German translation of book 'Shia in Islam' published by Islamic Center of Hamburg

AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA): The Islamic Center of Hamburg has published a German translation of the book 'Shia in Islam' written by the late Iranian scholar Allameh Mohammad Hossein Tabatabaei.

The book is a text on the history and thought of Shia Islam translated into different languages.

Written by Allameh Tabatabaei, with the translation, editing, and introduction by Seyyed Hossein Nasr, it was the first text to be written by a high ranking Shia scholar and intended for Western readership.

In 1962, Kenneth Morgan, university chaplain and professor of religious studies at Colgate University, initiated a project to produce a text specifically dealing with Shia Islam, introducing the Islamic school of thought to the non Muslim Western reader, written from a true Shia perspective.

The aim of Professor Morgan to have a description of Shiism by one of the respected traditional scholars of the Shia, led him and collaborator Seyyed Hossein Nasr, to Allamah Tabatabaei in 1963.

Allameh Tabatabaei (16 March 1903 – 15 November 1981) was one of the most prominent thinkers of philosophy and contemporary Shia Islam. He is famous for Tafsir al-Mizan, a twenty-seven-volume work of Quranic exegesis, which he worked on from 1954 until 1972.

Allameh Tabatabaei was thought of by some as a pillar of intellectual Shia thought who combined interest in jurisprudence and Quranic commentary with philosophy, theosophy, and Sufism, and represented a more universal interpretation of the Shia point of view.

It remains a classic textbook for Westerners trying to gain an introductory understanding of Shia Islam.

The German translation of the book has been published in cooperation with the Islamic Academy of Germany in 236 pages.

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