فصلنامه سراج منیر
پیاپی 5 (زمستان 1390)

By the function of religion we mean its services for and effects on the society. This paper aims at a comparative study of the views of the Quran and the New Testament on the ideological function of religion. The New Testament and the Quran agree on the fact that only the United God is the creator and the object of worship. Although the Christians, contrary to the explicit text of their Holy Book, the Bible, believe in Trinity, both the Bible and the Quran acknowledge Divine Unity and resurrection, and are similar in their descriptions of the Hell and the Heaven. However, they diverge on their definition and interpretation of the worlds after death and on how resurrection takes place. The New Testament describes the religious tasks of the prophets to be of an invitation type and aimed at the life to come, whereas the Quran introduces two goals for the messengers: one related to this material life and the other one related to the Hereafter; that is, the prophets are appointed to invite people to monotheism, and to guide them to achieve prosperity and establish justice, or in other words to felicitous and honorable material life.

Ibn Arabī's views on caliphate and leadership after the decease of the Apostle of God (God bless him and his household), are of special quality. He first discusses these issues in a way that makes the reader think he is talking about gnostic caliphate and leadership and not the theological views of the Shiites and the Sunnites. However, a closer scrutiny of his views reveals that in his own particular fashion, Ibn Arabī has in fact focused on the theological views of the Sunnites; he has amazingly substantiated the caliphate of the first and the second caliphs by relying on the consensus of the Companions of the Prophet and by assigning originality to it. He has ignored all texts and rulings on caliphate and leadership which are attributed to the holy Prophet (PBUH); he then quotes some traditions of multiple attestation like Hadīth al-Thaqalayn and Hadīth al-Ghadīr with distortion. In the next part he deals with ijtihād (interpretive reasoning) of the religious scholars, justifies all their mistakes and errors and exonerates them all.The present study has explored, within the scope of a paper, the views of Ibn Arabī from different angles and has then criticized them one by one.

These days a large number of thinkers in the field of politics, economics, etc. are concerned with the concept of globalism and they all have addressed this issue from their own perspective and they either accept or reject it; what has been ignored or less attended to here is the role of the Holy Quran and its place in the field of globalism. The present study attempts to present a specific meaning of the concept of globalism and discusses its principles, qualities, results and consequences and then examines the mechanism for the realization of a project intending to globalize Quranic science and culture; next, it focuses on the challenges of a Quranic culture in the era of globalization with regard to beliefs and values. This paper considers the Quran and globalism as interrelated. The Holy Quran is a divine revelation sent for the theoretical and practical guidance of mankind at all times and therefore has the quality of permanence. The present study, relying on the necessity of globalizing the Quran in the process of globalization, deals with the structures and characteristics of the global system of the Quran and then introduces the language of the Quran as the single language of this global system.

The holy Quran, as a guide for man in all aspects of his life, has been concerned with all needs of humans and has discussed them in full. One of these needs is the need for having tranquility and calmness in the course of life. This need has assumed enormous significance these days to the extent that considerable effort is put in its fulfillment and a lot of money is spent on it. The Quran has not been inattentive to this important human need and has addressed all of its levels and kinds completely and step by step, for all stages of man's life. One type of tranquility discussed in the Quran is God-inspired composure. The Quran describes this composure with precision and considers it to be emanated from God, the Transcendent, and bestowed upon specific believers at specific moments. The present paper aims at examining this particular type of God-inspired tranquility as well as the moments when God grants such composure to believers.

The Holy Quran, in the 105th verse of the chapter "Hood", divides people into two categories of blessed and unblessed. "Unblessedness denotes deprivation and lack of goodness". 'Oswah' (exemplar) is another term meaning a role model or a leader. However, 'taassī' (imitation) refers to the act of following the behaviors and actions of others. Take note that one of the educating methods used in the Quran is providing a role model and since role models are easily accessible for people, it is proper to attach prime importance to introducing unblessed figures.One of the aims of the Quran in relating the life stories of people is to describe their inappropriate behaviors so that they serve as examples to avoid and other people take a lesson from them. In the present study, we discuss the causes of unblessedness such as counting Quranic verses false, sensualism, greed, avarice, etc. We then deal with different types of unblessed people and their examples including Satan, Cain, son of Noah, the People of the Elephant, the People of 'Ād, etc.

One of the men of literature, an authority, who has made use of his narrative, Quranic, jurisprudential and theologian expertise in his poems about Imam Hussein (PBUH) is Ayatollah Gharavī Isfahānī. In his Divan of poems, he has mixed Quranic themes and traditions with literary figures and artistic aspects of language and thereby has fluently expressed his awareness of and profound emotions and passion for the Commander of the Martyrs (PBUH) and the events of Kerbella and 'Āshūra (the tenth day of the lunar month Muharram on which the martyrdom of Imam Hussein took place). The majority of the poems in his Divan touch on these subjects. Given that this jurist has been aware of these events, it will be useful to examine the reflection of such events in his poems. Therefore, the present paper explores his poems of Kerbella and 'Āshūra with regard to the followings: the narrative and Quranic aspects such as the use of allusion, quotations from the Quran, Quranic expressions like "the moon did rend asunder" (انشقّ القمر), "he drew near, then he bowed" (دنی فتدلّی), "am I not your Lord" (ألست بربکم), "soul at peace" (نفس مطمئنّه), "the farthest lot-tree" (سدرة المنتهی), etc., the use of Quranic themes and the stories of the prophets including Moses, Jesus, Noah, Solomon, David, Khidr, Job, Adam and Muhammad (the Seal of the Prophets) in order to express his emotions concerning Imam Hussein (PBUH) artistically, the use of verbal literary devices and semantic devices, and finally some discussions about the science of figurative speech employed to express his religious and Quranic emotions, to state the virtues of Imam Hussein and to recite his elegiac poetry.

From among the divine sciences, the sciences of the Family of the Prophet (PBUT) in general and those of the holy Prophet (PBUH) in particular have mysteries that cannot be easily understood. Rational explanation of such sciences should be given research priority. The present paper thus attempts to examine and analyze a valuable piece of knowledge in the holy tradition "if it had not been for your sake, I would not have created the heavens". It is worth mentioning that 'heaven's doubtlessly refers to the universe and the system of creation, including all creatures. The identifiable element in this tradition is discussed with reference to the most important structural characteristics as well as the use of rational reasoning and traditional documents in order to reveal the mystery of this holy tradition.