Document Type : Original
Authors
1 Associate Professor, Department of Exegesis and Quranic Sciences, Imam Khomeini Educational and Research Institute, Qom, Iran.
2 Assistant Professor, Department of Exegesis and Quranic Sciences, Imam Khomeini Educational and Research Institute, Qom, Iran.
Abstract
Proper interpretation of the Quran follows principles, rules, and a systematic method whose application leads to discovering God’s intended meaning of the verses. Some scientistically inclined Muslim scholars, driven by religious and scientific motives, have engaged in the interpretation of Quranic verses concerning the creation of the world and humanity. This article examines and critiques the exegetical interpretations of three such figures—ʿAbdul ʿAlī Bāzargān, Ḥasan Yūsifī Eshkavarī, and ʿAbd al-Ṣabūr Shāhīn—regarding the verses on human creation, and through these critiques reveals the validity of their interpretive logic and method. The research employs a library-based method for data collection and a descriptive-analytical-critical approach for analyzing and evaluating the exegetical views of these three scholars. By exposing the methodological and epistemological errors in their interpretations, the study also points to the correct way of interpreting those verses within the critiques. The findings indicate commonalities in their exegetical interpretations and similar errors in their interpretive methods. Each of their interpretations of the verses on human creation contains numerous errors. Many of these interpretations suffer from methodological weaknesses, including invalid lexicography, neglect of the interrelation between verses, and weak synthesis of the indicative meanings of the verses. Another error is that their interpretations are often based on prejudgment; by assuming the theory of the evolution of species as certain, they have sought their desired meaning from the verses on human creation and imposed their presuppositions on those verses instead of relying on valid exegetical criteria.
Keywords
- Scientistic Muslims
- Interpretation of the Verses on Human Creation
- Exegetical Errors
- ʿAbdul ʿAlī Bāzargān
- Ḥasan Yūsifī Eshkavarī
- ʿAbd al-Ṣabūr Shāhīn
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