درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

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. 

One of the phrases that has been considered by most commentators with the approach of empirical science is “the darkness of the three (the three veils of darkness)” in the verse (Q.39:6). They have interpreted this combination as the three darknesses of the abdomen, uterus and amnion-chorion. A view has also been put forward by contemporaries, which considers it as the spaces between the abdomen and uterus, the flesh of the uterus and the amnion, the amnion and the fetus, and has considered such an interpretation as an example of the scientific miracle of the Qur’an. In the meantime, another approach can be taken and based on the descriptive-analytical method and with the focus on the interdisciplinary approach, what is the “darkness of the three” is examined. Accordingly, by relying on the symbol of “complete and dense indifference and shapelessness before creation” for “darkness of the three,” this phrase can be considered as the platform for the formation of protein structures (based on genetic information contained in DNA codes), which are the cornerstone of the structure and biological processes of living organisms (without the production of proteins, no biological processes will be formed and no cells and organs will be made). It should be borne in mind that this interpretive possibility is also compatible with the components of the scientific miracle of the Qur’an. 

Panpsychism in philosophy of mind is the view that mentality is fundamental and ubiquitous in the natural world. The view has a long and venerable history in philosophical traditions -both East and West- and has recently enjoyed a revival in analytic philosophy. Thus, in conjunction with the widely held assumption that fundamental things exist only at the micro-level, panpsychism entails that at least some kinds of micro-level entities have mentality, and that instances of those kinds are found in all things throughout the material universe. We can see something like this in Mulla Sadra's Transcendent Philosophy. Mulla Sadra claims that all things enjoy some kind of intelligence and understanding. On the other hand, many verses of the Holy Qur'an either explicitly or implicitly assert the presence of understanding and intelligence in all things. In this article, I will explain all three issues (Panpsychism, Mulla Sadra's view, and relevant verses of the Holy Qur'an), then I will make it clear that Mulla Sadra's view and Qur'anic statements are consistent with at least some versions of the Panpsychism.

The narration of the life of some of the past tribes who lived after Noah has been mentioned in detail or in summary in the Qur’an. The fate of these tribes has mostly ended in divine punishment, which based of the geographical location, the type of sins of the people, and other reasons, this punishment has had different external manifestations, such as storm, ṣayḥah, sinking into the ground and drowning in water. Since the function of ṣayḥah (which is translated as loud and strong sound) as a destructive force is not as clear as the other punishments mentioned, the main goal of this research is to scientifically explain the function of ṣayḥah as a divine punishment. Due to the semantic similarities of ṣayḥah to sound wave (a type of pressure wave), the proposal here is the correspondence of ṣayḥah to shock wave which can be defined as a strong sound wave with a large amplitude. Recent advances in science have shown that this type of wave has a very high destructive power and has the ability to cause serious damage to living tissues of the body.  In this research, first, the different meanings of the word ṣayḥah have been studied according to Arabic lexicons, and then the verses of the Qur’an related to punishment by ṣayḥah that some past tribes have suffered have been carefully investigated. After studying the possibility of the destruction of the ṣayḥah, both in terms of the Qur’an and the latest developments in physics, as a suggestion for scientific interpretation, shock wave, which is a type of sound waves, has been proposed as a possible example to the punishment by ṣayḥah.