فصلنامه تحقیقات کلامی
پیاپی 23 (زمستان 1397)

Necessity of acquiescence (taslim) toward the infallibles (AS) is one of the most important Islamic Shariah teaching that, according to the Shi’i thought, its domain is extended until the acquiescence toward the Ahl ul-Bayt (AS). Accurate grasp of acquiescence and logically explaining it demand analysis of the bases of this religious teaching. Considering the importance of acquiescence and its effective role in attaining faith (Iman), ignoring the bases of this acquiescence would result in incorrect conceptions such as compulsory imposing of idea on the audience and bring about an illogical picture in the mind of the audience. In the present research, the rational bases of acquiescence are explained on the basis of the infallibility of the Ahl ul-Bayt (AS) as well as the imperfectness of the human intellect. In addition, the believers testing, precautionary concealment approach, occurrence of ambiguity in the Infallibles speeches and the difficulty of their affairs are counted as the narrated bases of acquiescence. It has been cleared, through research, that obligation of acquiescence toward the Ahl ul-Bayt (AS) doesn’t mean a blind following and putting aside the reason in accepting the religious issues but it is based on strong bases that will convince the reason on the necessity of the acquiescence.

The article has been organized in order to show the Imamiyyah Kalami line in the city of ‘Askar Mokram in the time distance of the third/tenth and fourth/eleventh centuries. The main goal of this research is to know and review of the hidden and unknown layers of the history of the Imamiyyah thought in the first centuries. The main question of this research is that in what extent were the activities and role-playings of the Imami theologians on the city of ‘Askar Mokram. It seems that, among the majority of the Mu’tazilites active in the city of ‘Askar Mokram in the region of Khuzestan, there were numbers of the Imamiyyah theologians that were leading the Imamiyyah Kalami trend in that region. Although the mentioned Imami thinkers due to their mutual cooperation with the Mu’tazilites were of the same views as the Mu’tazilites, in the issue of Imamah they succeeded to some extend to change the view of the Basrah Mu’tazilites about the priority of Imam Ali (AS). Making prominent the importance of this city in the realm of Imamiyyah Kalam between the schools of Kufah and Baghdad are counted one of this research’s results.

The highest place in the view of the Muslims is the eminent place of his majesty the Last Prophet (SAWA) which has no alternative. On the basis of authoritative and decisive documents among the two Sects denoting the purgatory living of the prophets, there is no difference in the Prophet’s place before and after death so that all the Muslims consider being present by his illuminated grave equal as being present in his illuminated presence in the time of his material life and they enthusiastically go to his pilgrimage and pray God there. However, in the seventh/fourteenth century Ibn Timiyyah al-Harrani tackled some views that not only has ignored the public Muslim believes in pilgrimage and expressing politeness and courtesy for the grave of the Prophet but also has often claimed consensus on them. The important question is that whether Ibn Timiyyah’s claim for scholars’ consensus on these views is true? With a descriptive-analytic method, this article discusses this topic and, on the basis of the Sunni works, prove the falsehood of the majority of the abovementioned claims.

An epistemological contemplation on the theological disputes of Imam al-Reza (AS) with the approach of examining the confrontation of religion and reason shows that, by confirming the function of reason before and after the religious faith and emphasizing on its role in rejecting or accepting the religious beliefs, he allowed the critical analysis and examination of the religious beliefs. Without considering the rational reasons as contradictory to faith in God, he regarded them as effective in examining the religious beliefs. Nevertheless he admits the limitedness of reason in decisive proving the religious beliefs and, considering this point, he proceeds to prove the religious beliefs. By comprising three current approaches in the western thought that is maximum rationalism, fideism and critical rationalism with the theological disputes of Imam al-Reza (AS), one can see the nearness of the approach of Imam al-Reza (AS) with critical rationalism that at the same time that confirms the possibility of rational criticism and examination of the religious beliefs, in contradiction to the maximum rationalists doesn’t want to decisively prove them and convince all others.

A part of the illuminated Qur’nic verses explain the virtue of some certain people that discovering the objective cases of these verses is very important in finding life patterns trekking the way of happiness. The purification (tathir) verse is one of these verses that divine Prophet (SAWA) and his companions especially his wives had very attempts to explain its objective cases and prove its limitedness in “people of kasa” in order to prevent any ambiguity. Nevertheless, various purposes brought about some misunderstandings in the objective cases of this verse so that every religious sect tried to add a group to the cases. One example of these misgivings is the widespread attempts of the majority of the Sunnis to enter the Prophet Wives in the objective cases and comprehension of the title of “Ahl ul-Bayt” (the people of the Prophet’s house) of them. For proving this claim, they argued to some narrations. The important question is that are the claimed narrations sufficiently prove their claim? With a descriptive-analytic method, this essay exactly examines the narrative arguments from the perspective of the Sunni authentic hadith and rejal sources. The most important achievement of the present writing is the view of some Sunnis on the inclusion of the tathir verse of the Prophet wives is incorrect; because there are numerous narrations from both Sunnis and Shi’as on the limitedness of the verse to the “infallible and pure Ahl ul-Bayt”. On the other hand, the documentations of some the claimed narrations are seriously blemished and some generalizations for some wives like Omm ul-Salamah are after the revelation of the verse. Thus one cannot accept the claim of the Sunnis in this issue.

The discussion of the first created thing in the being system is one of the discussions and issues considered by human beings. Therefore there have seen various and, sometimes contradictory, views in the scholars explanations in this regard. In the Ahl ul-Bayt (AS) narrations, the being of the early matter and basis ingredients named as “place”, “air” and “water” has been mentioned. Considering the approach and argument, the Shi’i scholars theorized one of them as the earliest in determination or in sequence. By analyzing and examining of the narrations on the basis of the rules of grasping the narrations (fiqh ul-hadith), this writing considered “air” as the first creature of God, however, not as one of the four basic elements, but as an infinite sphere and space that had come into being before every creature, even prior to the light beings.

In the discussion of the divine names and attributes, Mulla RajabAli Tabrizi, as the leader of the philosophical trend opposing the Transcendental Wisdom (al-Hikamat ul-Muta’aliyyah), has views are completely different of the Transcendental Wisdom and near to the Kalami views. By negating any kind of cognation (senkhiyyah) between the necessary and the contingent and believing in pure heterogeneousness between God and creation and also believing in the heteronym of being and attributes of the necessary and the contingent as well as negating any shared meaning in this regard, he results the theory of negation of the divine attributes and believes in the divine essence deputyships of the attributes in the discussion of the ontology of the divine attributes. Because there is no concept indicating the divine essence and its perfections in his point of view, the positive theology is not acceptable in the semantics of the divine attributes. He proposes three kind of theology as negative, action and functional that accordingly the divine names return to negation of the imperfections or to creation of perfections or function of perfections. But by proposing this type of theology, there appear some issues and problems such as leading to negation of the two contradictories, leading to entering middle between negation and affirmation and the impossibility of proving the existence of God. Mulla RajabAli answered these problems on his own bases. In fact, these problems have been proposed on some bases that are not accepted by Tabrizi. The most important deficiency of Mulla RajabAli’s point of view is the ignorance of the heart and innate knowledge of God.