transmission by so many reporters that their agreeing on a falsehood is not credible
General Technical Meaning
Tawātur is recurrent transmission about a possible sensible matter by a plurality of witnesses whose collusion on a lie is not reasonably conceivable, yielding certainty. No fixed number of transmitters defines it. It is verbal when the wording recurs and maʿnawī when different reports share a common meaning.
In ʿAllāmah Ṭabāṭabāʾī’s Works
Risālat al-Manāmāt wa-l-Nubuwwāt
recurrent transmission — use in context
Qualified tawātur is invoked as a decisive warrant for reports across past ages and the author's present.
Limits of this account
The adjective qaṭʿī (decisive) qualifies this occurrence; it is not part of the term itself.
Nihāyat al-Ḥikmah
where recurrent reports stand among premises
Nihāyat al-Ḥikmah places recurrent reports among the kinds of immediate premises, alongside sensibles, experimentally established premises, innate premises, findings of conscience and first principles. That placement explains why the treatise can appeal to recurrent transmission as a decisive epistemic warrant.
Limits of this account
The passage places recurrent reports within the taxonomy of premises. It does not explain what makes transmission recurrent, how many transmitters would be required, or why recurrence yields certainty.
Read in context
Open a passage in the edition where this term is linked.