Muhammad Husayn Tabataba'i (Persian: سید محمدحسین طباطبائی, romanized: Muḥammad Ḥusayn Ṭabāṭabāʾī; 16 March 1903 – 15 November 1981) was an Iranian scholar, theorist, philosopher and one of the most prominent thinkers of modern Shia Islam.

He received his earlier education in his native Tabriz, mastering the elements of Arabic and the religious sciences, and at about the age of twenty set out for the great Shiite university of Najaf to continue more advanced studies.

[9] He studied at Najaf, under masters such as Ali Tabatabaei (in gnosis), Mirza Muhammad Husain Na'ini, Sheykh Muhammad Hossein Qaravi Esfahani (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.

In Najaf, Tabataba'i developed his major contributions in the fields of Tafsir (interpretation), philosophy, and history of the Shi'a faith.

If Ayatollah Haeri is considered the reviver of Qom's hawza in an organizational sense, Tabataba'i's contributions to the field of tafsir, philosophy and mysticism represent the intellectual revitalization of the hawza with lasting implications for the curriculum.