ṬABĀṬABĀʾĪ, ʿALLĀMA. Muḥammad Ḥusayn Ṭabāṭabāʾī (1903–1981) was arguably one of the most prominent Shīʿī Muslim scholars of the twentieth century; he was given the honorific title ʿAllāma, a testimony to the extent and depth of his knowledge in the Shīʿī tradition of Islamic scholarship.

Ṭabāṭabāʾī was born into a family of Shīʿī ʿulamāʾ (Islamic scholars) in Tabrīz, northwest of Iran, in 1903. In 1918, after finishing his primary education, he entered the field of religious studies and, until 1925, he studied Arabic grammar, logic, principles of Islamic jurisprudence, Islamic law, theology, and philosophy. In 1926 he settled in Najaf, the most famous Shīʿī seminary (ḥawza) in Iraq at that time...