Tabatabaei is a surname of Iranian/Persian origin Arabic family name, an adjectival form denoting descent from someone called Tabataba, in particular Ismail bin Ibrahim Al-Ghamr,ibn Hasan ibn Hasan,a great-grandson of Ali a fourth and last of the ‘rightly guided’ khalifs It is one of many families of Shia Muslims, Sunni Muslims primarily predominant in Iran, but also in Iraq, Lebanon, Kuwait and Pakistan. Wikipedia