Hassan Rezaee Haftadur; Mohammad Qasemi Shoob; Safar Nasirian
Abstract
Nowadays, the discussion of religion territory is one of the important and challenging debates in the Islamic world. Sayyid Aḥmad Khān Hindī has been the first thinker who followed his contemporary orientalists in talking about the boundaries of the Quran and sunna territory. The viewpoints that ...
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Nowadays, the discussion of religion territory is one of the important and challenging debates in the Islamic world. Sayyid Aḥmad Khān Hindī has been the first thinker who followed his contemporary orientalists in talking about the boundaries of the Quran and sunna territory. The viewpoints that Sayyid Aḥmad Khān has provided in defining the boundaries of the Quran and sunna territory can be examined and evaluated in four directions, namely, sunna is the spirit of the divine message and its interpretation, and is similar to the Bible in this regard, sunna is mainly measured by intellect, and the otherworldly matters comprise the only arena of sunna revelation. However, there are some important criticisms against his viewpoints. First, he likens the sunna revelation to the Bible revelation, while there exist important differences between the two. Second, his consideration of the details of the sunna revelation as stemming from exegesis arises from Sayyid Aḥmad Khān’s viewpoint on the nature of revelation and his attribution of a human source to it. Third, adopting a strategic viewpoint to the qur’ānic verses leads us to the point that the human is created by God, and his will existentially and legally depends on His will; therefore, despite having the grace of intellect, he faces limitations in all paths of knowledge. Fourth, his viewpoint on revelation is similar to the Christian thinkers’ stance in this regard, and this viewpoint does not agree with the infallibility of the prophets.
Hassan Rezaei Haftader; Safar Nasirian; Hosein Alavimehr
Abstract
The beginning of interpretation is among the important topics that have been attended in the history of interpretation. Accordingly, the orientalists also have paid special attention to this issue. Part of the article "Interpretation in the early days of Islam and the middle ages" by Gilliot, a contemporary ...
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The beginning of interpretation is among the important topics that have been attended in the history of interpretation. Accordingly, the orientalists also have paid special attention to this issue. Part of the article "Interpretation in the early days of Islam and the middle ages" by Gilliot, a contemporary orientalist, is about the interpretation in the early era of Islam and its validation. Gilliot has in particular examined the previous works on the narrative interpretation in the early era of Islam. His main opinions about the narrative interpretation in the early era of Islam are as follows: (1) the Prophet's (s) era is the starting point of the interpretation; (2) during the Companions' era, ten of the Companions were among the famous interpreters; (3) during the Companions of the Companions' era, ten Companions of the Companions were among the famous interpreters; and (4) the writing of the interpretation starts after the three foregoing stages. He deems the first three stages of interpretation – that coincide with the first century AH – as the oral interpretation era, and the fourth stage – that coincides with the second century AH – as the written interpretation era. However, based on the Islamic sources, despite Gilliot's ideas, the early era of narrative interpretation has the following features: (1) the oral interpretation that entails the first three stages is wider than what has been claimed by Gilliot concerning the number of narrations, the number of narrators, and the validity of the narrations and (2) the beginning of the written narrative interpretation goes back to the time before the second century AH, i.e. the first century AH.
