پژوهش نامه قرآن و حدیث
پیاپی 7 (تابستان و پاییز 1389)

Relativity of legal principles due to the changing of values and as a result of the changing of arbitrary legal principles constitutes one of the aspects of the theory of the relativity of rights. Although different communities have different understanding about the weight of values, their concepts and principles and although this disparity of ideas and at times contradictory opinions about the weight of values and their principles have caused ethics to be considered as an ultimate criterion in value systems and although following the manifestation of right as an inherent issue, the force of legal rights has enhanced, the emphasis of the Quran on the originality of right and its specifying the domain of truthful values and its reference to the nature of right and the concept of justice as one of the ethical implications, especially in phase of the tashri’ (divine legislation) immunized right from the harm of the relativity in the principles of values while accepting the relativity as an obvious choice with respect to some non-fundamental issues.

Quranic teachings clearly state that prior to the advent of Islam, People of the Book were awaiting the appearance of a great prophet in Jazitat al-Arab. The holy Quran also states that when the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) of Islam declared his prophethood, they knew him like their children. This suggests that there existed accurate descriptions about the Prophet in their oral and written tradition. It is plainly expressed in the Quran that Jesus (p.b.u.h.) had announced the coming of the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) under the name of Ahmad to his followers. In addition to all these cases, the most controversial claim of the Quran is that Jews and Christians could easily find out the characteristics of the Prophet and his followers in the Old and New Testament used by the People of the Book at the time of the revelation of the Quran. The serious question raised today is that assuming that the present Jewish and Christian holy book is the one that was wildly used at the time of the revelation of the Quran, which part or parts of it does the claim of the Quran corresponds to?Specifying the corresponding parts of the Old and New Testament, this article examines the cases implied or referred about the Prophet of Islam in the present holy book of Jews and Christians.

The importance of ethics and the role it plays in human life is evident to everyone. All the thinkers who have delved into human life and human prosperity have acknowledged the significant role of ethics in improving human life and have persistently invited everybody to adhere to issues of ethics. Allameh Tabatabaee has considered this point in his works especially in Tafsir al-Mizan as well. This paper examines his views on ethics. The paper specifically deals with ethical absolutism and rejection of ethical relativism. Allameh Tabatabaee has supported ethical absolutism in Tafsir al-Mizan and has responded to questions raised by the advocates of ethical relativism.

As an important lexical issue, synonymy has always been disputed in discussions on different semantic relationships between words. The opponents and exponents have confirmed or declined the synonymous words citing examples for it. Since synonymy plays an important role in translation and interpretation of the Quranic words, it has been of interest to interpreters in discussions related to the literary aspects of interpretation. This article aims at exploring synonymy in Tafsir-e Majma’ol-Bayan due to the outstanding literary position of this work of interpretation. Hence, reviewing the background of synonymy in literary language and referring to the viewpoints of the opponents and exponents, synonymy in Quranic sciences and its position in Majma’ol-Bayan are explored in this article. The results of our investigations indicate that Tabarsi did not believe in absolute synonymy and his reference to ‘closely-related words in meaning’ is merely intended to make the points understood by the readers and at utmost he believed in partial synonymy.

Scholars unanimously agree upon three issues related to the interpretation method of Tafsir al-Mizan: first, Allameh has accomplished a great job in creating this work; second, al-Mizan is a methodical work; third, this work has been created by paying due attention to different interpretative, narrative, lexical and philosophical views. But which method includes these three issues all at the same time? This article is an attempt to introduce this method and its positive consequences during the time of Allameh and afterwards. Using verbal and semantic proofs, Allameh nullifies a number of interpretative, narrative and lexical viewpoints and, in some cases, even leads the reader to the right vision. This feature causes ‘the meaning distinction’ not to pursue a wrong course and helps transcending route of the meaning of the verse be determined. Allameh tries to be cautious in a large number of cases and does not give a definitive idea about different issues, but rather attempts not to let the reader gain a wrong understanding. We call his method tanzih-e ma’na (transcendence of meaning) and attempt to introduce the methodology of al-Mizan with a tanzih-e ma’na approach in Sura al-Najm. Two aspects of tanzih-e ma’na approach can be examined: examples of tanzih-e ma’na and more importantly culture of tanzih-e ma’na. Prevention of mind confusion, collective connotation of some narrations and edification of a method related to semantics of words, i.e. philology, are some other features of tanzih-e ma’na.