A Survey of AllamaTabatabaee’s Viewpoint on the Leadership as Guidance by the Command

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Abstract

There is a disagreement among scholars over the meaning of Abraham’s leadership mentioned in the Quran, 2, 124. In this connection, AllamaTabatabaee presents an innovative opinion and interprets leadership as guidance by the command (al-Hidaya bi’l Amr) since Imam is qualified by guidance by the command as if the qualification is to describe the meaning of leadership (imamat). In Allama’s opinion, guidance by the command is the very inner, existential guidance mentioned in some other verses. That theory is based on the commonness of meaning of the word “command (amr)” in those two groups of Quranic verses. However, no proof can confirm that commonness. On the contrary, there are some proofs which negate that.

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