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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books On the Shore of Contemplation, Volume 1 Foreword By Ayatullah Shaykh Mirza Ja’far Subhani The asking of questions and giving of their answers – as a pretext to guiding others – is one of the methods which the Qur`an has placed a great emphasis upon.

Indeed, human society has been invited to approach the scholars and those aware of their cultural surroundings to ask them questions in order to overcome their ignorance, just as we read: فَاسْئَلُوا أَهْلَ الذِّكْرِ إِنْ كُنْتُمْ لاَ تَعْلَمُونَ “ So then ask those of the Reminder if you do not know .”[^1] The Qur`an has not sufficed with this ruling of the people asking [and waiting for their answer from their scholars] and thus, we see that in some of the questions posed at the time of the message [revelation of the Qur`an], the answers were clearly delivered to the people [by the Prophet of Islam (SAWW) himself].

Such verses in the Qur`an are noted by the word ‘يسألونك’ or ‘They ask you (O’ Muhammad!)’ – and this phrase has been used fifteen times[^2] in various chapters of the Qur`an. The world today, thanks to the various tools of mass communication, has been transformed into a global village in which the people’s ideologies and thoughts are quickly disseminated throughout the world.

Due to this, the youth of today come across a series of new questions and there is nowhere they can turn in order to solve their dilemmas except the scholars of the Divine teachings.

In the hopes of fulfilling the noble goal of guiding the youth and providing answers to their questions, a department was formed at the ‘Imam as-Sadiq (AS) Teaching and Research Institute’ under the banner of the ‘Department of Answering the Theological Questions’ in which a group of graduate students who have specialized in the Science of Kalam (Theology) have taken it upon themselves to answer the various theological questions coming to this organization by keeping in mind the horizon of thought of the youth.

At this point in time, we are pleased to present a section of the questions and answers which have been compiled under the auspices of this humble servant and have been researched and written by the respected scholar, Aqa Akbar Asad Ali Zadeh and to present this work to the scholars and researchers of the community.

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