نشریه قرآن پژوهی خاورشناسان (قرآن و مستشرقان)
سال نهم شماره 2 (پیاپی 17، پاییز و زمستان 1393)

Concerning the complete introduction of the Qur’an, its chronology and collection of the Qur’an, source of revelation and order of revelations many books and articles have been written by many Muslims and non-Muslims scholars. In this regard encyclopedias have played significant role. The Americana encyclopedia is a general encyclopedia has some of its articles directly or indirectly deal with the Qur’an. In this article, we have tried to deal with some of their articles that are related to Islam, Allah, Muhammad, and the Qur’an and have critically examined their positive and negative aspects.

This article is written to review the work of Professor Dammen McAuliffe that he has written concerning the Qur’an and its exegesis. He is a prominent western known for his Qur’anic research and in his many works he has dealt with the Qur’anic exegesis too. He considers the Qur’anic text as an impressive and authoritative but in terms of the document he has some objections. Such as the collection of the Qur’an not taking place in the life time of the Prophet, dependedy on the Qur’an on ahadith. These two objections are against the profound proofs that claim the Qur’an was compiled in the life time of the Prophet and therefore, enjoys the status of uninterrupted transmission. McAuliffe has classified the history of the Qur’anic exegesis into three stages: Genesis, classical and modern. The main objection in his work is that during explaining the famous exegetes amongst the companions of the Prophet he ignored the name of Imam ‘Ali and considered the authenticity of the qur’anic exegesis relying on hadith. His interpretation of the modern era exegesis is as the continuity of the same classic era with a change, which helped the emergence of new interpretive voices having the most important characteristics of this age. This orientalist has tried his best to present the useful information utilizing two famous exegeses of entitled ‘al Burhan’ and ‘al Itqan’.

Muslims are of the opinion that the source of Islam is the Qur’an and believe that it is from God and is a revealed book. However, most of the orientalists who claim to be Islamic experts have serious disagreement with regard to Islamic Source, origin, foundation and revelation with Muslims. Therefore, there is a serious need to analyze the origin, foundation and resource of the revelation. So that it should be clear that first what do they mean by revelation? Secondly, what is the base of their understanding? Thirdly, what is the source and base of their opinion? Fourthly, why these Orientalists insist on their findings and want to inseminate the same to others and by this what objective they are looking for? Hence, in this context it is necessary to answer the aforementioned questions and deal with the concept of revelation from its fundamentals using epistemological, linguistically, semantically and methodological sciences. Through this, the process of orientalists’ criticism to revelation will be much clear and smooth and at the same time it will clear the motivation lying behind orientalists’ insistence upon inseminating their understandings.

The article Usury is one of the articles of Leiden encyclopedia that Masud al-alam Chowzri has written. The writer in his article has endeavored to find out a general Qur’anic perspective on Usury and is of the opinion that religion and economics both have paid attention to this concept. Therefore, it prohibition in the qur’an has been presented with warning and predicting a difficult time. In this paper, we have endeavored to focus on writer’s positive points and have critically analyzed his shortcoming and have dealt with its etiological aspect in the Qur’an. Usury and its use is similar to suppression, consumption of illegal property, infidelity and apostasy, and it is a hindrance in the way of development and progress and its consumption is equal to fighting God and His prophet.

‘Guardianship is mentioned as one of the supportive, emotional and economic behaviors in the Qur’anic teachings that carries positive impact on individual and society. This article has been written by Avner Giladi in the Qur’anic encyclopedia of Leiden. He, after presenting the definition of guardianship, explains its application in the Qur’an and has made a systematic study of the Qur’anic verses that deal with this subject and has made a general observation of the responsibility of a guardian with regard to children and women living under them. Non-survey of the meaning of guardianship in the Qur’an and wrong perception of generosity and using it in place of guardian and vague validation of the word ‘orphan’ caused inadequate explanation of the Qur’anic verses and limited the meaning of guardianship merely into economical support. This was due to little awareness of original Islamic resources and ignorance of some prominent features of the religion. These were some prominent analysis that can be seen in the article of Avner Giladi and we have critically examined them in this article.

The article ‘ambiguous’ written by a Jew orientalist Lee Ken Burge has been published in the Qur’anic Encyclopedia of Leiden. In the beginning of the article she has explained some meaning of the ambiguity and has explained some aspects of it. In the first meaning she has related ambiguity with the miracle of the Qur’an while in the second meaning she has discussed about abrogation and abrogated verses, permissibility of the exegesis of the Qur’an and miracle of the Qur’an. The present paper deals with the positive and negative aspect of the same article. Referring the appropriate translation of the Qur’an and mentioning different views are the positive aspect of the article. On the contrary, the article is not comprehensive and shi’a sources have not been referred properly and by intermingling verbal and semantic ambiguities and using inappropriate substantiations for the verses are the negative aspect of this article.

Amongst the eternal and universal teachings of Islam, nothing is more deliverable than the Mahdavi government especially, in today's world. It is a government that will implement peace and Justice even for non-Muslims. In this article, we have mentioned some of the famous orientalists such as Henry Korbin, James Darmesteter, Gerolf van Vloten, Edward Brown, Ignác Goldziher, David Samuel Margoliouth, Joseph Arthur de Gobineau, William Rowan Hamilto, Annemarie Schimmel ideas about Mahdaviyat and their influences and opinions on this issue have been dealt with.