A Shi'ite Anthology was written by
Allameh Tabatabaei
Muhammad Husayn Tabataba'i or Sayyid Mohammad Hossein Tabataba'i (16 March 1903 – 15 November 1981) was an Iranian scholar, theorist, philosopher and one of the most prominent thinkers of modern Shia Islam. He is perhaps best known for his '' ...
and translated by
William Chittick
William C. Chittick (born 29 June 1943) is an American philosopher, writer, translator and interpreter of classical Islamic philosophical and mystical texts. He is best known for his work on Rumi and Ibn 'Arabi, and has written extensively on th ...
, State University of New York Press. 1981.
Created by the Prophet
Muhammad
Muhammad ( ar, مُحَمَّد; 570 – 8 June 632 Common Era, CE) was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Muhammad in Islam, Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet Divine inspiration, di ...
and his twelve Imams, the Hadith is an ancient and profoundly influential body of religious texts in Shia Muslim literature, second in importance only to the
Koran
The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation from God. It is organized in 114 chapters (pl.: , sing.: ...
itself.
Texts on the practical aspects of life and pure
metaphysics
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...
are included in this first English translations of excerpts from the Hadith. Especially selected for the Western reader by the renowned Islamic scholar Tabataba'i, the passages from the hadith shed light on the culture, history, law, and theology of the Shi'ite community and provide direct translations of some of the most famous of Islamic prayers.
"This volume is particularly pertinent at the present moment, when volcanic eruptions and powerful waves of a political nature associated with the name of Islam in general and Shi'ism in particular have made an authentic knowledge of things Islamic imperative, lest ignorance destroy the very foundations of human society and the relations which make discourse between various nations and religious communities possible."—Seyyed Hossein Nasr
Allamah Sayyed Muhammad Husayn Tabataba'i is the author of many studies in Islamic philosophy. His book Shia Islam, edited by Seyyed Hossein Nasr, was also published by the State University of New York Press.
Shia literature
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