نشریه پژوهش های قرآنی
سال بیست و یکم شماره 4 (پیاپی 81، زمستان 1395)

Justice and civilization as two phenomena related to humankind’s social life, are among the subjects of interest to the elites of communities since earlie times to the present. Although justice-seeking has been one of the public wishes in human communities and has caused protest movements among the common people and intellectual challenges among the thinkers, the civilization-seeking and civilization-thinking has been brought up specifically among the elites.
The problem raised by the present research is to study the application of the words justice and civilization and their evaluative comparison between these two in the Qur’ān. The findings of this research are briefly included into the following four statement: 1. A relation of absolute generality and peculiarity is maintained between the two words in lexical and connotative terms and a relation of generality and peculiarity in some respect in terms of two social phenomena. 2. In the Qur’ān, the word justice is frequently used because of its being commonly understood and the word civilization is less frequently used because of its being understood by the elite, although the referents of the concept civilization have been frequently utilized. 3. Using the phrasal pattern of human rights in the verses of the first three years of the Prophetic Mission (bi‘that) has been a source of profound awareness for the addressees concerning justice as well as its correlated concept, i.e., civilization. 4. The relation between civilization and justice in the Qur’ān is of the procreative-incremental type; that is to say, the appearance of civilization has been a ground for procreation of a hierarchy of justice and justice-seeking has been effective on the quality of civilization; and this interaction between these two social phenomena has been perpetual in human communities.

Various views have been formed on justice in religious and non-religious schools and have ensued studies and critiques, as well. Meanwhile, the Qur’ānic theory of justice has been insufficiently attended to by Islamic scholars and its various dimensions, especially based on modern methods, need to be clarified. One of the most unnoticed dimensions of the Qur’ānic theory of justice is the indices of justice from the Holy Qur’ān’s point of view. Through the method of analyzing the qualitative content and on the basis of religious indexing, the verses about justice in the Qur’ān have been extracted, analyzed, and categorized into four dimensional indices of “cultural justice”, “political justice”, “social justice”, and “economic justice” and the main and qualitative index of each has been explained with reference to the Holy Qur’ān.

From the viewpoint of Aziza Hibri, monotheism is the basis of Qur’ānic teachings, with respect to which all Islamic principles find their meanings. In this respect, in processing her theory concerning justice in the Qur’ān, she first proceeds to prove and elucidate the Qur’ānic monotheism and then goes on to delve into different aspects of justice, the degree and balance in God’s creatures, individual, social, and familial life of human beings by taking into consideration the two Qur’ānic concepts of “justice” (‘adl) and “balance” (al-mīzān). In contrast, from the viewpoint of Aziza Hibri, negligence of this point, causes one to entangle in Satanic argumentation, i.e., superiority-seeking, hence lack of justice in Muslims’ life; because, according to the Qur’ānic verses, Iblis was the first to claim superiority and refused prostrating to Adam (A.S.). Nevertheless, Hibri’s theory has some problems in this respect, too; like, in the Qur’ān, selection of an Islamic ruler is not based on people’s allegiance and equality of votes; rather, it is God’s exclusive right. Furthermore, with respect to the differences of man and woman in view of the Qur’ān, justice does not mean equality, it rather means difference.

This article has three Qur’ānic, philosophical, and logical aspects and thus, it is regarded as an interdisciplinary article. In its Qur’ānic aspect, while emphasizing on the case-study of verse 25 of Sūrat al-Ḥadīd, the result of full enumeration of the verses of the Qur’ān, which include the words equity (qisṭ), justice, and their derivatives, is put into practical use. In view of the philosophical aspect, the monistic approach of Ṣadr al-Dīn Shīrāzī toward the stages of being is used as the research basis. The logical aspect of the research is explained according to the fuzzy system. In transcendental philosophy, the most perfect manifestation of human soul (nafs) will be fulfilled when the disposition of justice is maintained in all its faculties and concerns. Thus, the firm column of the innate aspect of the perfect man’s soul is justice. These philosophical-exegetical findings demand proper logical explanations. The Aristotelian-Avicennian logic does not have the power to explain this section of the findings of transcendental philosophy and the exegetical opinions corresponding to them. Therefore, the shortcomings of this logic are either to be compensated by completion and amendment or new developed and substituted should be thought of. In this article, an amended reading is brought up from the fuzzy system for a proper logical explanation of the abstract material truth of the soul, in such a way that no damage is done to the mother of dispositions (i.e., transmutation of the conjunction of two contradictions).

Beside many verses addressed to human individuals in the Qur’ān, there are verses that have addressed an issue far beyond it. This same issue has become a subject of deliberation for the interpreter-philosophers as to whether God’s intention in these verses is an independent phenomenon called “umma” (community) or not. Some have opined about the philosophical authenticity of community on the basis of these verses and some others have merely regarded as demonstrable its being conventional and subordinate. This article is intended to state the more defendable view with reliance on the Qur’ānic verses and employing the history’s philosophical data, hypothesizing that the identity of a community is an independent issue and enjoys philosophical authenticity, so that human beings’ togetherness creates a power distinct from that of individuals. On this basis, the main question of the article is the quality of the community’s identity from the viewpoint of the Qur’ān. The method of explaining the theory is through studying the verses related to the category of umma, according to the viewpoints of the two contemporary scholars, that is, ‘Allāma Ṭabāṭabā’ī and Shahīd Muṭahharī; and naturally the approaches of Ṣadr and Miṣbāh Yazdī have also been scrutinized as the competing viewpoint.

The Holy Qur’ān briefly mentions Gog and Magog and the construction of a dam [or wall] by Dhul Qarnayn against them, created the dilemma in the minds of the thinkers as to what the Gog and Magog were and where had that amazing dam been made. Some theories have been presented by researchers that because of their incompatibility with the Qur’ānic verses and teachings, and because of their rational and theological inconsistency, as well as not providing confirming evidences, they have become hard to accept. In regard to the above-mentioned two principles, i.e., compatibility with the verses and teachings and provision of Qur’ānic, narrative, lexical, and scholarly evidences and indications, the theory presented in this article is preferred and has superiority over other theories. Given these two principles, Gog and Magog were of the lava erupted from a fault line and Dhul Qarnayn used them and other solid and inflexible matter to fill that gap and build up a horizontal dam. The location of this dam may have transferred to the sub-layers of the earth or even to the bottom of an ocean.

All through the books of the Qur’ānic sciences and interpretation stands out a phenomenon called verses of exceptions (āyāt muthtathniyāt). The existence of a Madanī āya in a Makkī sūra and a Makkī āya in a Madanī sūra are called āyas of exceptions. This phenomenon is not supported by any narration and it showed up for the first time in a limited form in Maqātil b. Sulaymān’s interpretation in 2nd/8th century. Then, throughout the history of interpretation it was increased in number. Fabricated Revelation occasions, confusion between the lexical and connotative meanings of some words, incorrect interpretation of some parts of the phrases of the verses, and the confusion between the criteria for recognizing the Makkī from Madanī verses were among the most important causes for the appearance of the verses of exceptions. This research deals with disclosing the causes for the appearance of the verses of exception.