Journal of Contemporary Islamic Studies
Volume:3 Issue: 2, Summer-Autumn 2021

Terrorism is an act whose nature and outcome is violence and fear. Regardless of the different forms of the realization of this act in the past, it has taken new forms in the contemporary era due to the advancement of sciences and technologies. To face this phenomenon, then, it is necessary to foresee and apply appropriate and favorable measures. As a victim of internal and external terrorism, the Islamic Republic of Iran has adopted special strategies based on the teachings of the Islamic Law, the Iranian Constitution, the national laws, and the international documents to fight against terrorism. This study set out to examine and explore the legal strategies – or more particularly, the legislative strategies – used by Iran to address terrorism manifestations.  The results revealed that Iran's anti-terrorism measures are mainly taken from the rules and findings of the Islamic Law, though it partly relies on the findings of the international law. Changes in the terrorists' performance urge the Iranian government to use the international documents and obligations as a model in addressing the new forms of terrorism and their formation and enhancement grounds, bring about changes in its legislative system, and introduce more organization into its strategies in this regard.

Although Islam does not deem all rulings related to mosques as applicable to temples, it regards the temples of the People of the Book in most cases similar to the Islamic mosques, and so, rules Muslims’ prayer saying in the temples of the People of the Book as permissible. The Qur’ān’s recommendation to venerate the divine waymarks – including the temples of the People of the Book – also involves the shrines of the prophets and Imāms (a), as suggested by Islamic narrations and the unity of basis. The use of the temples of the People of the Book to augment oaths in cases such as mutual cursing and also the consideration of the temporary marriage of a Muslim man with a Christian woman whose previous divorce is made in the court rather than church as invalid show that Islam respects the beliefs of the People of the Book about their temples. An examination of the qur’ānic verses indicates that the word masjid has a general and specific meaning. Its general meaning (as prayer site) involves the temples of the People of the Book, while its specific meaning (as mosque) has the same meaning that is common and famous among Muslims.

Although ‘Allāma Majlisī did not intend to write an exclusive ethical book or propose a coherent ethical system in the various volumes of his book Biḥār al-Anwār, the analysis of the discussions he has made about the qur’ānic verses and traditions provides a comprehensive ethical doctrine. In addition to emphasizing on the role of rationality  in the explanation of theoretical and practical teachings of ethics, this doctrine pays special attention to the basic role of religion in the interpretation of spiritual foundations of conducts as well as the ethical and pedagogical aspects such that it gives in a complete and in-depth overview of the virtues and principles of Islamicethics. On the other hand, the philosophical and ethical ideas of Miskawayh are also so wise and sagacious of its kind. His attempts in shedding light on imaginative and confirmatory principles of ethics, creating coherence between philosophical teachings of Greek and Islamic ethics, and explicating the four classes of ethical virtues as well as their subcategories based on religious tenets are considered scholarly, valid, and thorough. This study focuses on a comparative survey of the ethical principles and ideas of ‘Allāma Majlisī in Biḥār al-Anwār and Abū ‘Alī Miskawayh in Tahdhīb al-Akhlāq. Then, by the analysis of these two ethical approaches, it is attempted to analyze their similarities and differences as well as their pros and cons in the clarification of Islamic ethics.

In his book Al-Qur’ān wa kafā maṣdaran lil-tashrī‘ al-Islāmī,Subḥī Manṣūr relies on the Qur’ān to try to introduce the Qur’ān as the only source of legislation in Islam and prove the non-authoritativeness of the sunna of the Prophet of Islam (s) . He claims that the qur’ānic verses reveal that the Qur’ān is a complete book that entails all truths, introduces itself as sufficient for the guidance of people, and prevents people from referring to any source other than itself. In the opinion of Subḥī Manṣūr, the presumptive nature of the issuance of traditions and the policy of Ḥadīth writing prevention by the Prophet (s) form another indication for the sufficiency of the Qur’ān for legislation as well as the negation of any authoritative role for the sunna in this regard. However, it seems that to fulfill and confirm the Qur’ānism theory, he has treated the qur’ānic verses selectively, has made interpretations that disagree with the linguistic context of the verses, has ignored the texts that point out the authoritativeness of the sunna, and probably has suggested uncommon justifications for them.

Some believe that Ibn Abī Jumhūr Aḥsā’ī‘s tradition studies in the 9th century LH and his research procedure set the grounds for traditionalism in the ensuing centuries, and so they introduce him as part of the textualist and anti-intellectualist movement. Reviewing Aḥsā’ī‘s view to intellect as the most important criterion for the separation of textulism and intellectualism based on his theological, jurisprudential, and traditional worlds, this article tries to remove him from the list of textualists and criticize the stance that considers him as the leader of traditionalism. Along with the biography and works of Ibn Abī Jumhūr, the effects of Ḥilla theology-tradition school, philosophers’ opinions, his trust in intellect in the beliefs and practical intellect domains, his attention to the relationship between intellect and Islamic law, and his consideration of intellect as one of the proofs for Islamic rules are the evidences that this article presents to prove the intellectualism of Ibn Abī Jumhūr and to distinguish him from traditionalists. The research method of this descriptive-analytical article is document analysis using various Islamic texts.

If we assume that the textual words are issued by God and that what we call as the texts of the Qur’ān and the Bible have different readings and manuscripts, then the question that arises is that the meaning of which reading and manuscript can be taken as valid and congruent with the divine intention. Paying attention to the different readings and manuscripts of the texts of the Qur’ān and the Bible has a significant effect on understanding these texts. Therefore, the study at hand discusses the issue of different readings and manuscripts first in the Qur’ān and then in the Bible. The result is that the difference in the readings of the qur’ānic and biblical texts is due to the absence of diacritics and vowels, and this is more frequent in the Qur’ān. However, the issue of different manuscripts exists more intensely in the Bible, because unlike the Qur’ān, the legalization of the Old Testament and the New Testament has had a gradual process.

With the fall of the Ottoman Caliphate, the idea of reviving the Islamic caliphate spread from the east to the west of the Islamic world. It was as if the Sunnīs, who had not experienced the world without a caliph before, were astonished and each of them formulated the idea of the caliphate in the Islamic world. As a well-known Pakistani writer, Israr Ahmed is one of the most important theorists in this field in the eastern part of the Islamic world. His thought was a reflection of the three streams of thought that started from Azad, Iqbal, and Maududi, showing its influence in a period and under its socio-political conditions. In the present article, the main issue is to introduce the ideas of Islamism and the Islamic Caliphate as well as the intellectual transformation of Israr Ahmed in a chronological manner and historical context and to explain his political thought in this field. According to the historical-analytical method, Israr Ahmed first followed Azad’s thoughts in the idea of returning to the Qur’ān and the idea of Iqbal's intellectual reform. To do so, he established Markazi Anjuman for Khuddam-ul-Quran in 1972 and publicized it in his writings. Next, the effects of the revolutionary thoughts of Maududi and the reforming views of Iqbal manifested themselves in his views. He then established Tanzeem-e-Islami in 1975 and Tahreek-al-Khilafah in 1991, returning to Azad’s views and Maududi’s Islamic Revolution in order to realize an overarching revolution as well as the caliphate system. The latter stage in his political theory was a combination of traditional Sunnī views on the caliphate system and modern western governance.

Responding to the challenges and changes in the modern world, Muslim scholars have considered the social status of women in Islam through various approaches. They have published some works regarding the crisis deriving from the modernity-tradition struggle and conflict. This survey is done through an analytic-descriptive and documentary approach. In this article, the woman status in society is investigated through two perspectives, namely the perspective of Sayyid Quṭb based on the traditional “Amendatory Fundamentalism” approach and the perspective of Naṣr Ḥāmid Abū Zayd based on the modernized “Amendatory Neo-Separatism (neo-Mu’tazila)” approach. The results show that while the amendatory fundamentalism scholars refer to tradition as well as Islamic meta-time and meta-place precepts as a solution for the problems of the Muslim women in contemporary societies – therefore, trying to conform modernism and tradition by focusing on Islam –Abū , the neo-separatism amendatory modernized scholars (based on the perspective of Abū Zayd) seek to reconstruct the tradition and conform Islamic precepts and modernity through considering a priority for the modernism and the “contextual” and “timely” Quranic precepts.

“Life” and “death” are among the most frequent words that have grabbed the attention of people during the history. The minds of many scholars, philosophers, and religious thinkers had been engaged for long with exploring and explaining the meanings of these words. The Arabic forms of these terms (ḥayāt and mamāt) are also used in the Noble Qur’ān frequently in various forms with different meanings. In this paper, an attempt is made to give a clear picture of the qur’ānic plan for the ultimate desirable human life, called “the goodly life” (ḥayāt ṭayyiba), as the best form of human lifestyle according to the viewpoints of ‘Allāma Ṭabāṭabā’ī in al-Mīzān. After introducing the basis of his novel interpretive methodology, we proceed to examine the hidden layers of his idea on the goodly life based on his method. He, as the great contemporary Shī‘a exegete, finally concludes that those who have reached this level of life are a completely different type of human beings with their special properties different from the public.

The question of the origin of life on Earth is one of the fundamental but controversial subjects hotly disputed among the scientists and the religious circles. Therefore, the purpose of this research was to examine the qur’ānic and experimental scientific perspectives on the issue of the origin of life on Earth. In this paper, after examining the literal meanings and the technical usages of relevant terms, the relationship between the Qur’ān and experimental science is examined. The qur’ānic verses (including the Qur’ān 21:30 and 24:45) and the interpretations of the Muslim qur’ānic exegetes have been discussed. Thereafter, some prominent scientific theories/hypotheses such as the special creation, aquatic origin, spontaneous generation, eternity of life, evolution, and RNA and DNA worlds are discussed and critically reviewed. The descriptive-analytical research method was used in this study, is and the findings showed that the Qur’ān discusses the origin of life on the Earth mysteriously and it does not offer a single, unified theory regarding it. Likewise, the majority of the theories/hypotheses proposed by the ancient and contemporary scientists on the origin of life on Earth are not in conformity with the qur’ānic report.

Ibn Jawzī’s commentary Zād al-masīr fī ‘ilm al-tafsīr is a narrative and oration-based commentary belonging to the 6th century LH. According to its author, this commentary is one that is not too brief or too voluminous, but is an average-sized one. Therefore, this article is to express the method and status of Ibn Jawzī’s commentary. Zād al-masīr commentary is a summary of his larger commentary titled “Al-Mughnī fī tafsīr al-Qur’ān” that covers all verses of the Qur’ān. The dominant method of this commentary is narrative, i.e., it relies on the narrations of the Prophet (s), the Companions, and the Successive Companions. In his commentary, Ibn Jawzī provides general information about each chapter; he starts with giving a given chapter’s name, merit, revelation order, and number of verses, and then presents its occasion of revelation, discussion of language and its related evidences, the meaning of words, and the opinions of other exegetes in a satisfactory manner. Finally, he addresses the rulings derived from the verses, the abrogating and abrogated verses, and their different readings. At the end, it is concluded that Ibn Jawzī’s commentary is among the high-status Sunnī commentaries of the 6th century LH.

According to the teachings of the Qur'ān, the mother is obliged to breastfeed her baby up to ‎‎twenty-one months ‎after the baby’s birth. It is clear, however, that besides feeding on milk, the baby ‎‎needs certain care to keep on nourishing; ‎and this care is to be performed, in normal ‎‎circumstances, by someone who has the strongest emotional and physical ‎relationship with that baby. The issue of custody, which regards the question on who is responsible for this, is brought up ‎when parents are divorced; but in case of continued matrimony, this issue is out of the discussion ‎because ‎the ‎parents cooperate in taking care of their child. The custody of the child, although ‎after being ‎weaned, is the main ‎responsibility of the father; however, the mother is also given the ‎right to ‎undertake this responsibility up to when ‎the child is seven if so she wishes, irrespective ‎of the child's ‎gender.