This volume features ʿAllāmah Sayyid Muḥammad Ḥusayn Ṭabāṭabāʾī’s (1904–81) exegesis of Sūrah al-Zumar (39), Sūrah al-Ghāfir (also known as al-Muʾmin, (40), and Sūrah al-Fuṣṣilat (also known as Ḥā Mīm Sajda, 41). The introductions to other volumes will, no doubt, have already provided the contours of the author’s scholarly career and discussed his overall methodology in his Tafsīr al-Mīzān. Therefore, this introduction will focus on providing an overview of the contents of this volume and highlighting their overarching themes.

These three chapters of the Qur’an were revealed during the Meccan phase of the Prophet Muḥammad’s mission. As a result, we should not be surprised to find they share contextual and thematic connections with one another; all three focus on the Prophet’s call to monotheism and his people’s response to and rejection of this and warn their audience about the inevitability of the Day of Resurrection.

These moral admonitions are accompanied by appeals for the idolaters to look up and contemplate upon the world around them and the heavens above them, along with arguments and rhetorical turns intended to expose the internal contradictions of idolatry and demonstrate the internal consistency of monotheism as a system of belief. However, they also differ in important ways, and each has its own particular themes and concerns.