Molla Sadra's Approach to Allegorical Interpretation

Molla Sadra's approach to confronting the apparent meanings of the Quranic verses is different from that of the famous commentators and philosophers. When faced with such meanings of the Holy Quran, which are difficult to adhere to, they provide allegorical interpretations and distance themselves from the apparent meanings of the words. Most of these meanings are about describing God with attributes that make him similar to his servants. In addition, the apparent meanings of the verses related to resurrection have also been subjected to allegorical interpretation. However, Molla Sadra is one of the opponents of the allegorical approach and in his works, especially in Tafsir Quran Karim and Resaleh Moteshabehat al-Quran, he discussed the issue of allegorical interpretation while discussing the similar verses. By implicitly dividing interpretation into correct and incorrect, he considered the main approach of incorrect allegorical interpretation to be not adhering to the apparent meanings of words. In his opinion, the apparent meanings of verses and narrations should be accepted as they are, without any changes, at least until there is a sufficient reason and proper justification for it, which is not found in many issues such as the resurrection. Therefore it is possible to accept everything that is mentioned in the verses and hadiths in this regard, in its apparent meaning. However, Molla Sadra is also afraid of falling into superficialism and rejects it and mentions the correct allegorical interpretation or research. Thus, he is looking for a theory that can preserve the apparent meanings of words and does not contradict rational principles. He considered the theory of the spirit of meaning to have these two characteristics. This article explains Molla Sadra's approach to criticizing allegorical interpretation and his arguments. It also deals with how Molla Sadra criticizes the theory of metaphor and instead defends the theory of the spirit of meaning.
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