The question of *taʾwīl* in the Qur’an has long been a central issue in Qur’anic sciences and the philosophy of interpretation. Different understandings of the nature of *taʾwīl* have produced diverse, and sometimes conflicting, approaches. In contemporary Shiʿi thought, two major readings stand out. The first is Allameh Tabatabaei’s philosophical–intuitive theory, grounded in Transcendent Philosophy, which understands *taʾwīl* as an objective reality belonging to the higher ontological level of the Qur’an and the Preserved Tablet (*al-lawḥ al-maḥfūẓ*). Access to this reality is possible only for those firmly rooted in knowledge (*al-rāsikhūn fī al-ʿilm*) through a level of understanding beyond ordinary and acquired cognition. The second is Ayatollah Maʿrifat’s literary–juridical approach, which views *taʾwīl* as a rational process of referring ambiguous verses (*mutashābihāt*) back to clear verses (*muḥkamāt*) on the basis of context, linguistic rules, and common rational understanding.
Using an analytical–comparative method, this study examines the foundations of these two views and argues that Maʿrifat’s critique of Tabatabaei faces a serious methodological challenge, since it evaluates Tabatabaei’s theory from outside its own philosophical–exegetical horizon. For Tabatabaei, *taʾwīl* is not the discovery of the rationales behind legal rulings, but the intuitive disclosure of the ontological reality of the text beyond the level of words. This reading can be properly understood only within the framework of Transcendent Philosophy.
The study also resonates with contemporary philosophical hermeneutics, especially Gadamer’s and Ricoeur’s emphasis on horizons of understanding and the multilayered meaning of texts. Its main contribution is to show that the conflict between the two approaches lies not merely in exegetical method, but in deeper epistemological and ontological differences.