Clarifying Allamah Tabatabayi's View on Interpretive Traditions with Emphasis on the Concept of “batn” and “jary”

Abstract

Abstract The origins for believing in variant stages of meaning in Quran are traditions from Imams (PBUT). In these traditions different examples have been introduced as the inward aspect (batn) of Quran; but it seems that these examples are not basically identical. Allamah Tabatabayi is of the first Quranic scholars who has widely studied these traditions and as this theory has a great impact on the interpretation of the Holy Quran, he has tried to propose a comprehensive definition for these traditions. The examples mentioned in the traditions display two different category of inward aspect: the one concerning meaning and the other concerning denotations. Allamah introduces the former as the actual inward aspect (batn) of Quran and the latter “Jary” offering two separate definitions for them. Despite this classification, at times he hesitates in identifying the examples mentioned. Studying these cases shows that they mostly can be classified in the denotation group while he labels them as “batn” without giving any such a definition for “batn”. Keywords: Allamah Tabatabayi, Almizan, interpretive traditions, inward aspect (batn), Jary (denotation).

Keywords

• keywords: allamah tabatabayi
• almizan
• interpretive traditions
• inward aspect (batn)
• jary (denotation)