نشریه مطالعات تاریخی قرآن و حدیث
سال هجدهم شماره 2 (پیاپی 52، پاییز و زمستان 1391)

Among the views explaining the relationship between God and human action, is the theory of assignment. Based on this view, the distinct characteristic of religious teachings is their assigning nature, according to which human beings enjoying the gift of wisdom have been assigned by God to practice or avoid certain kinds of acts. The theory of assignment is a widely accepted view in Islamic culture in a way that it is considered a preliminary principle of jurisprudence. The general theme of jurisprudence has been introduced by the scholars as "The Acts of religiously assigned Muslims" Muslim theologians have divided the human tasks into two kinds of intellectual and religious. The relations between these two kinds of tasks and the practical solutions in case they contradict each other, are the subjects which have caused widespread divergences among Muslim scholars. Meanwhile, the Baghdad Shiite theologians and jurists have offered special reading toward this theory. In this essay after introducing the foundations of the theory of assignment, the particular reading of the two Shiite scholars of this school namely Sheikh Mufid and Sayyed Murtaza about the theory and their disagreement will be elaborated.

Moses's appointment with God is one of the anecdotes narrated in holy Quran about the children of Israel, the story which has been reflected in the Old Testament with a slight difference and has been elaborated in details in the Muslim exegetical literature. The subject of this essay is to do a comparative analysis of the story in Quran, Old Testament and Islamic exegeses. The article includes the themes such as: the methods followed by Quran and Old Testament in mentioning the two Moses's appointments and their different approaches, the narration of the special features of the appointment like the duration of the Moses's retreat, his talk with God, his request to see God, his receiving of the holy tablets and his designation of seventy elderly nobles of Israelis. The essay is aimed at noting the influence of biblical narrations about this anecdote on the most important Muslim exegeses.

Tradition is a concept with a background as old as the history of Islam and like other ancient concepts needs to be investigated to know what sort of effects the passage of time has imposed on its meaning. It seems that the major evolution in its meaning has occurred during the first two centuries AH, the time in which most Islamic sciences were formed. Apparently later the term remained as a stable concept in all Islamic sciences. For a more efficient understanding of the concept, it is necessary to: analyze the concept evolutions occurred in the first two centuries and to trace the relation between its new and old meanings. Also different social currents by which such evolutions in meaning were imposed or supported ought to be identified. For this purpose, this essay is aimed at investigating the concept and function of the term prophetic tradition from the perspective of the schools like Partisans of Athar, old Partisans of Hadith, Partisans of intellectual reasoning and the intellectual school of Imam Sadiq, through an approach in history of ideas. The influence of such schools of thought on the evolution of the concept of tradition is significant due to the fact that all these schools were established during the second century AH, the century marked as the formative period of Islamic sciences. The more stabilized meaning of tradition in later centuries was the result of the efforts made by the scholars in the previous centuries.

Since the early periods, Quran scholars have paid special attention to the issue of different ways of reading Quran. In this regard they have offered various methods to evaluate different readings and to identify the valid and irregular ones. They have tackled the issue from different angles and as a result, have created different schools and views most of which can be categorized under modern linguistics. For this reason, such ancient readings with special linguistic values are worthy of receiving scientific attention. Hamze Esfahani is one of the figures who has reflected some of the unknown readings of Quran in his book titled al-Tanbih Ala Huduth al-Tashif. Some of these readings cannot be found in any other works devoted to Quranic unknown readings. In this essay, relying on the Hamze Esfahani's accounts and other historical proofs reflecting his era, his principles in evaluating different Quranic readings in comparison with other Quran scholars of his time, have been extracted and then judged.

In research of the Quranic attitude towards the notion of perception, we come across with a vast semantic field in which many Quranic concepts are linked to each other. One of the fundamental concepts in this field is "Tadabur" or contemplation. In addition to many Quranic verses in which the necessity of contemplation for human beings has been emphasized with different terms, there are specially four verses where the term "Tadabur" and its derivatives are used. In these verses the act of contemplation has been considered as a task or even the aim of revealing Quran. This research is aimed at discovering the meaning of this term using semantic approach. The meaning, however, has received much attention by the Muslim exegetes in the past and especially in recent century. For this purpose, after reviewing the verses including the term and paying special attention to the exegetical literature, a brief image of the meaning of the word and its position in Quran will be presented. Later, following the structural semantic and by analyzing the syntagmatic and paradigmatic terms for "Tadabur" in Quran we will try to extract the conceptual elements of this Quranic term.

The Shiites have always dwelled in various areas all over Islamic territory and have held scientific circles there. Sometimes such academic circles expanded with passage of time leading to the creation of a long chain of teachers and students. As a result of such circles, special teachings would be created which were later transmitted to future generations. Through this method Islamic seminaries were merged, some of which lasted for a long time. Distinct schools of thought would be formed in such areas as well. Some of these schools are quite unknown while the others, such as schools of Qum and Kufa, are famous and have had great influence on cultural movements in Shiism. The high and prominent position of the latter seminaries has caused the scholars and contemporary researchers to pay less attention to other, less known Shiite seminaries and schools. This research is aimed at, first reviewing the most important Shiite cities in Islamic world especially the less known Shiite seminaries and then identifying the dominant intellectual trends and efficient figures in each of them. This study can be an entry to the identification of unknown Shiite intellectual schools, their later expansion, and the distinct teachings they have created.