نشریه قرآن شناخت
سال ششم شماره 2 (پیاپی 12، پاییز و زمستان 1392)

The principle of “applicability” is an interpretive principle extracted from the teachings of Holy Prophet’s household on which Allamah Tabatabaii has focused and subsequent Shi’a researchers have taken it into consideration in analyzing a group of interpretive hadiths. This principle has an important role in interpretive analysis of the hadiths which show the difficulty of Quranic verses and conforms most of them to (the sayings of) Shi’a Imams. The present paper seeks to extract the foundations of this principle in Allamah Tabatabaii’s view by reviewing his scattered explanations and method of using it. Universality and time-inclusion of the Quran, the existence of several semantic layers and levels in the Quran, scientific authority of Shi’a Imams, Shi’a Imams’ educational role, non-distortion of the Quran, the principality of generality of verse, in expression indication to applicability and its difference with interpretation, systematicness of this indication through dissection from the context and time of revelation are among his foundations in this regard.

Educational and method-teaching look at interpretative traditions is one of the main pillars of methodology of Al-Mizan Commentary. In fact, this is an analytical look at the transmitted texts of traditions related to Quranic themes and concepts, which seeks to find out the way of interpreting the Quran by using interpretive sayings and acts of leaders of religion. This look is accompanied by a critical analysis of the approach applied by traditionalist interpretation trend and is based on several transmitted and non-transmitted evidence. In the meantime, the issue of inspiration of principles by leaders of religion and the necessity of ramifying them, which is the content of some transmitted evidence, needs some contemplation. In addition to transmitted evidence and principles, analytical, historical and theological evidence supports this look as well. According to this look, interpretative traditions have an educational role and education does not mean teaching and learning the concepts beyond audience’s understanding and perception; rather, it means teaching those concepts which are understandable for audience and citable to exoteric aspect of the Quran. In Allamah’s view, leaders of religion are not only simple teachers of Quranic concepts but also teachers of interpretation method.

Using a descriptive analytical method, the present paper seeks to elaborate on Allamah Tabatabaii’s view on the nature and manner of appearing of angels in the form of man, given the their immaterial existence which is proved by transmitted proofs affirmed by intellect, and answer the questions asked in this regard. Allamah believes that appearing of angels in the form of man has four forms: 1. transformation of essence; 2. manifestation of subtle thing in the form of unsubtle body; 3. indwelling in the form of man; and 4. Intervention in the cognition faculty of the person. The fourth form means that the angel, keeping its essence and reality beyond cognitive form, appears in the vision (sense and cognition) of person as a man.

Our traditional rhetoricians have always emphasized on the fact that the compounds and structures of an eloquent speech has aesthetic and semantic value. In the text of holy Quran the parts of sentences has been particularly arranged and beautiful and meaningful compounds have been made. One of these beautiful and meaningful arrangements is that a part of a sentence is put between two other parts. The other is that we expect to see a part of a sentence between two other parts, but it is not mentioned. Interpreters and scholars of Arabic language have named these techniques “omission” and “permutation”. However, Allamah Tabatabaii believes that permutation-orientation not only hides a part of the meaning of the verse, but also damages its wonderful beauty. With a particular view on this technique, Allamah believes that it is meaningful and creates unique beauty. Considering this particular view as a rule has some problems which are studied and the aesthetic value of this view as a comprehensive rule is proved in the present paper.

“Conciseness technique of omission” has been often used in the Quran and is one of its important rhetoric methods to which scholars of Quranic sciences and interpreters have paid particular attention. Since interpreters are sometimes in disagreement on omission and omitted part in some Quranic verses, the present paper reviews Allamah Tabatabaii’s criteria for criticizing other commentators’ views.The research findings show that Allamah Tabatabaii has used in-text criteria such as not paying attention to correct intention of verse and syntactic role of word, the meaning of letters of meanings, context and rhetoric technique and out-text criteria such as jurisprudential differences and reference to incorrect traditions to criticize other commentators’ views and believes that these cases cause different or improper permutations in such a way that correct intention of verses is not extracted from them.

The answers of the Glorious Quran are mostly compatible to audience’s questions. Unexpectedly, however, some answers seem incompatible with audience’ questions; rather, the Quran discusses another important issue instead of giving answers to the questions. For example, when asked “what do we donate?” the Quran discusses about “how to use donations” or when asked “why does the shape of moon change?” the Quran refers to “the benefit of changes in the shape of moon”. Rhetoricians call this method “asteismus”. Using a descriptive-analytical method and emphasizing on Allamah Tabatabaii’s view, the present paper seeks to explain seeming incompatibility between questions and answers in the Quran. The results show that the holy Quran declines to give a clear answer to some questions asked by audience in all these cases in order to explain a more important issue which is more needed by audience and teach them how to ask proper questions. The review of these cases not only provides an analysis about one of the rhetoric beauties of the Quran but also removes the doubt of disharmony among some Quranic verses.

Thematic content analysis of the Quran is a new approach in “processing meaning relationships” among Quranic verses, which is applied by using computerized data analysis tools. Using Allamah Tabatabaii’s interpretive principles in thematic and finalist view, a thematic collection of Quranic verses was made, which includes an interpretive part (in order to evaluate the results) and a differentiating part (by thematic codifying of verses in order to enter into computer algorithms). Based on Allamah’s sayings in the introduction of Al-Mizan, the themes of this collection includes following seven subjects which form a comprehensive meaning system, with a unitary order: divine essence and names, divine intermediaries, divine acts, man before the world, man in the world, man after the world, guiding man towards God (with divine authority, moral attributes, and legal injunctions).The project of thematic content analysis was applied to the Chapter “the Rock” (in the model of verse) and interpretive verses related to verse 21 of the Chapter “the Rock” (in the model of related verses) and some meaning relationships was found in ten data analysis tests. Only the meaningful results of three tests are provided in this paper due to its limited capacity.