Qadi Tabababa’i (1866-1947), an influential Sufi master in Shia seminaries of Iraq and Iran, is entirely unknown in Western Academia. As a religious authority (Ayatullah) and spiritual guide to many prominent scholars to come, Qadi had everything to characterize him as a Shi’a Sufi master, yet there was an enormous effort by his followers to conceal his Sufi affiliation. It is also narrated that he asked: ‘Do not make a chain (Silsila) for me.’ This paper attempts to uncover Qadi's Sufi leadership and teachings and analyze his connections with the Dhahab?ya and the Ma`rifat al-Nafs (Self-Knowledge) School of philosophy and Sufism in the Shia seminary in Najaf (Iraq). It also attempts to speculate on the reasons why such efforts were made in the first place to conceal his Sufi connection. We will then define his relationship to the Shia religious authorities (Mar?ji`) of his time and describe the concept of human perfection according to his teachings. We know that because of advocating a Sufi interpretation of the revelation, he and his teachings encountered both acceptance and rejection inside and outside Shia seminaries during his lifetime and up to the present. Except for a few treatises such as a commentary to some Shia psalms (Du?? Sam?t) and a commentary on al-Irsh?d by Shaykh Muf?d and some letters to his followers, there is not much remaining work attributed to him. His foremost concern was to guide those selected scholars of the seminary into the path of practical mysticism (`irfan ‘amali). He also organized courses on theoretical gnosticism for the same individuals. He never performed as the prayer leader in a mosque nor issued fatwas as other Mujtahids. The account of his oral teachings was narrated in the numerous hagiographies right after his death by his disciples. Those sources, especially his very famous disciple 'All?ma ?abataba’i (1904-1981) who noted that ‘Whatever we have is from the late Qadi,’ indicates his significant role and leadership in the continuation of both philosophy and Shia ‘Irfan (Sufism) among the selected Shia scholars and through them to the mass followers. We also consider his position in the history of philosophy and Sufism to analyze his place as motivating the spread of Sufi teachings from Ibn 'Arabi’s (1165-1240) and Mulla Sadra’s (c 1571-1640) to his disciple 'Allama Tabataba’i, the great master of Islamic philosophy and Sufism in the contemporary Shi’a Seminary.