Al-Tafsir
Quick Facts
Biography
Tafasir Al Quran(Persian:تفاسیر قرآن) are collections of books as commentaries on Quran written by Mulla Sadra.
Author
Ṣadr ad-Dīn Muḥammad Shīrāzī, also called Mulla Sadrā (Persian: ملا صدرا; also spelled Molla Sadra, Mollasadra or Sadr-ol-Mote'allehin; Arabic: صدرالمتألهین) (c. 1571/2 – 1640), was an Iranian Shia Islamic philosopher, theologian and ‘Ālim who led the Iranian cultural renaissance in the 17th century. According to Oliver Leaman, Mulla Sadra is arguably the single most important and influential philosopher in the Muslim world in the last four hundred years.
Mulla Sadra brought "a new philosophical insight in dealing with the nature of reality" and created "a major transition from essentialism to existentialism" in Islamic philosophy, although his existentialism should not be too readily compared to Western existentialism. His was a question of existentialist cosmology as it pertained to Allah, and thus differs considerably from the individual, moral, and/or social, questions at the heart of Russian, French, German, or American Existentialism.Mulla Sadra's philosophy ambitiously synthesized Avicennism, Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi's Illuminationist philosophy, Ibn Arabi's Sufi metaphysics, and the theology of the Ash'ari school and Twelvers.
Commentries
Among comentaries interpreting the Quran, Sadra's interpretation are considered as eminent and valuable. His interpretation of the Holy Qur'an is limited to only some of the verses and chapters and does not include all of them. Sadra first show a linguistic and semantic discussion in the beginning of every chapter and verse. then he refers to philosophical problems in the verse and afterwards tries to explain it. He also marks the beginning of his interpretation of each verse with the main title and names the successive stages of his philosophical discussions with secondary titles such as "inspirational unveiling", "explanation and expansion", "merciful wisdom", and "note".
According to Fazl Al Rahman,Sadra's religious works probably written after maturing his philosophical thought.Hosein Nasr knows the commentaries as an important sample of Hermeneutic and esotric interpretation on Quran.
These interpretations are based on philosophical,gnostic and intuitive approaches.In Fact these interpretations written during the different parts of his life. These collection which amounts to 8 volumes are among the shia heritages of Tafsir.
The first part concerned with the interpretations of Surat Fatiha al-Kitab.Mulla Sadra there referred to hadiths and other resources for interprating these Surah.
The second part concerned with the interpretation of chapter al-Baqarah from verse 1 to verse 22.according to Mulla Sadra, God created whatever in the universe of form, Also creates its equivalents in the universe of meaning which is hereafter. Also third and fourth volumes concerned with chapters of Baqarah.When Mulla sadra is interpreting 45 verse, There He referred to meaning and concept of transmigration and its explanations.Also He mentioned the aims of the verse. In fifth volume, Mulla Sadra devoted to interpret two eminent verses namely Ayat al-Kursi and Ayat an-Noor.Mulla Sadra reminds those who are not care about the veral meaning of Verses that changing the veral concepts of words lead to confusions.therefore According to Him, we Have to interpret Quran in the same way that ordinary people understand it.In the interpretation of verse an-Noor, Mulla Sadra concerned with problem such as the meaning of light and other subjects. Mulla Sadra discusses the interpretation of as-Sajda and al-Hadid chapters in sixth volume.Nearly also Here He try to follow from his methods which applied in interpreting the other verses namely egining with semantic subjects and considering with philosophical problems. He devoted in 7th and 8th volumes to the interpretation of Chapter Ya-seen.The other commentaries by sadra are as follow:Interpretation on Surah 56(al-Waqi'ah),Surah 57 (Al-Hadid); Surah 62(al-Jumu'ah);Surah 65 (al-Talaq);Surah 86 (al-Tariq),Surah 87(al-A'la);Surah 93 (al-Duha);Surah 99 (al-Zilzal).