Seyyed Mohammad Husain Tabatabai

Nationality: Iranian

Born: 1892 CE  Iran

Died: 1981 CE

Allameh Seyyed Muhammad Husain Tabatabaei (1892—November 15, 1981) (Persian: علامه سید محمد حسین طباطبائی)

 was one of the most prominent thinkers of philosophy and contemporaryShia Islam. He is famous for Tafsir al-Mizan, the Qur'anic exegesis.

Born in Tabriz, Azarbaijan, in northwestern Iran, he studied at Najaf, under masters such as Mirza 'Ali Qadi (in gnosis), Mirza Muhammad Husain Na'ini, Shaykh Muhammad Husain Isfahani (in Fiqh and Jurisprudence), Sayyid Abu'l-Qasim Khwansari (in Mathematics), as well as studying the standard texts of Avicenna's Shifa, the Asfar of Sadr al-Din Shirazi, and the Tamhid al-qawa'id of Ibn Turkah. Along with Sayyid Husayn Badkuba'i, he was a student of two of the most famous masters of the time, Sayyid Abu'l-Hasan Jilwah and Aqa 'Ali Mudarris Zunuzi.

In his later years he would often hold study sessions with Henry Corbin and Seyyed Hossein Nasr, in which not only the classical texts of divine wisdom and gnosis were discussed, but also a whole cycle of what Nasr calls comparative gnosis, in which in each session the sacred texts of one of the major religions, containing mystical and gnostic teachings, such as the Tao Te Ching, the Upanishads and the Gospel of John, were discussed and compared with Sufism and Islamic gnostic doctrines in general.

Tabatabaei, was a philosopher, a prolific writer, and an inspiring teacher to his students who devoted much of his life to Islamic studies. Many of his students were among the ideological founders of the Islamic Republic of Iran, namely Murtaza Motahhari, Dr. Beheshti, and Dr. Mohammad Mofatteh. Others like Nasr and Hasanzadeh Amuli remained and continued their studies in the intellectual non-political sphere.

Published works

It was in Najaf where Tabatabaei developed his major contributions in the fields of Tafsir (interpretation), philosophy, and history of the Shi'a faith. In philosophy the most important of his works is Usul-i falsafeh va ravesh-e-realism (The Principles of Philosophy and the Method of Realism), which has been published in five volumes with explanatory notes and the commentary of Morteza Motahhari. If Ayatollah Haeri is considered the reviver of Qom's hawza in an organizational sense, Tabatabaei's contributions to the field of tafsir, philosophy and mysticism represent the intellectual revitalization of the hawza with lasting implications for the curriculum.

Allameh Tabatabaei in his young ages

His other major philosophical work is a voluminous commentary of Asfār al-'arba'eh, the magnum opus of Mulla Sadra who was the last of the great Persian (Iranian) Muslim thinkers of the medieval age. Apart from these he also wrote extensively on philosophical topics. His humanist approach is underlined by his three books on: the nature of man - before the world, in this world, and after this world. His philosophy is focused upon the sociological treatment of human problems. His two other works, Bidāyat al-hikmah and Nihāyat al-hikmah, are considered among works of high order in Islamic philosophy.

Several treatises on the doctrines and history of the Shi'a remain from him as well. One of these comprises his clarifications and expositions about Shi'a faith in reply to the questions posed by the famous French orientalist Henry Corbin. Another of his books on this topic Shi'ah dar Islamwas translated into English by Seyyed Hossein Nasr under the title Shi'a Islam, with the help ofWilliam Chittick as a project of Colgate University. These books are claimed to serve as an excellent conduit by which popular misconceptions about the Shi'a faith may be removed further paving the way for a better ecumenical understanding amongst the various Muslim schools of thought.

His written books number forty-four titles overall; three of which are collections of his articles on various aspects of Islam and the Qur'an.

List of publications

Ø Shi'a Islam (Persian: Shi’ah dar islam)

Ø The Principles of Philosophy and the Method of Realism (Iranian: Usul-i-falsafeh va ravesh-i-ri'alism) in five volumes, with the commentary of Murtzada Mutahhari.

Ø Glosses al-kifayah ( Persian: Hashiyahi kifayah ). Glosses upon the new edition of the Asfar of Sadr al-Din Shirizi Mulla Sadra appearing under the direction of 'Allahma Tabataba'i of which seven volumes have appeared.

Ø Dialogues with Professor Corbin (Iranian: Mushabat ba Ustad Kurban) Two volumes based on conversations carried out between 'Allahma Tabataba'i and Henry Corbin of which the first volume was printed as the yearbook of Maktab-i tashayyu’, 1339 (A.H. Solar)

Ø Risalah dar hukumat-i islami, (Treatise on Islamic Government).

Ø Hashiyah-i kifayah (Glosses upon al-Kifayah).

Ø Risalah dar quwwah wafi'(Treatise on Potentiality and Actuality).

Ø Risalah dar ithbat-i dha~t (Treatise on the Proof of the Divine Essence).

Ø Risalah dar sifat (Treatise on the Divine Attributes).

Ø Risalah dar ata (Treatise on the Divine Acts).

Ø Risalah dar wasa'il (Treatise on Means).

Ø Risalah dar insan qabl al-dunya (Treatise on Man before the World)

Ø Risalah dar insan fi al-dunya (Treatise on Man in the World).

Ø Risalah dar insan ba'd al-dunya (Treatise on Man after the World).

Ø Risalah dar nubuwwat (Treatise on Prophecy).

Ø Risalah dar wilayat (Treatise on Initiation).

Ø Risalah dar mushtaqqat (Treatise on Derivatives).

Ø Risalah dar burhan (Treatise on Demonstration).

Ø Risalah dar mughalatah (Treatise on Sophism).

Ø Risalah dar tahlil (Treatise on Analysis).

Ø Risalah dar tarkib (Treatise on Synthesis).

Ø Risalah dar i’tibarat (Treatise on Contingents).

Ø Risalah dar nubuwwat wa manamat (Treatise on Prophecy and Dreams)

Ø Manza’mah dar rasm-i- khatt-i-nasta’liq (Poem on the Method of Writing the Nasta’liq Style of Calligraphy).

Ø Ali wa al-falsafat al-ilahiya (Ali and Metaphysics)

Ø Qur'an dar islam (The Qur'an in Islam).

Poetry

Allameh Tabatabaei was also an accomplished poet. He composed his poetry mainly in Persian, but occasionally in Arabic.

                                                                                                       

He was knowledgeable and expert in 20 kind of science.

Ebn Sina

Early life

Avicenna was born c. 980 in Afshana, near Bukhara, the capital of Samanids, a Persian dynasty in Central Asia and Greater Khorasan. His father was from Balkh, in present-day Afghanistan and his mother from Bukhara, in present-day Uzbekistan.[19] His father, Abdullah, was a respected Ismaili[20] scholar from Balkh, an important town of the Samanid Empire, in what is today Balkh Province, Afghanistan. His mother was named Setareh. His father was at the time of his son's birth the governor in one of the Samanid Nuh ibn Mansur's estates. He had his son very carefully educated at Bukhara. Ibn Sina's independent thought was served by an extraordinary intelligence and memory, which allowed him to overtake his teachers at the age of fourteen. As he said in his autobiography, there was nothing that he had not learned when he reached eighteen.

Adulthood

Ibn Sina's first appointment was that of physician to the emir, who owed him his recovery from a dangerous illness (997). Ibn Sina's chief reward for this service was access to the royal library of the Samanids, well-known patrons of scholarship and scholars. When the library was destroyed by fire not long after, the enemies of Ibn Sina accused him of burning it, in order for ever to conceal the sources of his knowledge. Meanwhile, he assisted his father in his financial labours, but still found time to write some of his earliest works.

When Ibn Sina was 22 years old, he lost his father. The Samanid dynasty came to its end in December 1004. Ibn Sina seems to have declined the offers of Mahmud of Ghazni, and proceeded westwards to Urgench in the modern Turkmenistan, where the vizier, regarded as a friend of scholars, gave him a small monthly stipend. The pay was small, however, so Ibn Sina wandered from place to place through the districts of Nishapur and Merv to the borders of Khorasan, seeking an opening for his talents. Qabus, the generous ruler of Dailam and central Persia, himself a poet and a scholar, with whom Ibn Sina had expected to find an asylum, was about that date (1012) starved to death by his troops who had revolted. Ibn Sina himself was at this season stricken down by a severe illness. Finally, at Gorgan, near the Caspian Sea, Ibn Sina met with a friend, who bought a dwelling near his own house in which Ibn Sina lectured on logic and astronomy. Several of Ibn Sina's treatises were written for this patron; and the commencement of his Canon of Medicine also dates from his stay in Hyrcania.

Ibn Sina subsequently settled at Rai, in the vicinity of modern Tehran, (present day capital of Iran), the home town of Rhazes; where Majd Addaula, a son of the last Buwayhid emir, was nominal ruler under the regency of his mother (Seyyedeh Khatun). About thirty of Ibn Sina's shorter works are said to have been composed in Rai. Constant feuds which raged between the regent and her second son, Shams al-Daula, however, compelled the scholar to quit the place. After a brief sojourn at Qazvin he passed southwards to Hamadãn where Shams al-Daula, another Buwayhid emir, had established himself. At first, Ibn Sina entered into the service of a high-born lady; but the emir, hearing of his arrival, called him in as medical attendant, and sent him back with presents to his dwelling. Ibn Sina was even raised to the office of vizier. The emir consented that he should be banished from the country. Ibn Sina, however, remained hidden for forty days in a sheikh Ahmed Fadhel's house, until a fresh attack of illness induced the emir to restore him to his post. Even during this perturbed time, Ibn Sina persevered with his studies and teaching. Every evening, extracts from his great works, the Canon and the Sanatio, were dictated and explained to his pupils. On the death of the emir, Ibn Sina ceased to be vizier and hid himself in the house of an apothecary, where, with intense assiduity, he continued the composition of his works.

Meanwhile, he had written to Abu Ya'far, the prefect of the dynamic city of Isfahan, offering his services. The new emir of Hamadan, hearing of this correspondence and discovering where Ibn Sina was hidden, incarcerated him in a fortress. War meanwhile continued between the rulers of Isfahan and Hamadãn; in 1024 the former captured Hamadan and its towns, expelling the Tajik mercenaries. When the storm had passed, Ibn Sina returned with the emir to Hamadan, and carried on his literary labors. Later, however, accompanied by his brother, a favorite pupil, and two slaves, Ibn Sina escaped out of the city in the dress of a Sufi ascetic. After a perilous journey, they reached Isfahan, receiving an honorable welcome from the prince.

Later life and death

The remaining ten or twelve years of Ibn Sīnā's life were spent in the service of Abu Ja'far 'Ala Addaula, whom he accompanied as physician and general literary and scientific adviser, even in his numerous campaigns.

During these years he began to study literary matters and philology, instigated, it is asserted, by criticisms on his style. A severe colic, which seized him on the march of the army against Hamadan, was checked by remedies so violent that Ibn Sina could scarcely stand. On a similar occasion the disease returned; with difficulty he reached Hamadan, where, finding the disease gaining ground, he refused to keep up the regimen imposed, and resigned himself to his fate.

His friends advised him to slow down and take life moderately. He refused, however, stating that: "I prefer a short life with width to a narrow one with length". On his deathbed remorse seized him; he bestowed his goods on the poor, restored unjust gains, freed his slaves, and read through the Qur'an every three days until his death. He died in June 1037, in his fifty-eighth year, in the month of Ramadan and was buried in Hamadan, Iran.

Albert Einstein

Early life and education

Albert Einstein was born in Ulm, in the Kingdom of Württemberg in the German Empire on 14 March 1879. His father was Hermann Einstein, a salesman and engineer. His mother was Pauline Einstein (née Koch). In 1880, the family moved to Munich, where his father and his uncle founded Elektrotechnische Fabrik J. Einstein & Cie, a company that manufactured electrical equipment based on direct current.

Marriages and children

Main article: Einstein family

In early 1902, Einstein and Mileva Marić had a daughter they named Lieserl in their correspondence, who was born in Novi Sad where Marić's parents lived. Her full name is not known, and her fate is uncertain after 1903.

Einstein and Marić married in January 1903. In May 1904, the couple's first son, Hans Albert Einstein, was born in Bern, Switzerland. Their second son, Eduard, was born in Zurich in July 1910. In 1914, Einstein moved to Berlin, while his wife remained in Zurich with their sons. Marić and Einstein divorced on 14 February 1919, having lived apart for five years.

Einstein married Elsa Löwenthal (née Einstein) on 2 June 1919, after having had a relationship with her since 1912. She was his first cousin maternally and his second cousin paternally. In 1933, they emigrated permanently to the United States. In 1935, Elsa Einstein was diagnosed with heart and kidney problems and died in December 1936.

Death

The New York World-Telegram announces Einstein's death on 18 April 1955.

On 17 April 1955, Albert Einstein experienced internal bleeding caused by the rupture of an abdominal aortic aneurysm, which had previously been reinforced surgically by Dr. Rudolph Nissen in 1948. It is tasteless to prolong life artificially. I have done my share, it is time to go. I will do it elegantly." He died in Princeton Hospital early the next morning at the age of 76, having continued to work until near the end.

Einstein's remains were cremated and his ashes were scattered at an undisclosed location. During the autopsy, the pathologist of Princeton Hospital, Thomas Stoltz Harvey, removed Einstein's brain for preservation, without the permission of his family, in hope that the neuroscience of the future would be able to discover what made Einstein so intelligent. In his lecture at Einstein's memorial, nuclear physicist Robert Oppenheimer summarized his impression of him as a person:

"He was almost wholly without sophistication and wholly without worldliness . . . There was always with him a wonderful purity at once childlike and profoundly stubborn."