مجله آموزه های قرآنی
سال دهم شماره 18 (پاییز و زمستان 1392)

The holy verse “O you who believe! Take care of your own selves” علیکم انفسکم in surat al-Máídah (the table spread) is one of the verses which is difficult to interpret. There are different attitudes to the verse about its relation with enjoying good and forbidding wrong evil (encouraging good and discouraging bad). Some have stated the abrogation of the law of enjoying good and forbidding wrong evil and some others have understood the particularity and conditional of enjoying good and forbidding wrong evil. The author with criticizing the attitudes and giving preference to Allameh Tabatabaei’s view believes that enjoying good and forbidding wrong evil are the cases of the self-purification. Allameh Tabatabaei with respect to transcendent philosophy (al-hikmah al-mutaaliyyah) and trans-substantial change -motion- (al-harakat al-jawhariyya) believes that the self -ego- (soul) exactly is the path of the man journeys and it is not the follower of this path. The destination and end of this divine path is Allah the almighty and it is necessary for all human beings “believers and infidels” to cover it. This approach to the verse has important benefits in the field of moral self-building and self (soul) training which have been analyzed and studied.

Self-confidence in the light of the Quranic teachings means relying on will, deed, faculties and self- ability with trust in God and asking God to help, attention to innate capacity, humane dignity and independence from others with no interested in others’ assistance. This concept distinguishes from moral vices such as self-admiration, conceit, pride and egotism, whereas moral virtues such as humility and modesty derive from powerful self-confidence. There are different types of knowledge in the Quranic teachings that cause the strengthening of self-esteem and self-confidence. This paper aims to clarify the boundary and definition of self-confidence from the point of the religious view and determine exact boundaries of it and some moral virtues and vices and emphasizing teachings and strengthening factors of self-esteem and self-confidence in the Quran and mention the meaning of “soul (nafs)” between stages (levels) and the cases which this meaning is used and answer some questions.

Man is created in the hardship and faces different difficulties during his life. The management of difficulties helps him to release from sufferings and reveals the path of the peacefulness at the heart of the pains. In the other hand, the absence of the management causes Psychological disorders and dissatisfaction with life. Some religions according to their own weltanschauung (world view) present programs to manage difficulties in order to facility or eliminate them. The Quranic teachings of Islam and its Islamic religious leaders’ teachings and Buddhism teachings have stated methods to achieve this thing. This paper with analytic-descriptive method aims to find Islam and Buddhism approaches to release from pain and to compare and analyze them in the schematic form. The Quran with acceptance of pain and suffering in human life in the different cases believes that it is purposefulness and the profundity of it is good and right and it is a mean to perfection. Islam in a general and total look divides it in to three categories: reflection of deeds, atonement (kafareh) for sin or a back ground for individual perfection. In other side, Buddhism with a pessimistic look to undesirable happenings in human life does not state the goal for suffering which is a universal feature of all existence include man and to free from suffering (the end of suffering) necessarily happens after practicing the eight-fold path. After stating the problem and concept ology of it, this paper aims to present methods (strategies) for liberating from suffering and analyze it.

The trial way (sunnat) is one of the God’s certain ways which is shaped some times in the form of God’s favor (the favor of God) and sometimes suffering. From other side, the reflection of some sins emerge in the form of calamities and in some cases man cannot recognize if the suffering which is involved is a divine trial to be patient or the punishment of sins to repent. What is the criterion to recognize this type of sufferings? The present paper with the examination of the Quran verses divides sufferings into three types and for every type declares standards as it has been mentioned below. 1. Trial calamities which their criterion (standard) is being tolerable, the peace after suffering, getting the rewards in return, suffering from God and ending from man. 2. The calamities of the punishment of collective or corporate sins which their criterion (standard) is affecting all human beings, absence of opportunity of reconstruction and collective distruction. 3. The calamities of the punishment of individual sins which their criterion (standard) to recognize these calamities is not affecting all human beings (it is not pervasive), inability to change the suffering, liberation from suffering by repentance and returning to God and sufferings converting to happiness after repentance. The detailed reasons of the criteria should be studied in the context of the paper.

There are three approaches among Imami Scholars about the semantic of “touch” (más) word in the verse of “no one touch it except the purified ones” from the beginning until now. They are the inward touch, outward touch and generalize (widespread) touch. It has been defined as an outward touch in the first approach and it is understood that the body attachment of the Quran verses is prohibited by the jurisprudential decree (ordinance hukm) without ritual purity (taharat). The penta (5) reasons of this approach are using the “touch” (más) term in the attachment of two things and the pronoun «ها» of لا یمسه refers to the Quran or Infallibles or the prophet’s traditions or the opposition of conscience. The second view mentions that the “touch” (más) term refers to the perception of the Quranic realities and has been justified with reasons such as the style of the verse, the space of the descent of the Quran, the interpretive traditions, the meaning indication of the purified ones (muttaharun) to the spiritual purification and the pronoun «ها» of لا یمسه refers to the Book well-guarded (i. e. Al-Lauh Al-Mahfuz). According to the third approach, “touch” (más) means absolute touch that includes external and spiritual touches and it has been justified with the absoluteness of touch (más) term and purified ones. These three approaches have a critical look to each other and whereas they clarify reasons, one another criticize and reject. This note re-observes and evaluates these approaches and meanwhile criticizing the reasons, it has determined the preferred view.

The virtue of science and knowledge is unrevealed for everyone. As the Quran has stated that the goal of sending the holy prophet (p. b. u. h.) of Islam is instructing the people the Book (the Quran) and the wisdom (al-hikmah). In this circumstance, the noble Quran has named those who have been adorned by God with the knowledge and called them those who have been given the knowledge اوتوا العلم. The Quran exegetists have declared different attitudes about the instances (cases) of who are those have been given knowledge or the owner of knowledge. With no regarding the different interpretations of some verses which have been presented by some commentators, the speeches (views) about the limitation or generality of the instances of those who have been given the knowledge are not the same. In this research, meanwhile the intentional (conceptual) examination of those who have been given the knowledge in the 49th verse of Surat Al-`Ankabūt, the instances (cases) of those who have been given the knowledge and the category of applicability and conformity (jari and tatbiq) has been investigated. With the analytic indication (documentary) to the Islamic traditions, the attitude of limitation is proved.

In determining the relationship of the revealed religions, the equality and opposition is void and similarity and differences are a fixed assumption. To explain this, it should be mentioned that the common ordinances (ahkám) are resulted from Oneness of God and differences are not resulted from plurality in the revealed religions and not because of the abrogation (naskh) of the previous revealed religions but the reality is that sharia is a single-absolute truth which the evolutionary process of the application of Islamic law or making-law makes differences reveal. This note creates a principle (rule) which determines that the governed principle is the development of divine ordinances (ahkam) in the process of the application of Islamic law or making-law. Therefore, divine ordinances (ahkam) of the revealed religions are not abrogated but the more perfect ordinance (hukm) has repudiated the practical validity of the pre- Islamic prefect ordinance. Hence, the jurisprudential premises of the pre-Islamic revealed religions are valid until the perfected form of the ordinances (ahkam) in Islam has not been obtained. If acting according to the perfect ordinance (Islamic law) is not possible because of an obstacle, the ordinance (hukm) of the pervious revealed religions is obliged. According to this principle, the realm of the Islamic jurist thought additionally to the Quran stories stretches to the stories of the prophets. The relationship between the ordinances of the pervious revealed religions with Islam ones can be imagined in a three forms: 1. If it is obtained in Islam religion with no change, it will be obliged to act for all. 2. Neither the sameness of that ordinance nor the perfected form is obtained; the pervious ordinance is valid in this situation. 3. The perfected form of the ordinances is obtained in Islam religion; it is acted according to Islam religion in normal situation otherwise it is acted according to the previous revealed religions.

The McLennan library of McGill University houses glorious and precious sources of the brilliant Islamic and Persian culture. It contains the (peculiar) unique parts of the noble Quran. One of the oldest parts of the Quran which has been kept in the library is some verses of the holy chapter of al-Zumar. This part with kufic script (al-Khatt al-Kufi) has been written on the parchment of the skin. It has been used the red points to show the vowel marks and diacritics and cannot clearly pronounce on the point of the similar letters or the marks of divisions of the verses. One of the notable marks of this manuscript is the points around Waw (واو). These points have been utilized with respect to the next letter diacritic. The existence of two points between and before of «الف» of this part is considerable.