Decisive and Ambiguous Verses: a concept map

“Parts of it are definitive verses, which are the Mother of the Book, while others are ambiguous” (3:7). For ʿAllāmah Ṭabāṭabāʾī this verse is the key to reading the Qur’an by the Qur’an: every ambiguous verse is explained by returning it to the definitive ones. Here too he gives his distinctive account of taʾwīl, not a hidden meaning behind the words, but the reality the verses rest on. Each point opens his own words in the commentary.

Decisive and ambiguous

Deviance in the heart

Who knows the taʾwīl

Muḥkam & Mutashābih

Decisive and ambiguous verses

The Mother of the Book

What taʾwīl is

Those firmly grounded in knowledge

Choose any point to read what the ʿAllāmah says.

All concept maps · More: every section of al-Mizan on this subject in the Topic Index. The ʿAllāmah’s own “Detailed Discussion about the Definitive and Ambiguous Verses, and of Interpretation (taʾwīl)” is in the printed volume 5, after his commentary on 3:7–9, and will be in the Al-Mizan Study App.