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Reason and Ignorance in the Qur’an and Sunnah – Mohammad Reyshahri
In the Name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful
Introduction
Praise be to God, Lord of the worlds, and blessings upon His chosen servant Muhammad, his pure family, and his noble companions altogether.
In the introduction to the book “Knowledge and Wisdom in the Qur’an and Sunnah,” we noted that completing the discussions presented there requires referring to the book “Reason and Ignorance in the Qur’an and Sunnah.” Now, by God’s help, this fifth volume of the series is published shortly after the first volume.
Through its study of the noble Qur’anic verses and the honored hadiths, this book presents new insights in the field of epistemology, organized in an elegant manner. We hope it will attain its proper place among scholars of knowledge and wisdom.
It should be noted that the first section of the book was completed thanks to the cooperation of His Eminence Shaykh Reza Baranjkar, while the second section was accomplished with the assistance of His Eminence Shaykh Abd al-Hadi al-Mas‘udi. Here I would like to express my deepest gratitude and appreciation to these two dear brothers, as well as to all those who contributed to verifying and refining the texts or who offered any other assistance in presenting this book in the best possible form. I ask God to grant them further success in serving the heritage of the Ahl al-Bayt (peace be upon them) and pray that they receive the best reward.
Finally, we present a brief summary of our editorial methodology:
We attempted to collect all narrations related to the subject from both Shi‘i and Sunni hadith sources using computer tools, then selected the most comprehensive, reliable, and earliest sources.
We tried to avoid repeating narrations except in the following cases:
a. When there is a noticeable variation between texts with multiple transmitters.
b. When an important point lies in the differences of wording and terminology.
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c. When there are differences in wording between Shi‘i and Sunni texts.
d. When a narration is relevant to two chapters, provided it does not exceed one line.
When there are texts in which one is narrated from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) and another from the Imams (peace be upon them), we present the Prophet’s hadith in the main text and the narrations of the other Infallibles in the footnote.
After mentioning the verses of each chapter, we list the narrations from the Infallibles (peace be upon them) in sequence, beginning with the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) and ending with Imam al-Qa’im (may God hasten his reappearance). If there is a narration explaining the verses, it is presented before the others. In some cases, thematic coherence requires departing from this order.
At the beginning of each narration, only the name of the Infallible is mentioned, except when the narrator reports an action, a question-and-answer occurs, or the narrator includes a statement not part of the quoted speech.
Multiple sources for narrations are cited in the footnotes and arranged according to their level of reliability.
When primary sources are available, the hadith is نقل directly from them, while Bihar al-Anwar and Kanz al-‘Ummal are listed at the end as comprehensive hadith compilations.
After citing sources, there may sometimes be references to other works indicated by the phrase “see also,” when the cited text differs significantly from the referenced one.
There may also be cross-references to other chapters of this book where relevant.
The book’s introduction and the conclusions in some chapters present an overall perspective on the narrations of that section and sometimes clarify ambiguous hadiths.
The most important point is that we have endeavored, as far as possible, to provide a degree of authentication for the attribution of hadiths to the Infallibles by supporting the content of each chapter with rational and textual evidence.
Mohammad Reyshahri
8 Safar 1419 AH
