فرزانه روحانی مشهدی

The peresent study aims to address the issue of how occasions of revelation <em>(asbāb al-nuzūl</em>) affect the understanding of the Qur’an. It also provides a basis for evaluating the impact of cultural studies on Qur’anic comprehension in prospective research. To accomplish this objective, the narratives of occasions of revelation were collected from three well-known resources, regardless of their documental and textual credibility, and their role in understanding the relevant verses was quantitatively and qualitatively evaluated. Consequently, twelve qualitative roles were identified and each narration was quantitatively assessed with a score ranging from zero to three. Statistical analysis of the data revealed that 10% of the entire Qur’anic verses have occasions of revelation in the mentioned sources. About 10% of the studied verses (1% of the Qur'an) are completely dependent on the occasions of revelation to be understood, according to the evaluation method and assumptions of the survey. In 72% of the verses (7% of the Qur'an), the occasions of revelation have an impact on a better understanding of the verse, even though in the first encounter the verse has a customary appearance and no ambiguity. Likewise, 8% of the occasions of revelation examined have no impact on the understanding of the verse. Thus, the role of the occasions of revelation on the apparent meanings of the verses, although undeniable, does not create a significant dependency, since the impact of most of these narrations (82%) is as much as a slight improvement in the initial understanding of the verse (scores 1 and 2), so that the occasions of revelation is not the sole means of achieving a secondary understanding of the verse.

In theological debates about the creation of human and the theory of evolution, “the theory of creation” means the creation of human at once by the creator of the universe, and “the theory of evolution” means the natural, normal, and gradual creation of human in the evolutionary cycle of life. The question is whether the Qur’an also views human creation as contradictory to his natural and evolutionary genesis. This study shows that the Qur’anic concepts of creation (khalq) and selection (iṣṭifāʾ) based on the contextual analysis of these vocabularies allow for an evolutionary reading of human creation. Creation means the emergence of phenomena in a natural, time-consuming, step-by-step process with the interference of natural laws supported by God’s command. The meaning of the presence of divine command in all stages of creation is the consciousness of all the objects and their components which is effective in the process of creating an organ along with other factors. Also, the concept of selection of Adam suggests that Adam was chosen among his contemporaries as the first modern human being because of his physical and mental superiority, and his creation was not at once, unnatural and unrelated to previous generations. 

Proving the miraculous nature of the Qur’an as one of the methods to believe in the Qur’an as a divine text has always attracted the attention of the researchers of the Qur’an; nevertheless, the published efforts on this subject are facing numerous methodological challenges. This research attempts to introduce a new and original method exempt from the challenges of the present methods by utilizing some of the techniques in mathematical sciences, logic and statistics. This scientific case-based method rates the effective parameters in the recognition of scientific miracle for one case. Accordingly, it will calculate the certainty of each case and proceeds to combine the ratings of various cases of scientific miracle to calculate the degree of certainty of the divine nature of the book based on those results. In combining the ratings, a threshold will be determined based on human belief behavior. An advantage of this method is that it is extra-religious, data driven, quantitative, applicable to all texts, and generalizable to the entire content. 

Some religious modernists believe that correct and scientific comprehension of the Qur’an is merely provided through historical and cultural study of the context of revelation time. Others, on the other hand, advocate that knowing interior and connected evidence suffices for Qur’an comprehension. Further, they say that exterior and unconnected evidence such as cultural and historical studies can have little effect on Qur’an comprehension. These various attitudes made us research them and represent a model to assess the dependency of Qur’an comprehension on cultural and historical conditions of revelation time. The present study examined works of scholars in this field such as Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd, Khorramshahi, and Tabatabaei through a descriptive and analytical method. Then, a model was recommended to evaluate the dependence of understanding of the Qur’an on the cultural and historical conditions of revelation time. The model includes four components: cause of revelation; vocabulary; subject matter; expressions which encompass twelve rules based on the features of verses in each component. Input of the model is one verse and its output is a dependent, independent, or semi-dependent mode.