نشریه پژوهش های ادیانی
پیاپی 16 (پاییز و زمستان 1399)

Benevolence is one of the valuable moral concepts that has been seriously and fundamentally emphasized in the teachings of Islam and previous religions. According to the biblical texts, it can be said that the ultimate goal of the divine religions is the expansion and extension of charity. In the Quran and the Bible, valuable verses and teachings have been mentioned, the practice of each of which can guide man to his destination and smooth the path for his approach to God more than before. This research has been done based on descriptive-analytical method and with the aim of applying the view of the Quran and the books of the Bible about the examples of "benevolence". As a result, according to the verses of the Quran and the teachings of the Bible, a clear picture of the real position of the Quranic teachings in the institutionalization of moral teachings and its greater impact on the teachings of the Bible can be provided. The results of a comparative study show that the examples of "benevolence" in the Quran and the Bible include zakat (almsgiving), charity, donation, feeding the needy and affection that can be assigned to different groups of society; but the difference is that in the Quran, benevolence is more diverse and emphasized than in the Bible.

Verse 82 of Surah al-Nisa is one of the most famous verses of the Holy Quran, to which is referred in numerous subjects. Among the various topics related to this verse, the present study explores the connection that this verse has established between the humanity of the text and the suffering of multiple differences. Therefore, it seeks the fundamental question, whether human texts in general and always have multiple differences, or the Quran has a special feature that its reproduction in human texts leads to multiple differences. For this purpose, in an analytical-critical approach, the views of the commentators on the difference mentioned in verse 82 of Surah al-Nisa have been examined and tested in terms of the possibility of their conforming to human texts and the content of the verse itself. Studies show that the difference that the Quran is free from and that human texts will be affected if they are similar to the Quran refers to the extensive network of semantic implications in the Quran. Thus, human texts in general do not suffer from multiple internal differences and contradictions, but only when they are intended to have such network implications as the Quran, internal inconsistencies arise.

The origin of religions, especially Islam, is one of the important topics that orientalists have addressed during their religious studies. The study of the history of Islam at the same time as the translation of Islamic texts in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries attracted the attention of Europeans, but serious attention to this aspect of theology in the West dates back to the early nineteenth century, which coincided with historical criticism of religious texts. The present paper is a translation and analysis of the article "The Periodic Division of Early Islam Based on Its Relations with Other Religions" by Dutch theologian Jacques Waardenburg, which examines the history of early Islam and the development of a new religious movement during its ongoing interactions with existing religious minorities at the time, and concluded that Islam, in its communication process, experienced a conceptual transformation from "religious edification" to "reform movement" and ultimately changed into an independent religion.

The problem of evil is one of the confusing issues of man that shakes his relationship with Almighty God, the All-Knowing and the Pure Benevolent, in practice and directly or indirectly overshadows the relationship of human beings with each other. The purpose of selecting the novel as part of theological research was to adopt an exclusive interdisciplinary method so that with the literary approach, dimensions of meaning can be seen at different levels. In this article, the nature, instance, and function of evil, the relation of man with evil, the relation between evil and original sin, and the church's confrontation with evil, based on the views of old and new orthodox theologians have been investigated as well as the theological concepts of the novel, the Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Contrary to the views of Catholic and Protestant theology, original sin has little to do with orthodox theology. Dostoevsky's belief in the purity of children from original sin is also in line with the Orthodox tradition, but in spite of the different orthodox positions, the author seeks the forgiveness of all sinners in the mentioned novel. Furthermore, in orthodox theology, one of the functions of evil is the knowledge of good and bad, but in the novel, such knowledge is not valuable. The influence of orthodox theology on Dostoevsky's novel, the Karamazov Brothers, and on the other hand the intermingling, dependence, and complementarity of good and evil are among the results of this study.

The question of the origin, the quality of the creation process, the transformation in existence, the purpose of creation, the identity and destiny of man, all of them, are rooted in anthropological ideas that have been discussed in religions heterogeneously. The emergence of man in the form of origin, according to the ancient Mesopotamian tradition, is related to the dynamics of the ancient human mind, which was associated with cosmic and galactic affairs and considered as a consequence of Gods' militancy. The emergence of man in the narration of the Torah is related to the creation of the universe in the temporal process, which, in chronological order, provided the ground for the creation of man who was shaped in the form of God by the nature of the soil. The Holy Quran, by reflecting the pre-Islamic structural model of creation, while reconstructing and designing a new system in the light of unity, has narrated the origin of the creation of the universe and man. This research, through library and comparative studies, seeks to examine traditions and reveal homogeneous and heterogeneous themes of ontological and anthropological components of the origin. As a result, it has found that the difference between the traditions is due to the special discourse and the perspective of the texts.

Although the history of the use of the Old Testament in the interpretation of Quranic verses dates back to the beginning of Islam, direct quotations from its Hebrew text are very rare among Muslims. Shams al-Din Deylami is the only mystic who has referred to the Hebrew and sometimes Arabic text of the Torah in his mystical interpretation Tasdigh al-Maaref, in order to explain some stages of human journey to God and man's position in creation, and also to prove the legitimacy and superiority of the Holy Prophet (PBUH). His use of the Torah text has caused him to pay more attention to the issues raised in the Quran and to have a different view of mystical and spiritual subjects than the mystics before him; As in one case he did not consider it permissible to shift from exoteric meanings to esoteric ones, and in another case he made a mistake in explaining the mystical subject of the unseen men. In the present article, we have tried to compare his interpretation of the above-mentioned issues with the interpretation of the mystics before him, while narrating the expressions that Deylami has quoted from the Torah in explaining some religious and mystical issues.

The mystical views of Ibn Arabi and his students in dealing with the subjects of perfect man, guardianship and knowledge entered a different field from the perspective of earlier Shiite theologians through the reflections of Shiite scholars considering the relationship between Imam and knowledge. Apart from a group of Shiite scholars who have remained silent about the Imam's knowledge, the early Shiite scholars, accepted this view on the Imam's knowledge and believed that although the his knowledge is complete, the scope of the Imam's necessary knowledge is only in matters of religion and rules, and the knowledge of other issues, techniques and news is not related to his Imamate. Later, under the influence of the spread of the thoughts of mystics, particularly Ibn Arabi, a group of Shiite thinkers believed that the Imam's knowledge is absolute. Some Shiite theologians, especially Seyyed Heydar Amoli, by inserting the teachings of Ibn Arabi and his school of thought in explaining the structure of Shiite belief, provided the basis for the emergence of an intellectual combination of theology, philosophy and mysticism in Hekmat Motealiyeh (transcendent wisdom). By explaining the teachings of Ibn Arabi and introducing the Shiite guardianship and clarifying it by his Shiite commentators, theologians such as Ibn Abi al-Jomhur, basing the issue of Imam's knowledge on these teachings and expressing ladunni knowledge (God-given knowledge) and generalizing it in all levels, have considered the Imam's knowledge absolute. In this paper, using descriptive-analytical method, we have tried to explain the scope of the Imam's knowledge by focusing on the views of Sayyid Morteza in the Baghdad school and the influence of Ibn Arabi school on the deep understanding of knowledge in Shiite theologians, and also by concentrating on the views of Ibn Abi al-Jomhur with emphasis on the book of Mojalli Mirat al-Monji.

Neo-orthodox Christian theology, also known as neo-reformist, crisis, or dialectical theology, was the first voice against liberal Christian theology which prevailed in Western civilization in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Neo-orthodox theologians, though not entirely in agreement with each other, are unanimous in their opposition to the teachings of liberal theology and in their new return to orthodox theology. Reinhold Niebuhr is the main founder of American neo-orthodox theology. Anthropology is the main focus of his theology, which forms the basis of his theological teachings of social ethics and political theology. He has the most optimistic pessimistic view of human nature in the neo-orthodox theological approach. The theology of soul and the theology of sin are prominent in his anthropology. In Niebuhr's thought, man is a self-transcendent and self-conscious soul with dialectical relations in paradoxical situations. Man is inevitably a sinner although sin is not necessarily his nature. The first sin is not inherited in man, but in the tendency to rebel he is against God.

The focus of this article is on exploring what religious meaning (not the meaning of religion) is and how it functions in constructing individual and collective behaviors and actions that have been carried out by adopting social constructivism as a theoretical-methodical approach. From the point of view of social constructivism, religion is a sacred canopy (according to Berger), whose remarkable power in giving meaning to all aspects of human life in individual and collective forms, has made it one of the most immortal and effective semantic systems in human life. Thus, even in the age of post-secularism, the nature of religion as a semantic resource has been consistent, albeit with different representations, but steadily with ups and downs. Constructivists believe that religion is a purely collective and interactive semantic system that functions as the dominant semantic system that makes the world and its phenomena comprehensible, purposeful, and justifiable for believers, and even when this dominant system, individually and collectively, is in trouble, a temporary meaning derived from it acts as a provisional and sometimes permanent alternative, constructing and directing multiple identities, behaviors, and actions.

Believing in justice and defeating oppression in different periods of Iran's history have created many intellectual and political schools; Horufiyeh and Ekhwan Al-Safa are among the sects that emerged in Iran with a justice-spreading approach. Although they differ in time, they have remarkable proportions in both field of thought and action; Horufiyeh like Ekhwan Al-Safa, theoretically, places great emphasis on the superiority of words and letters, and believe that only words enjoy originality. In general, the sphere of action i.e. practical policy is the main point of contention between the two sects; however, there is, theoretically, not much difference between them. Accordingly, the main question of the present study is what are the similarities and differences between the theoretical and practical foundations of Sharia from the perspective of the Ekhwan al-Safa and Horufiyeh? The hypothesis of the research is that although Ekhwan Al-Safa and Horufiyeh share the same views in the field of theoretical foundations of Sharia, they differ in the field of practical foundations, which is related to politics. Using a descriptive and analytical method, this research has been carried out with the aim of examining the intellectual and practical generalities of Ekhwan Al-Safa and Horufiyeh in the fields of religion and politics.

Examining the role of religion and the evolution of religiosity in Western European societies, as secular societies, has always been important. Given the period from 1980 to 2010, this article seeks to answer the question of what changes religiosity has undergone in Western European societies, especially in the two dimensions of belief in religion and practice of religious beliefs. To answer this question, we have used the survey method and data analysis. In this regard, a survey program entitled "Study of European Values" examined the ideas, attitudes and values ​​of citizens in various fields including religion and religiosity since 1981 and in the form of five study waves (1981, 1990, 1999, 2008 and 2017). The survey data have been used in this article to explain and analyze the discussion. Considering indicators such as theism, religious rites, church attendance rate and adherence to traditional rituals in important matters of life (birth, marriage and death), the findings of this study show that the process of secularization in Western European countries, both in terms of belief in religion and in terms of practice of religious beliefs, has intensified and the role of religion in the lives of Western European societies is much more declining than before.

This article first deals comparatively with the image of Eve as the first woman in the story of the creation of the Quran and the Bible, and discusses the dimensions of human status, guilt in the descent, and punishment of her first sin. It then examines and compares the consequences and representations of this theological image in the literature and art of the Christian and Islamic worlds. This goal is achieved by collecting data and exploring library documents and artwork, usingmicro and balanced comparison study in the first part i.e. the examination of the story of creation in the Quran and the Bible, and unbalanced comparison study in the second part i.e. the investigation of the effect of theological sources on literature and art. The result of the study shows that the image of Eve in the Bible is not free of anti-feminist myths. Furthermore, the creation of the left rib, Adam's temptation, guilt in the descent and punishment of Eve are depicted differently from Adam, while the Quran does not depict such an image.  However, in addition to Western literature and art, which represents the Bible's image of Eve, some Islamic literary and artistic works are also influenced by the same image and do not correspond to the Quranic image of Eve.