Qoran Shenakht

One of the prerequisites of interpretation of the Quran is having access to the reading communicated by the holy prophet. Allama seems to believe that this type of reading is hidden among other variants. Thus he has paid attention to variant readings in order to restore the authentic one and taken it into consideration in authoring Al-Mizan. Rejecting the theory of successive narration of readings and considering them the only dominant ones, and not confining the authentic reading to Asim’s, he takes other readings into account too. According to Allama, there are three characteristics available in these readings: validity of the chain of transmission, following Arabic grammatical rules, and conformity with calligraphy of the codex. According to Allama, the evidence leading to restoration of the reading recognized by the holy prophet are more eloquency, context of the verses, morphological rules, consistency with the general idea of the verses, rational arguments, and traditions. Relying on the traditions of the infallible, Allama believes that they have ordered following the well known and dominant reading. Thus he relies on the readings attributed to the Infallible Imams only in supporting his own opinions or in interpreting the verses.