Shi’ite Islam
Shi’ite Islam
Name: Shi’ite Islam
Author: Muhammad Husayn Tabatabai
Translator: Seyyed Hossein Nasr
Publisher: State University of New York Press (1975), Islamic Book Trust (2010)
The religion of Islam has been divided into two major branches, Sunnism and Shiism. Each of these branches, with all of common principals that they have, have their specific identity.
One of the best sources for the introduction and overview of Shiism, is the book Shi’ite Islam by one of the greatest Islamic scholars, Seyed Muhammad Husayn Tabatabai, known as Allame Tabatabai. This book originally is written in Persian language, but fortunately has translated in English by one of his prominent students, professor Seyed Hosein Nasr. He is one of the most prominent Islamic and Shiite researchers that has lots of books and articles of introducing Shiism.
This book, according to the translator, has been a textbook in some universities in the US in the subject of Shiite studies and of course this book is being used now in the seminary.
This book, however, despite being brief, is one the best sources of introducing Shiism, either because of either content and author. In reality, one of the important factor of the book is its concision. While it discusses all important related topics, the book is not very sizable.
One of the other features of this book is that this book is originally intended for western readership, means readers who are unfamiliar with the Islamic and Shi’a thought and willing to have a comprehensive view on this school of thought. So, it can be a good resource for introducing Shiism to western societies.
The translator has changed the name of the book. In the introduction of the book, he said in explaining this matter:
The original title given by ‘Allamah Tabatabai to the book is Shi’ah dar Islam (Shi’ism in Islam). What the Author intends by the title is Islam as seen and interpreted by Shi’ism. Therefore we have chosen to call it Shi’ite Islam.
content of the book
This book is comprised of three parts:
Part one: historical background of Shiism
Part two: Shiite religious thought
Part three: Islamic beliefs From the Shiite point of view
The first part, in the name of ‘historical background of Shiism ‘, deals with the history of the Shiism specially in the early centuries of Islam. The main topics that the author going to talk about them are: Origin of Shiism, the reason that Muslim’s society has been divided into two parts, the issue of succession of the prophet and the disagreement that happened in that issue and finally, it talks about Shiism branches.
The second part, with the title ‘Shiite religious thought’ is talks about the meaning of thought and also the cognitive resources. These cognitive resources, briefly are: religious reasons like the Quran and narrations of the prophet and infallible Imams, rational and intellectual reasons, and finally spiritual comprehension like mysticism. In this part, in three separate chapter, the author points to these three references of religious thought.
And finally, part three, that appellate ‘Islamic beliefs From the Shiite point of view’ has mentioned to main beliefs of Shiism. The beliefs of God’s essence and attributes, the notion of prophethood, the features of prophet, the notion of Imamate and thing like these.
Publications
The book has been republished many times in Persian by different publishers. The English version, as mentioned, translated by Dr. Sayyid Husayn Nasr. Also, this book was translated from the English version into Indonesian language by Djohan Efendi as Islam Syiah Asal Usul dan Perkembangannya and into Japanese in 2007.
Pros
- being brief
- the author is one of the greatest contemporary Islamic scholars
- the translator
- being a textbook
- originally intended for western readership
- strong translating and editing
Cons
- Differences between the original text and the translation in some cases
والسلام
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