نشریه رهیافت هایی در علوم قرآن و حدیث
سال پنجاهم شماره 2 (پیاپی 101، پاییز و زمستان 1397)

The verse 52 of Sūrat Yūsuf is among the verses about which there many discrepancies among the translators and interpreters in its translation and interpretation, to the extent that it has been translated in eight different forms. The discrepancies originate from the subjective and objective pronouns of the verb lam akhunhū. By decoding the antecedent of the subjective and objective pronouns of this verb, the subjective pronoun of li ya‘lam would be clearly settled, too. Some have considered it to be the words of Zulaikhā and others that of Yūsuf. Similarly, some have taken the objective pronoun as referring to Potiphar, some to Yūsuf, and yet some others to Zulaikhā. The question this article raises is, “To what people do the subjective and objective pronouns of this verse refer?” Given the previous verses, it seems that this verse is narrating the words of Zulaikhā, the Potiphar’s wife, who after confessing her misdeed toward Yūsuf, proclaims that she has made the confession to let her husband know that she had not betrayed him in his absence. Therefore, the translation and interpretation of the verse should be revised and substituted by the above translation. In conclusion, while studying and critiquing ‘Allāma Ṭabāṭabā’ī’s viewpoint, we would approve Ibn Kathīr’s view.

Studying the degree of authenticity of the transmitters of hadith is among the oldest hadith investigations, called ‘Ilm al-Rijāl. Among the contemporaries, Muhammad Baqir Behboudi has mentioned the weak transmitters in his Ma‘rifat al-Hadith and named 150 of hadith transmitters as ḍu‘fā (the weak) and then undertaken to state their weak aspects. This research is intended to study the transmitters who have been weakened in Ma‘rifat al-Hadith and find the principles and criteria for the invalidation of transmitters in view of the author of the book. The investigations indicate that such instances as the content of the traditions or the book quoted from the transmitter, the weakness of the narrators or the persons from whom the hadith has been narrated (marwī ‘anh), attribution of fabricated hadith to the transmitter are among the factors of weakening the transmitters of hadith in this book. Since familiarity with the criteria and standards of the rijāl experts in invalidation or declaring trustworthy (al-jarḥ wa al-ta‘dīl) of the narrators is essential for proper understanding, interpreting, judgment concerning their statements and procedure, the present article, while enumerating the author’s criteria and standards in calling the transmitters of hadith as weak, has undertaken to judge some of the evidences denoting the weakness of the transmitter in his opinion.

Many of the Sunni scholars of the middle centuries up to the present era as well as some Shi’a scholars of the middle centuries up to the modern time have turned to setting forth the theory of tawātur of qarā’āt (uninterrupted frequency of readings); whereas such theory has been unprecedented among the early Shi’a and Sunni scholars. This issue, as well as the issue of impressionability of the science of qarā’āt from other Islamic sciences, especially hadith sciences, would make it necessary to study the historical background for the formation of tawātur of qarā’āt supposition.
Through successive study of the status of traditions narrated by single source (khabar-i wāḥid) and by several sources (khabar-i mutawātir) in theology, principles of jurisprudence, and hadith, and by taking into consideration the change of approaches that was made concerning the certification of those two, this research has concluded that following popularity of exclusiveness of certification to khabar-i mutawātir and the weakening of the status of khabar-i wāḥid first in theology and then in principles of jurisprudence, in fifth century, division of tradition to wāḥid and mutawātir found its way into hadith sciences as well. This issue has left an impression on qarā’āt, which is a branch of attributive (isnādī) sciences. As a result of the popularity of exclusiveness of certification to khabar-i mutawātir, qarā’āt had to be mutawātir for certification and this very issue caused the insistence of the scholars of qarā’āt in seventh century and after that on tawātur of qarā’āt; whereas, before that, qarā’āt were accepted with the criterion of popularity despite the existence of non-mutawātir chain of transmission (sanad).

Unity in Lordship is one of the levels of unity that is taught to the addresses in many verses of the Holy Qur’an. There are various methods used in teaching unity of Lordship in the Qur’an, the most important of which is the method of “reasoning”, among which the reasoning to the Creatorship of God has many functions because the early addressees of the Qur’an, i.e., the polytheists and idolaters, believed in God’s Creatorship and their polytheism was mainly in Lordship and management of the world affairs.
This article has been done with the use of the rules of interpretation and is targeted at studying and elucidation of different arguments to the Creatorship of God for teaching unity of Lordship in the Qur’an from ‘Allāma Ṭabāṭabā’ī’s viewpoint. The findings of the research indicates that from ‘Allāma Ṭabāṭabā’ī’s viewpoint, this reasoning has three types of reasoning to the identity of Lordship and Creatorship, argument to the correlation of Lordship and Creatorship, and reasoning to creation intertwined with prudence.

The Qur’an is the miracle of the Prophet of Islam and the Revealed Book of the Muslims. This Holy Scripture comprises of 114 chapters, each of which contains various subjects. Most of the subjects that the Qur'an has dealt with have been brought up in more than one sūra and these subjects common among sūras denote relationship between them. Getting to know these relationships is an important issue that can help better understand the Qur'an. In this article, the subjects brought up in each of the sūras are identified with the help of one of the interpretations of the Qur'an (Tafsīr Rahnamā), and the decree of the similarity among the suras are measured on the basis of the subjects common among them with the use of a quantitative criteria and employment of data mining methods. In conclusion, the tree-diagram of the thematic similarity of the sūras is drawn on the basis of quantitative criteria in question and, with its use, the sūras of the Qur’an are separately set up in clusters.

A review of the study of narrators (‘ilm al-rijāl) and the course of development of the science of adaptation (‘ilm-i jarḥ wa ta‘dīl) talks about the evaluation of hadith in terms of critiquing the narrators mentioned in the chain of transmitters. To this end, they have created special terms and phrases for authentication of each of the transmitters so that to determine the validity of the transmitter’s tradition by their employment. However, the rijāl experts were divided over the meaning and the signification of some of them which have prompted to turn the semantic study and reappraisal of the meaning and evidential analysis of these terms into an efficient procedure with a new glance at sanad studies. The main approach of this research is to study and evaluate the rank and rate of the term “shaykh”. As for the evidential aspects regarding validation or praise among theoreticians, various viewpoints have been presented concerning its evidential aspects, so that while bringing various opinions close together, we can explain the limits of its evidential meaning in various ranks and rates of adaptation and uncover and delineate the weakness of its meaning.

The present research delves into the Qur’anic root of ṭawāf al-nisā (second circumambulation after which one’s wife becomes lawful) in the Qur’an based on the exegetical traditions. Under the interpretation of the verse, ﴾and go around the Ancient House﴿ some traditions have been related from the Infallible Imams (A.S.) concerning the interpretation of the verse and its application to ṭawāf al-nisā. While examining these traditions and another tradition that has been related from the two major sects (of Shī‘a and Sunnī), it can be said that the verse is brief in this respect and, on the other hand, given the weakness of the sanad of the traditions that have interpreted it to ṭawāf al-nisā, one cannot rely on them. The most clear implication of the verse and the strength of the exegetical traditions that have interpreted it to pilgrimage circumambulation (ṭawāf al-ziyāra) and the lack of report of ṭawāf al-nisā in the Prophet’s (S.A.W.) Hajj and the Infallible Imams (A.S.) prior to Imam Bāqir and Imam Ṣādiq (A.S.), this interpretation is preferable and ṭawāf al-nisā is provable through the traditions.

This research is an answer to a collection of external questions concerning the whatness and howness of principles of interpretation (qawā‘id al-tafsīr). As for the whatness discourser, after defining qawā‘id al-tafsīr as “a collection of the requisites of interpretation based on principles”, its subject, “the language of the Qur’an”, is touched upon and its relation to interpretation is viewed as “inferential”. Concerning the howness in terms of morphology and study of the anatomy, it has considered qawā‘id al-tafsīr as knowledge-bestowing grammatical rules and regarded the subject of the propositions as the lingual elements and their pretext as “necessity”. Then, by studying different types of these propositions, in constitution-study discourse, we have called the subject of these propositions as philosophical concepts and their pretext as nominal with an evolutionary origin. In the discourse on the criteria for possessing attribute of truthfulness (ittiṣāf bi al-ṣidq), after we considered the interpretation’s principle in its knowledge structure as conditional (rather than categorical), its truthfulness (ṣidq) is regarded as meaning conformity of the conditional relation to actual fact of principle; and by delineating three conditions expected from a proposition, its states of truthfulness and falsehood are stated.

The Qur’an is the most important source for the cognition of Islamic rulings and knowledge; but authorities are divided over how to understand this text. The mystics, in turn, seek to understand it with a different viewpoint than others. Haralli Andalusi brings up his approach and theory in explaining the verses of the Qur’an neither as tafsīr nor as ta’wīl, but as theory of “understanding”, which is based on consolidated relation between the verses of the Qur’an and Divine Names. He has devised principles special in their kind for understanding the Qur’an and believes that tafsīr and ta’wīl are both barriers to proper understanding the Qur’an. Haralli views the principles of tafsīr versus understanding as rank of essences (a‘yān) versus traditions. Form Haralli’s perspective, human beings’ psychic and epistemic levels are in accord with Divine Names and on this basis, the human beings’ levels of understanding of the Qur’an are different depending upon their rank and level of faith, or as he phrased it, upon their heart age. Accordingly, the door to understanding the Qur’an would only open up to the servants as per their assuming the traits of Divine Names. In Haralli’s procedure of understanding, the Qur’an’s commands are arranged according to Divine Names and Attributes and the meanings of the verses are expounded with respect to the Names of Allah. The present article tries to analyze and study this approach that can be effective in the mechanism and method of understanding the Qur’an, which is highly important both in theorization and application.