Tafsir al-Mizan & Hadith
A STUDY OF ALLAMAH TABATABAI’S HADITH METHODOLOGY IN AL-MIZAN
Without a doubt, the Tafsir of Al-Mizan of ‘Allamah Tabataba’i is one of the most monumental contemporary works in the discipline of Quranic exegesis in the Shia world. Despite such status, some have argued ‘Allamah Tabataba’i was a severe critic of the hadith corpus to the extent that he did not give it much value in his work. Some have even gone as far as to say that his Quranic commentary, al-Mizan, is a deficient work of exegesis as his approach is simply to interpret the Quran through the Quran, without relying on the narrations of the Prophet (s) and the Ahl al-Bayt (as). Furthermore, some even say his commentary is not a true literary commentary, rather it is a philosophical or mystical interpretation of the Quran rooted in ‘Allamah’s own beliefs.
How did these misunderstandings about ‘Allamah and his work emerge? How true are these accusations, and what exactly is the approach of ‘Allamah Tabataba’i in his work al-Mizan? In this presentation we will be exploring a few of these contentions some raise against ‘Allamah and his seminal Quranic commentary.
