Muhammad Husayn Tabataba'i (16 March 1903 – 15 November 1981) was an Iranian scholar, theorist, philosopher and one of the most prominent thinkers of modern Shia Islam. He is perhaps best known for his Tafsir al-Mizan, a twenty-seven-volume work of tafsir (Quranic exegesis), which he produced between 1954 and 1972. He is commonly known as Allameh Tabataba'i and the Allameh Tabataba'i University in Tehran is named after him.

Biography

He received his earlier education in his native Tabriz city, mastering the elements of Arabic and the religious sciences, and at about the age of twenty set out for the great Shiite university of Najaf to continue more advanced studies. He studied at Najaf, under masters such as Ali Tabatabaei (in gnosis), Mirza Muhammad Husain Na'ini, Sheykh Muhammad Hossein Qaravi Esfahani (in Fiqh and Jurisprudence), Sayyid Abu'l-Qasim Khwansari (in Mathematics), as well as studying the standard texts of Avicenna's Shifa, the Asfar of Sadr al-Din Shirazi, and the Tamhid al-qawa'id of Ibn Turkah.

Published works

In Najaf, Tabataba'i developed his major contributions in the fields of Tafsir (interpretation), philosophy, and history of the Shi'a faith. In philosophy the most important of his works is Usul-i falsafeh va ravesh-e-realism (The Principles of Philosophy and the Method of Realism), which has been published in five volumes with explanatory notes and the commentary of Morteza Motahhari. If Ayatollah Haeri is considered the reviver of Qom's hawza in an organizational sense, Tabataba'i's contributions to the field of tafsir, philosophy and mysticism represent the intellectual revitalization of the hawza with lasting implications for the curriculum.

List of publications

Poetry

Tabataba'i was also a poet who composed mainly in Persian, but occasionally in Arabic. He also wrote articles and essays.

Pupils

Some of his pupils include: