Mohammad Ali Tabatabai
Abstract
The pillars of the heavens have been articulated in the Quran in a manner that has enabled the commentators throughout history to interpret it in two completely different ways, one indicating the existence of invisible pillars for the heavens, and the other denying the existence of any pillar for them. ...
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The pillars of the heavens have been articulated in the Quran in a manner that has enabled the commentators throughout history to interpret it in two completely different ways, one indicating the existence of invisible pillars for the heavens, and the other denying the existence of any pillar for them. Although these two interpretations are apparently based on their own literary analyzes of the text, the studies of this article show that the acceptance or rejection of either of the above two interpretations is based on prior theories in the fields of theology and cosmology as well as the relationship between the two, rather than on literary rules. Therefore, with the passage of time and the occurrence of changes or corrections in each of the above two areas or the relations between them, the interpretation of the verse undergoes new revisions. With a historical approach, this article examines how these interpretive developments occurred as a result of theological and cosmological developments over the past fourteen centuries and shows that these developments can be classified into three distinct historical periods related to the developments of theology and cosmology.
