It is obvious that the different categories mentioned in the...
It is obvious that the different categories mentioned in the above narrations are to be found in the Qur'an, and each of them calls for meticulous and intensive study and investigation. In this article, however, we will confine our discussion to only some aspects of the verses, zawahir al-Qur’an, muhkamat and mutashabihat, the takhsis (limitation) of the general statements of the Qur'an by khabar al-wahid, and some other issues.
The Authority of Zawahhir al-Qur'an: That zawahir (literal meanings) of the Qur'an have authority (hujjiyyah), in that laws can be deduced from the same, is something to be recognized at the outset. The Akhbhris did not consider the zawahir of the Qur’an as a valid basis for action for anyone except the contemporaries of the Holy Prophet (S). They exclude even those who were not present during the period of revelation in Madinah.
They believed that the zawahir had authority only for those whom the Qur'an was orally addressed to. They held the conviction that the Qur’an is unlike other scientific books, whose authors generally do not have any specific audience in their minds, having only the exposition of their ideas in view. On the contrary, the Qur’an involves particular addressees to whom it speaks (elsewhere we have discussed the invalidity of this view and given answers to some of the doubts raised by the Akhbaris).
The Usulis on their own part have advanced elaborate arguments upholding the validity of the Qur'anic zawahir. Muhkamat and Mutashabihat: The Qur'an itself expressly states that its verses are divisible into two groups: muhkamat and mutashabihat (3:7). Since the faqih has to deal with both the kinds in the process of istinbat (legal deduction), it is necessary to discuss even if in passing the nature of the two.
The term `muhkam' is derived from `ihkam', signifying something that is stable, and firmly established and is not vulnerable. Accordingly, the muhkamat are verses which are clear and firm, easy to understand without requiring any special investigation and research. When different components of something have similarity and are of an ambiguous or complicated kind, it is called `mutashabih'.
Likewise, verses with ambiguous meaning and susceptible to various probabilities are called mutashabihat. Their comprehension is not easy without close examination and investigation in depth. To quote a tradition in this regard: Abu `Abd Allih (al-'Imam al-Sadiq) (A) was asked about the muhkam and the mutashabih.