A Communication Analysis of the Interaction between the Religious Text and the Audience

Text- audience relation and the impact of the former on the latter, especially in
the context of religious texts, is a significant subject from communication
science viewpoint. In the Islamic religious literature the religious proposition
or "hadith", and with some degree of toleration a single-source narration
(khabar-e vahid), have been recognized as a discourse unit. But what is the
position and function of a religious proposition in producing religious
knowledge? This function has probably been dominated by the jurisprudential
system and has been spoken about in terms of "authoritativeness". But this
function and position are to be analyzed in relation to the production or
transmission of knowledge. On the one hand, in proportion to the application
of a religious proposition throughout history, the volume of knowledge based
thereon increases. On the other hand, it is not logical to establish a direct
relationship between religious knowledge and a religious proposition.
Basically, with emphasis on non-jurisprudential areas, none of the teachings
that we consider to be in the form of single-source narration could be accepted
in a vacuum regardless of civilization-based knowledge. In the approach to
analyzing the Shi'a hadith heritage, it should also be said that a quantitative
look at the hadiths based on the direct relation between the religious
propositions and knowledge is not an effective model in analyzing the sociopolitical
status of the Infallibles.