authority

The pursuit of freedom has constantly been debilitated due to external shackles embodying themselves mainly with the presence of an authority that anesthetizes individuals into voluntary submission. Erich Fromm (1900-80) is the German psychologist who underscores the significance of individual freedom in his book Escape from Freedom (1941) and maintains that on the path towards freedom, individuals attempt at unshackling themselves from restrictive forces; however, as they release themselves from the restrictions of an authority and refuse to yield to its demands, individuals are left with feelings of insecurity and powerlessness. As a result, they try to compensate for the feeling of insecurity by either submitting themselves to another authority figure or becoming authority figures themselves. Within the paper, Fromm’s concept of freedom is elaborated upon and applied to Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1962). The paper discusses the two major concepts of “freedom from” and “freedom to” known as “negative freedom” and “positive freedom” and demonstrates the possibility of finding a getaway from a negative sense of freedom by investing mankind with the power of love and communication. Real freedom is not a release from external constraints but mainly a release from internal forces.

The commentary of Muḥammad b. Masʿūd al-ʿAyyāshī al-Samarqandī is one of the oldest books of narrative Tafsir. Since Tafsir Ayyashi is one of the first books of narrative Shia interpretations, it has the highest narrative validity. There are two challenging issues: first, eliminating the documents of the book hadiths; then, absence of the second part of this interpretation and only the first part is available, which continues to the end of the Surah Al-Kahf. The narrative Al-Khabar al-Wāḥid with the valid document has authority. The Tafsir Ayyashi's hadiths are Mursal regarding the eliminations of its documents, or at least their authenticity has not been proven, and for this reason, they have no authority. With description, analysis, and critique method, the present study aimed to find solutions for dissolving two challenging problems about Tafsir Ayyashi authenticity, including author authentication, reliance on retrieving documents in recent sources, scholars' trust in the book, thematology, and comparison with the Qur'an.