur for human are considered supernatural and mysterious. A great number of events such as true dream, mind reading, telepathy, extrasensory perception (the sixth sense), miracles, extra-ordinary happenings and revelations are all common in this characteristic. The important questions mentioned about these events are: can they be studies and researched scientifically and philosophically? Is their cause known? And finally, what have been the results of studying these events for philosophy and science? This article has tried to answer these three questions. The first philosopher who systematically and philosophically studied these events by his psychology was Ibn-Sina. Then Molla-Sadra added some valuable points to the knowledge of prophecies and had some more researches on the causes of these events. Both philosophers considered the function of human’s soul and its relation with the invisible world as the main root of these events. The difference between the two philosophers is that Molla-Sadra investigated them with a new categorization and discovered some of its new principles. A new science, called prophecies in this article, was resulted from their psychology. Yet among the contemporary cognitive sciences in the past half century, parapsychology has investigated and studied the quality and quantity of these events and has achieved good results. Parapsychology and prophecies have common subjects thus they can lead into another belief in metaphysics and open new horizons for sciences such as ethics, social sciences and religious knowledge.