The book consists of Allamah Tabatabai’s teachings, which are augmented by an interesting commentary/introduction by the editor, Allamah Tihrani. Its core part is further prefaced by the translator’s (Muhammad H. Faghfoory) introduction and informative notes on Allamah Tihrani’s life and work. Seyyed Hossein Nasr’s foreword is the external shell that puts the text’s general esoteric trajectory and the characters involved in composing it in context. Nasr’s foreword, the translator’s notes, and the editor’s introduction are interspersed with teachings and stories of the lives of the Shi`i sages and scholars of the past several centuries. This makes the text of interest to students of Sufi hagiography in general, and of Shi`i intellectual life in particular.