Hossein Modarressi Tabataba'i (; born 1952 or 1942) is a leading Muslim jurist and professor of law.

Early life

He attended the Islamic seminary at

Qom Qom (; ) is a city in the Central District of Qom County, Qom province, Iran, serving as capital of the province, the county, and the district. It is the seventh largest metropolis and also the seventh largest city in Iran. The city is ...

where he received a complete traditional Islamic education in

Islamic philosophy Islamic philosophy is philosophy that emerges from the Islamic tradition. Two terms traditionally used in the Islamic world are sometimes translated as philosophy—''falsafa'' (), which refers to philosophy as well as logic, mathematics, and p ...

theology Theology is the study of religious belief from a Religion, religious perspective, with a focus on the nature of divinity. It is taught as an Discipline (academia), academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itse ...

and law, ending with a certificate of

ijtihad ''Ijtihad'' ( ; ' , ) is an Islamic legal term referring to independent reasoning by an expert in Islamic law, or the thorough exertion of a jurist's mental faculty in finding a solution to a legal question. It is contrasted with '' taqlid'' ( ...

, the highest degree in Islamic religious tradition. He also taught there for many years before pursuing his secular education which ended in 1982 with a D. Phil. from

Oxford University The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...

. He has been a professor at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

since 1983 where he is Bayard Dodge Professor of Near Eastern Studies. He has simultaneously been Golestaneh Fellow at

St Antony's College, Oxford St Antony's College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Founded in 1950 as the result of the gift of French merchant Sir Antonin Besse of Aden, St Antony's specialises in international relations, economics, politic ...

since 1988, and a Senior Research Scholar at the School of International and Public Affairs of Columbia University since 1990. He has also occasionally taught at other institutions such as

Ecole des hautes etudes en sciences sociales The School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (, EHESS) is a graduate ''grande école'' and '' grand établissement'' in Paris focused on academic research in the social sciences. The school awards Master and PhD degrees alone and conjoi ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

Yale Law School Yale Law School (YLS) is the law school of Yale University, a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was established in 1824. The 2020–21 acceptance rate was 4%, the lowest of any law school in the United ...

and

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher lear ...

where he was the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques Visiting Professor of Law at

Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, Harvard Law School is the oldest law school in continuous operation in the United ...

in 2007.

Works

He is a prolific author of some thirty books and many articles in English, Arabic and Persian. His books in English include Kharaj in Islamic Law (London 1983), An Introduction to Shi'i Law (London 1984), Crisis and Consolidation in the Formative Period of Shi'ite Islam (Princeton, 1993), and Tradition and Survival, a Bibliographical Survey of Early Shi’ite Literature (Oxford, 2003).

References

External links

Bibliography of Hossein Modarressi's works
, In Persian {{DEFAULTSORT:Modarressi, Hossein Muslim scholars of Islamic jurisprudence People from Qom Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Qom Seminary alumni