Methodology of The Book Al-Burḥān Fi Tafsīr al-Qur’an

The book Al-Burḥān Fi Tafsīr al-Qur’an by the great traditionist Sayed Hāshim Baḥrānī is an encyclopedia of exegetical traditions. The Qur’an exegesis is a knowledge of discovering Allah's Wills, which may be represented through two methods of intellect and narration. The present paper, based on the descriptive-analytic method, seeks to discover the bases, principles, and method of selecting narrations in the commentary of al-Burḥān and its strengths and weaknesses, as well as the important viewpoints of this great Shi'i scholar on main issues. Findings show that the author, based on his own methodology of authenticating narratives through the validity of quoting them in major Hadith Collections and because of their reference to the dignity and merits of Ahlulbayt (PBUTH), has mostly expressed the certain quantity of hadiths on particular subjects. He has rarely paid attention to the qualitative and intrinsic analysis of hadiths. Accordingly, he has paid only to chains of transmitters and the multiplicity of ways of quoting them for a bunch of narratives, regarding to the attributes of sands such as ḥusn (goodness) and tawātur (repeating) for the validity and authenticity of the traditions, and for a range of narratives he has looked at content and the existence of contradictions between them, in where he has confined in the “summarized notional conclusion”.