Context and Spontaneous Occurrence of Meaning in the Exegetic School of Allameh Tabatabaee

Document Type : Research Article

Authors

1 Associate Professor of Quranic and Hadith Sciences, Imam Sadegh University

2 PhD student in Quranic and Hadith Sciences, Imam Sadegh University

Abstract

The term context and its usage have had a slow development in the history of the exegesis, but in Allameh Tabatabaee’s Tafsir-al-Mizan, it has been used widely. In fact, it is one of the most basic principles in Allameh’s method of interpretation, i.e explaining verses by relying on the very text of the book (Quran by Quran exegesis method).
However, there are some instances of overlooking context when Allameh has either given an independent interpretation of ayas (verses) or has done it next to contextual interpretation. This is not a sign of irregularity but rather the predominance of Spontaneous occurrence of meaning in some cases.
The remarkable point is that though Allameh has utilized Spontaneous occurrence of meaning instead of context, he has not used the former as an independent term. The article has tried, next to the mentioning of Allameh’s basic exegetic method, i.e the usage of context, to offer an explanation of different kinds of context and its usage conditions, and finally extract the principles of usage of both context and Spontaneous occurrence of meaning in Quran by Quran exegesis method.

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