Tafsīr al-Mīzān as a Representation of Shī‘ī Exegesis

A Comparative Study of Imāmah, ‘Iṣmah, and Mut‘ah

Abstract

This article examines the development of Qur’anic exegesis within the Shī‘ī tradition, focusing its analysis on the book al-Mīzān fī Tafsīr al-Qur’ān by Muḥammad Ḥusayn Ṭabāṭabā’ī. Rather than treating Shī‘ī exegesis only as a by-product of early political conflict, this research also foregrounds the tradition’s own theological self-understanding, in which the imām’s authority as naṣṣ grounds a periodization running from the era of the imāms through ghaybah ṣughrā and kubrā, shaping the shift from riwāyah-based to ijtihādī-rational exegesis. Al-Mīzān emerges as the pinnacle of this trajectory, employing tafsīr al-Qur’ān bi al-Qur’ān, in which verses are read against other verses while ḥadīth and reason serve as secondary instruments. Through a qualitative, library-based approach engaging the primary Arabic text alongside recent scholarship (2017–2026), this article analyzes how Ṭabāṭabā’ī applies that method to imāmah (Q.S. Al-Baqarah [2]: 124, cross-read with Q.S. Ibrāhīm [14]: 35–36), ‘iṣmah (the verse of purification, Q.S. Al-Aḥzāb [33]: 33), and mut‘ah marriage (Q.S. An-Nisā’ [4]: 24), comparing each conclusion against classical and contemporary Sunnī exegesis and against critical scholarship on al-Mīzān itself. The article also engages the methodological question of whether this approach is more accurately classified as tafsīr bi al-Qur’ān or as a sophisticated instance of ijtihādī reasoning. The results show that al-Mīzān presents a moderate, argumentative exegesis that renders Shī‘ī doctrine academically discussable, even as its distinctly Shī‘ī conclusions remain intact beneath that inclusive style—a finding that contributes to comparative Sunnī–Shī‘ī exegetical scholarship and to a more precise mapping of where the two traditions genuinely converge and diverge.

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