نشریه دین و دنیای معاصر
سال ششم شماره 1 (پیاپی 10، بهار و تابستان 1398)

According to Abdolkarim Soroush there are some dreamlike expressions and phrases in the Holy Qura’n. As he suggests, they should be interpreted as the dreams of the Prophet rather than the very word of the Almighty God as the commentators have assumed up to now. Among the evidences he suggests to prove his idea is the Verse 6 of Chapter 81 when God says: “when the oceans boil over with a swell”. Due to the literal potential of the word “سجر ” from the early beginning up to now Muslim scholars have interpreted the verse in several ways understanding it as normal. Dr. Soroush, however, presumes that the verse means: when the oceans are set afire or aflame which, according to him, is a dreamlike and surreal phrase. This article studies different meanings of the root سجر from a philological point of view along with an intertextual study of the root in Arabic poems before Qur’an and contemporary with it. The study suggests that when the root سجر accompanied with words like sea, well, lake, river and so forth it means concepts such as raising, swelling, disappreance, mixing or boiling of water. However, the sense of raising up is more common among others. All these possible meanings for the word سجر are very common and reasonable in the framework of philological and literal standards. Therefore, there is no reason to count the phrase in the verse out of ordinary and common framework of Arabic language. This means that the verse is, in no way, evidence in favor of the idea of Qur’an as dreams of the Prophet.

Do all components of religion enjoy the same degree of importance, or some are more and some are less important? Some have stated that religion includes a core and a shell, or in other words, a sell and a pearl. However, the applications of core and shell or shell and pearl to religious teachings are not appropriate and true, because they have no real value. Sometimes the technical term "essential and accidental" has been used in religion which if the purpose of the use of religion refers to the teachings of religion, such use is not exact. This study demonstrates that religion consists of a substance and a soul or a body and a spirit which here soul or spirit is of great important and all other component parts must be measured by the spirit that is existed in all members of the body. The importance of each member is measured by the soul. Being essential or accidental or being fixed or variable of religious rules depends on the spirit.

In a traditional society, religious skepticism results in intellectual and behavioral anarchy, unless the standard method of doubting is followed. In this article, through providing an interpretation of Cartesian rules for doubting customary beliefs, I present a set of rules as the principles that must be followed in revisiting religious beliefs. After a short review of the roots of religious skepticism, I discuss the destructive impact of personal predispositions on one’s religious judgement. Then, through elaboration of logical structure of a belief system, I elucidate how fundamental doubts epistemologically differ from the rest. Next, I argue that how theoretical and behavioral skepticisms are different and how important it is to demarcate these two, when we doubt our religious beliefs. Finally, I discuss the ethic of religious skepticism and social responsibilities of religious intellectuals.

The issue of the "comprehensiveness of the Qur'an", which has become doubly important in our time, has long been cited by Islamic thinkers as one of the miraculous aspects of the Qur'an; However, this term is an emerging word and has been mentioned in the works of its predecessors with titles such as sciences derived from the Qur'an. In principle, the comprehensiveness of the Qur'an in the scope of guiding and meeting human needs is not a difference between Shiites and Sunnis; But in the examples, the quality and scope of the comprehensiveness of the Qur'an and the rulings are many differences that can not be easily ignored. In this article, while examining the two views of maximum and minimum and applying Sadegh Balaid's theories with these views, the originality and superiority of the moderate view is revealed. In the maximum view, the Holy Quran is comprehensive and complete of all divine and human knowledge and subjects. On the other hand, it is a view that considers the concepts and teachings of the Qur'an as individual and related to the afterlife of human beings, and has even given a minimal opinion on jurisprudential issues. This view is endorsed by Sadegh Balaid, a professor at the University of Tunisia, in his book, The Qur'an and Sharia.

The right to life is one of the most fundamental human rights, Which is the basis of other rights. On the other hand, the right to life includes the aspect of obligation. Although the right to life is reflected in international human rights instruments, it has previously been emphasized in the Holy Qur'an and Islamic traditions. The importance of the right to life in religious sources can be traced to issues such as the sanctity of suicide, suicide, child murder, and fetal murder.

Having doubt or being certain is one of the basic matters of knowledge. Therefore the praise or the reproach of conjecture or surmise in the Holy Qur’an is a fundamental issue which leads to the reflection on the cognitive principles of knowledge. Reviewing some verses of the Holy Qur’an may imply that following any surmise is reproached; therefore the cases in which the surmise of some believers is praised, should have an esoteric interpretation. Many theologians and interpreters believe the devotees should have firm beliefs and surmise is not valid in this regard. Therefore they interpret zan as certainty in the verses which praise the zan (surmise) of believers. The verses which praise or reproach zan in the Holy Qur’an, their contextual clues and the words which are in the same semantic field are studied in this research, using the semantic methodology. Therefore the conceptualization and weltanschauung of the Holy Qur’an on admirable and non-admirable zan is discovered. This research shows that the syntagmatic, paradigmatic and opposite vocabulary in the semantic field of zan do not provide any contextual clue for the interpretation of zan as certainty in the mentioned verses; there is no restraint to interpret zan according to its literal sense and it is rather compatible with the originality of the text, and God’s absolute knowledge and wisdom.