Interpreters

One of the most important documents that Orientalists use to doubt the authenticity of the Quran and the prophethood of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), as well as to claim that the Quran has borrowed from the two Testaments, is the similarity in the content of the stories of the prophets in the Quran with those in the Testaments. This research employs an analytical-comparative method and draws on both intra-religious (including the Quran, interpretations, dictionaries, etc.) and extra-religious references (the two Testaments, opinions of Orientalists, and historical data) to analyze and evaluate the perspectives of Orientalists around three main axes: the "origins and sources of the stories," the "way the Prophet (PBUH) accessed these sources," and the "changes to the stories during transmission." According to the findings of the study, the predominance of a historical approach to religions and the lack of attention to the unity of the divine source of monotheistic religions, as well as the Orientalists' perspective on the concept of revelation, which they perceive as a personal experience, are the most significant factors influencing the claim that the stories in the Quran were adapted from the Testaments. The results of the research indicate that the familiarity of Orientalists with the Arabic language is accompanied by deficiencies that have affected their investigations; their information is derived from Arabic sources that are sometimes partial and incomplete. Additionally, the animosity and hostile motivations of the researchers have also played a role in this regard.

Verse 172 of the Holy Quran, Surah al-Aʻrāf , is considered one of the foundational verses in Islamic thought. This verse speaks of a covenant and a promise that God Almighty made with human beings and asked them to fulfill. Islamic scholars, generally relying on certain narrations, have mentioned a concept called the "The World of Dharr " in the context of this verse. Although this concept is not explicitly mentioned in the Quran itself, its early presence in a diverse range of hadith, exegetical, theological, and mystical discourses in the early Islamic centuries indicates its importance. Despite the extensive research that has been conducted on this concept in general and specifically in the context of Verse 172 of al-Aʻrāf , there are still serious disagreements about it. The present study aims to analyze the narrations that are the source of this concept in order to deconstruct it. It also critiques the exegetical views using an approach of "Quran-by-Quran" exegesis and concludes that: first, Verse 172 of Surah al-Aʻrāf is structurally similar to other verses that emphasize the divine covenant taken from prophets, the Children of Israel, the Children of Adam, etc.. Second, contrary to what is widely believed, no confirmation of the aforementioned concept can be found in this holy verse.