Volition is the power by which one thing, rather than another, is intended.
In ʿAllāmah Ṭabāṭabāʾī’s Works
Nihāyat al-Ḥikmah
volition as a distinct step in voluntary action
In Nihāyat al-Ḥikmah the principles of a voluntary act are listed as knowledge, desire, volition, and the power that moves the limbs. Volition therefore appears as its own stage: it follows desire and precedes bodily motion rather than being identified with either.
Limits of this account
It does not identify volition with desire or make volition alone the complete efficient cause.
al-Mīzān fī Tafsīr al-Qurʾān
strengthened volition — explanation
Volition follows knowledge and assent: the conditions the passage lists are conditions for an effective volition to arise, and the criterion it draws is that knowledge has become decisive. Where that happens, ʿAllāmah Ṭabāṭabāʾī allows that volition may strengthen until it affects someone other than the willing person, with or without further conditions.
Limits of this account
This characterizes what volition can do; it is not a definition of volition, and it is not a claim about the soul. The soul enters the sentence only as the locus of the comparison — the effect on another is likened to what volition produces in the willing person's own soul.
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