Community and its Philosophical Authenticity in the Qur’ān According to the Viewpoints of ‘Allāma and Muṭahharī

Beside many verses addressed to human individuals in the Qur’ān, there are verses that have addressed an issue far beyond it. This same issue has become a subject of deliberation for the interpreter-philosophers as to whether God’s intention in these verses is an independent phenomenon called “umma” (community) or not. Some have opined about the philosophical authenticity of community on the basis of these verses and some others have merely regarded as demonstrable its being conventional and subordinate. This article is intended to state the more defendable view with reliance on the Qur’ānic verses and employing the history’s philosophical data, hypothesizing that the identity of a community is an independent issue and enjoys philosophical authenticity, so that human beings’ togetherness creates a power distinct from that of individuals. On this basis, the main question of the article is the quality of the community’s identity from the viewpoint of the Qur’ān. The method of explaining the theory is through studying the verses related to the category of umma, according to the viewpoints of the two contemporary scholars, that is, ‘Allāma Ṭabāṭabā’ī and Shahīd Muṭahharī; and naturally the approaches of Ṣadr and Miṣbāh Yazdī have also been scrutinized as the competing viewpoint.