The Essence of Religion and Unity of Heavenly Religions in the View of Allameh Tabatabai

Explaining the common essence of all religions or at least the main religions has always been the special concern of religious scholars in the last two centuries. Does religion, with all its varieties, have one nature and truth? Assuming that there is a gemstone and a shellfish in religion, does the value of religion correspond with its gemstone, or is the shellfish as valuable and important as the gemstone? In this article, Allama Tabatabai answers the mentioned questions. Unlike western empiricists and eastern traditionalists, Allameh emphasizes on the existence of a constant truth in all divine religions which he calls Islam (surrendering), and he considers the whole religion (outward and inward) to have an equal value and attainment of the reality of religion is not possible without abiding by the outward aspects of Sharia. But, what has been emphasized in this paper is that considering the special attention given to Allamah's various remarks and points of view presented while answering all the questions raised in this regard, opens up new vistas of research in to the diversity of religions.