The Effect of the Reasons for Revelation in the Understanding of the Qur’anic Text of the Scholar Sheikh Muhammad Hadi Al-Maarifa and Sayyid Muhammad Husayn Al-Tabataba’i

The scholars’ views regarding the extent to which we need ‘the occasions of revelation’ in understanding the Qur’an, range from the impossibility of understanding the verses without knowing occasions of revelation, to the lack of the need to know the occasions of revelation. This research tries to find out the status of the narrations of ‘the occasions of revelation’ and the extent to which we need them in understanding the Qur’anic text, the criteria for accepting and refuting these narrations, and how to treat their weakness, and focuses on the opinions of two contemporary scholars who have had a great role in contemporary Quranic studies; i.e. Muhammad Husayn al-Tabataba’i and Muhammad Hadi al-Ma’rifah, may God have mercy on them.  Introducing the two scholars and their scientific method in understanding the Qur’an, by researching and examining their works, I have concluded that Tabataba’i does not rely on ‘the occasions of revelation’ in his interpretation for some reasons; including that the reliability of many of those narrations is not proved to him; and that he believes what is narrated as ‘the occasions of revelation’ is the deduction (ijtihad) of the early exegetes, meaning it is an opinion based on a guess and not a quotation heard from an Imam; and that he believes understanding the Qur’an – which is the book of guidance and clarification of everything – cannot depend on some narrations that their reliability is itself dependent on the Qur’an; and also because he believes whatever we can deduce from these narrations, can be understood from the context of Qur’an’s verses and their internal and external indications. Ma’rifah believes that these narrations have a great role in understanding the Qur’anic text, but interpretational narrations, including the narrations on ‘the occasions of revelation’, have some defects. However, he believes there are some ways to scrutinize the narrations and treat them and find the steps for this treatment, which includes trusting the narration’s chain of narrators, or proving the tavator or istifazah of the narration – even if only the meaning of the narration has tavator or istifazah – or considering that the narration of ‘the occasions of revelation’ definitively solves the verse’s problems and removes the ambiguity of the verse; this is a witness to the validity of the narration in itself, even if the narration is not sahih (authentic) or hasan in its chain of narrators.