The Principle of Context in Al-Mizan Commentary and Its Role in the Methods of Understanding the Meanings and Concepts of the Quran

In Al-Mizan Commentary, Allamah Tabatabaii has devoted careful attention to the principle of "context" to discern what the Most High God means by the words of the glorious Quran. Using a descriptive- analytical method, the present paper seeks to answer the following questions: what role does attending to context have in interpreting the Quran? What methods has Allamah Tabatabaii used for applying this principle in the commentary of the Quran? Given the studies made on Al-Mizan Commentary, Allamah Tabatabaii might have used this principle in all stages of his commentary; sometimes he explains the meaning of a word, phrase, or verse; he occasionally analyzes the components of a verse syntactically and semantically to show that the meaning understood from its context; he at times provides a full meaning of the verse according to its own context without considering the verses before or after it; and sometimes he explains the meanings of several verses by considering the verses that come before or after them and then he fits them together to explain their meaning in a coherent whole because several verses come in one context.