نشریه قرآن پژوهی خاورشناسان (قرآن و مستشرقان)
سال هفتم شماره 2 (پیاپی 13، پاییز و زمستان 1391)

The first part of the paper offers briefly the translation of the very entry. The second part deals with the content and structure of the entry. However, the writers initiated the topic with a neat etymology of the Quranic vocabularies but their work is undermined of the following structural lapses: a prelude lengthier than the real body of the discussion, showing tendency toward particular religious groups, lacking scientific objectivity in numerous cases, taking relative pluralism for guaranteed and criticizing the Quranic teachings with these concepts. From the content voice, this article suffers the following points: having less profundity in cognition of the Quranic vocabularies, introducing the Quran as a vague text, having no precise comprehension of the Quranic account on pluralism and neglecting the pluralistic aspects in its accurate Quranic sense. The writer touches all these points and remarks in his paper.

In general, the orientalists have inaccurate foundations and preconcepts in most of the academic debates and try to prove [impose] their skeptical attitude in the Quranic discussions. One of the important topics in the debate of religion and science is description of the relation, foundations and pre-concepts of religion and science, where many Muslim and Christian intellectuals have talked about the issue. The present paper studies some of the orientalist's following suppositions on contradiction between science and religion: the human nature of the Quran and designating a monopoly right and authority for empirical sciences in humanities rather than religion. As such, hepoints at the doubts of contradiction between the Quran and the scientific interpretation and that the Quran is affected by the dominant culture of the era of revelation. With studying all these presuppositions it will be proved that their efforts in substantiating contradiction between the Quran and science is in vain. Their [theoretical] foundations and presuppositions are subject to a number of serious challenges and criticisms.

“Sira and Quran” is one of the many entries in the Leiden Encyclopedia of the Quran written by Wim Raven and partly deals with Sira and historiography. The writer of the article gives an account of several meanings of Sira, historiographer, the genres of Sira and finally Sira and historiography. He while pointing at different views of the western historiographer begins historiography from the latest century telling that historiography of the Sira and Quran are part of theorientalist's view [or initiative]. The critic of the article with referring to the sources, completes his discussion giving a more complete history of historiography in the west, and invalidates their views on historiography of the Sira and Quran while making use of the Quranic verses.

The orientalists have paid huge attention to the objectives of the prophet's battles and expeditions and produced many works on the subject. Most of the orientalists are of the view that he used to pursue materialistic ends from his battles being in line with the primitive wars and raids that were waged to exercise political and economic domination. The present paper after reporting the classified orientalist's views studies their opinion from perspective of the Quran as a road map of the prophet. The writer offers three main arguments to prove that the Holy war [Jihad] in Islam is defensive and substantiate that there lies contradiction between the orientalist's opinion with that of the Quranic teachings. Those three arguments are as following: strengthening of the military force and facilities are limited to defend Islam and the Muslim territories only, second, the order of waging holy war is confined to battles with the hostile and arrogant non-believers. Finally, the Muslim are to have peaceful coexistence with the people of the book and pagans if they remain non-violent.

The present article gives an introductory and analytical account of the entry “Ascension” in Leiden Encyclopedia of the Quran. Michael Sells puts forth arguments to underestimate the Quranic foundation of the Prophet's night journey [ascension]. He while pointing at the first verse of chapter al-Isra studies the prophet's from perspective of origin and destination. Moreover, he touches the first verses of chapter al- Najm and finds an inter-textual link between the verses of the two chapters. The given article comprises many positives and negatives. The points that can be argued are as following: the Quranic foundation of ascension, the prophet's claim that he had no other miracle, ascension in the sleep, in the night of destiny either the angel is revealed or the Quran and that chapter al-Najm describes the event of ascension and night of destiny.

W. Montgomery Watt is one of the Orientalists Quranic researchers and Christian historiographer who has dealt with the personality, lifestyle of the prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him and his households) and the Quranic subjects from a historical and analytical perspective. He has based his research on a critical analysis of the earliest sources. One of the important topics the orientalists including W. Montgomery Watt have dealt with is revelation. Revelation and its related issues are of high significance among the Muslims. The current research tries to describe and analyze W. Montgomery Watt's reflections on revelation that are derived from his most important works on the Quran, history of Islam and prophetic lifestyle. The current paper deals with W. Montgomery Watt's most significant views as following: the lexical and technical concepts of revelation, the difference between revelation and inspiration, the origin and purpose of revelation and the methods of descending revelation. Moreover he touches the doubt or certainty of the prophet on receiving the revelation, revelation and cognition of the world, revelation and intervention of God in the history, the impact of the prophet's personality on the form of revelation, fallibility of revelation and the human nature [characteristics] of the prophet (peace be upon him and his progeny).

The article “study of the orientalist's view about sufficiency of the Quran and denial of traditions” that was published in the eighth issue of the journal of orientalist's Quranic research has dealt with the refutation of Awire's notion on sufficiency of the Quran. The present article is a complementary to aforementioned paper. In this study, the writer after citing many recommendations deals with the problems and challenges of Awari's views. The first fundamental problem, he is involved with, is subjective interpretation and that he pays no attention to other verses of the Quran. Then, he puts forth the Quranic, historical and rational arguments to prove the authenticity and functionality of the traditions. Based on several verses it is proved that the Quran is a historical fact and the best evidence on this account is the Shiite and Sunnite canonical collections of traditions. Moreover, the Muslim intellectual's criticism of some weak or fabricated traditions does not necessarily entail the denial of the whole traditions.