ماهنامه معرفت
سال بیست و سوم شماره 11 (پیاپی 206، بهمن 1393)

This article is an exposition of Imam Sajjad's whispered prayer of the abstainer's which focuses on the question of asceticism and unconcern about this world. The holy Quran mentions five characteristics of this world: frivolity, delectation, adornment, boastfulness and gross rivalry. These characteristics are detected in childhood, adolescence, adulthood, middle age and old age. This world is created by God and nothing in it unpleasant or unlovely for all that God has created is beautiful. What makes one turn away from one's God-given inherent nature are the beautiful aspects in this world, sensual desires and Devil. Without these three, man would not have gone astray or committed sins. Also, the limitations of life may be among the factors of committing sin and leading a hard life. If these limitations did not exist and if everything were at the disposal of man, he would never have an offensive attitude.

Finding answer to the fundamental questions about man's life has always been one of the serious concerns of man. Resting on rational and philosophical evidence and answering these questions, philosophers throughout history have emphasized on the effective role of intellect in discovering the realities of the world of existence. In recent years, some have tried, with different motivates to raise some doubts as to the permissibility or, at least necessity of embarking on philosophy. Using a descriptive analytical method, this paper underlines the advantages and necessity of philosophy, and clears up the serious doubts raised by the opponents of philosophy's opponents. The results of research show that, the most doubts of philosophy's antagonists are ascribed to the misconception of some narrations, claims and words of philosophers. Therefore, removing these doubts will help to confirm the idea of the necessity of embarking on philosophy with the aim of presenting a forthright, deepening religious knowledge and defending religious doctrines.

Drawing their inspiration from religious texts, Ibn Sina‌ and Suhrawardi, two of the pioneers in peripatetic philosophy and illuminative philosophy in the Islamic world, confined their attention to the study of theology and made strenuous efforts to expound it. The special tenets and different philosophical methods of these two Muslim thinkers have contributed to developing various approaches to studying theology. One of them has taken step to solve this problem by adopting a research method and a particular existential impression, and the other has dealt with the mentioned question by using intuition besides reasoning as an important means for understanding realities. Using an analysis-descriptive method, this paper seeks to investigate the view of each of these two famous philosophers about theology in the light of a meta-historical and phenomenological look. It is clear that the considerations of Ibn Sina and his explanation for affirming Necessity and Attributes of Him is more accurate than that of Suhrawardi (Shaykh al-ishraq).

One of the doubts raised by the adversaries of religion is presenting the theory of incompatibility of Islam with rationality. Based on the Quran Commentary of Al-Mizan, this paper seeks to answer these questions: Is religion compatible with rationality? Does mere worshiping the Supreme God contradict rationality? What kind of relationship is there between religion and reason? What are the ways for the florescence of religion and the obstacles its development according to the view of the commentator of Al-Mizan. In his ''Al-Mizan'' Allameh Tabatabai believes that no religion assigns as much attention to this subject. He believes that reason has a special statue and offers ways for the intellectual development of man. He points out the obstacles to intellectual development, resolves the doubt about the conflict between intellect and revelation and rejects the idea that worshiping contradicts rationality. He also comments on the idea of prohibition of subjective interpretation of Qurnic texts, which apparently does not conform with rationality. The investigation shows that the commentator of Al-Mizan considers reason as an inner messenger and its authority as innate. He also considers the invitation to rationality as an invitation to religiousity and the invitation to religiousity as the very rationality.

The question of the relationship between science and religion has been of the special concern of thinkers. This research seeks to investigate the relationship between science and religion from the view of Allamah Tabatabai. He believes that there is a mutual relationship between religion and science; the florescence of science and knowledge in the world is indebted the positive contribution of religion, and science has an important role in the consodolation of religious beliefs. Rejecting the idea that there is a real conflict between science and religion, Allamah offers solutions for the elimination of apparent conflicts. He removes most of these conflicts by preferring definite propositions to conjectural propositions or by distinguishing between the realm of science and that of religion. In many cases he offers obvious explanation of religious teachings to show that there is no contradiction between science and religion.

Religious knowledge includes the findings which are gained scientific understanding and study of religious sources through different ways. Religious scholars offer different ways for achieving this goal. As a religious scholar Allamah Tabatabai, who concentrates his efforts on this field adopts certain principles, offers three different ways for gaining a true and proper understanding of religion. Using a descriptive – analytical method, the paper investigates Allamah's methods of acquiring religious knowledge and seeks to demonstrate the relations between them. In his opinion, religious ritual, intellect and self-refinement are three different ways of acquiring religious knowledge, each of which has its own premises and requisites, is used independently and cannot be merged with each other ways. But, the result of religious with each of the three ways will be the same and the differences between the methods cause no difference.

This paper investigates the idea whether or not studying the thoughts of western philosophers by students, clerics and teachers of Islamic philosophy is necessary. The necessity of studying the philosophy of the West is emphasized as the answer to the above question and the proposition of this paper. For testing this proposition, four reasons are cited, which are as follows: 1. discovering the strong points of the philosophy of the West and making use of them in different fields, especially for giving a high prestige to Islamic philosophy. 2. Criticism based on a true understanding of western philosopher's opinions; 3. Islamization of sciences; 4. Having profound knowledge of the West in the light of the opinions and thoughts of western philosophers.

Hermeneutical circle is considered as one of the most important topic of Schleiermacher's hermeneutics. This circle has various definitions, explanations and functions in each science and it also receives attention in other hermeneutical trends. Comparing it with the logical circle, the adversaries of this circle consider it to be invalid, and its requisite as an endless game which ends in relativity. These criticisms are mainly directed to the hermeneutical circle of philosophical hermeneutics, but Schleiermacher's circle does not suffer from these weaknesses. Schleiermacher's final solution for solving the complicated problem of hermeneutical circle is represented in the method of conjecture and intuition. Also, it is possible to adopt a problem-solving method like that of the hermeneutical circle of Islamic and cite the answer of Muslim philosophers for proving the possibility of generalizing this answer about the hermeneutical circle of Schleiermacher. This paper seeks to investigate this important issue and tries, through a documental study and comparative-contrastive method to approach Schleiermacher's view in this regard.