Criticizing the Principles of Interpretations of Jurisprudential Verses of Nu'man, the Judge

The ta'wils (interpretations) of Nu'man Ibn Hayyūn, the judge, of jurisprudential verses reflects his doctrinal view that is completely affected by the teachings of Esma'ili school of thought. Accordingly, he classifies the religious rules into seven bases under the title of da'ā`im including “guardianship”, “purity”, “ritual prayer”, “fasting”, “alms”, “holy war”, and “Hajj pilgrimage”. He relates each of these da'ā`im to one of the verses of the Holy Quran, and ascribes each to one of the messengers of God or Imams and holds that each part of these rules has hidden aspects that merely symbolize the knowledge of Imam. In the exegesis of the jurisprudential verses and rules, he believes in principles such as conformity of the manifest and hidden aspects, similarity between mathal wa mamthūl, knowledge, confession, faith, and the traditions. However, on the one hand he is not adherent to them in his judgments, and on the other hand most of his judgments that results in the statement of manifest and latent meaning or symbol and allusion, based on the difference between tafsir (exegesis) and ta'wil (interpretation), are exegesis but not interpretation. In addition, despite the need for presenting a proper and logical context and reason for deviating from manifest meaning, he has not presented a convincing evidence. It can be concluded that the intervention of his doctrinal view in the interpretation of legal rules has led to extravagant exegesis and taking away from the main purpose of legislation of and therefore weakening of that rule.