The Analysis and Evaluation of Allāma Ṭabāṭabā’ī About Ṭīnat Teaching

One of the Shī‘a teachings discussed in the Twelver Shī‘a narrations and the qur’ānic commentaries is ṭīnat (nature). This teaching suggests the difference of the humans in creation and discusses the ties of faith and disbelief with the human’s ṭīnat. At the first glance, this teaching is about the inherent human blissfulness and wretchedness as well as the rejection of his freedom in bringing about his own destiny (and so suggests a type of predestination). Many Twelver Shī‘a narration transmitters and exegetes have explicated the contents of these narrations and have tried to solve their problems. The question examined in this study regards the solution of Allāma Ṭabāṭabā’ī for the problems of ṭīnat narrations and its evaluation. In his Tafsīr al-mīzān, Allāma Ṭabāṭabā’ī presents a comprehensive plan based on the principles of Ṣadrian theosophy to provide a content analysis of this teaching. Taking ṭīnat as a worldly matter that makes the human body, which in turn bases the human soul, he deems the effect of ṭīnat on the human blissfulness and wretchedness at an essential requirement level and does not deem it as requiring predestination. We will ultimately show that Allāma Ṭabāṭabā’ī’s analysis is mostly a philosophical one, which is not so congruent with the semantic network of the narrations related to ṭīnat.

Keywords:

ṭīnat teaching , Allāma Ṭabāṭabā’ī , determinism , essential blissfulness and wretchedness , contingent