The Reality of Spirit and Its Uses in the Quran and Narrations according to the Allamah Tabatabai's View

Having close acquaintance with the reality of ''spirit'' and its uses in the Quran and narrations is a key to understanding many of the principles of Islam. In order to have a proper and clear understanding of the reality of spirit, serious attention should be given to its uses in the Quran and narrations, especially with regard to the relationship between the different ways of its use. Naturally, if the relationship between these ways of use is content participation, our interpretation of the reality of spirit will be completely different from the interpretation which is based on ‘’equivocation’’. Hence, the present paper investigates the view of Allamah Tabatabai who has captured Muslim thinkers’ attention. If we examine his works, we may not be able to relate to him any principles about the relationship of the use of spirit in the Quran with that in narrations. Some of his works clearly state that there is equivocation in using the word ’’spirit’’, whereas in some other works, he resorts to the equivocational use of spirit and clearly points to the equivocational use of spirit. The adoption of this unidentified principle leads to the difference in Allamah's views about the interpretation of verses related to spirit. The present paper makes a library-based study and uses a descriptive-analytical method to evaluate it. Finally, investigating the uses of spirit in the Quran and in narrations the paper presents a key principle in this regard.