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Ibn Taymiyya, Radical Polymath, Part 2: Intellectual

Contributions
Elliott A. Bazzano*
Le Moyne College

Abstract
Part one of this two-part article surveys Ibn Taymiyya’s life with particular attention to biographical
perceptions in the premodern as well as modern worlds. The second part hones in on Ibn Taymiyya’s
intellectual contributions to a number of debates in his lifetime and following, with particular attention
to how secondary scholarship has framed his work. Contemporary authors often reduce Ibn Taymiyya
(d. 728/1328) to a modern political inspiration by giving attention to his inf luence on allegedly
puritanical religio-political movements in the modern world. Participants in these movements, including
‘Salafis’ and ‘Wahhabis,’ have selectively adopted his views on issues ranging from jihād to anti-Sufi ten-
dencies and the promotion of state-sponsored Islamic law (sharī‘a). The complex polymath, however,
wrote prodigiously on numerous topics including theology, political theory, qur’anic exegesis, jurispru-
dence, and mysticism. Although he espoused violence in some situations, he was a pacifist at other times.
This, combined with his attention to independent legal reasoning (ijtihād), often offended authorities and
landed him in jail on more than one occasion. Just as he upbraided certain Sufis, moreover, he also
espoused a type of Sufism in accord with his own persuasions. We must therefore recognize the Damascene
polymath for his abilities to adroitly navigate and contribute to all manners of debates in his time, regardless
of—although relevant to—how modern scholars have understood his writings.

Introduction
Picking up from the first part of this article, which explores the biography and scholarly
perceptions of Taqī al-Dīn Ahmad b. Taymiyya (d. 728/1328), this second installment focuses
˙
on Ibn Taymiyya’s contributions to scholarship and contemporary interpretations of those
contributions. As part one of this treatment has demonstrated, modern and premodern thinkers
remember Ibn Taymiyya in different ways, ranging from hagiographical to unabashedly
demonizing portrayals of the man. Among the most popular memories of Ibn Taymiyya, at least
in contemporary Western scholarship, are his complicated but oftentimes negative views of
mysticism generally and certain aspects of Sufism particularly. These critiques almost always
relate to Ibn Taymiyya’s larger program of social and spiritual reform, aimed at redirecting
the morally misguided Islamic community into a social order more in line with the Qur’an
and prophetic custom. Some scholars would argue that Ibn Taymiyya’s focus on law and
theology outweigh his interest in Sufism, but the character of Ibn Taymiyya as an anti-Sufi
crusader has remained popular in the collective scholarly imagination over the past several
decades. I will thus begin by examining his role both as critic and advocate of Sufism.

Mysticism and Polemics

Ibn Taymiyya’s critiques of Sufism were one way that he challenged the normative traditions of
his times. Thus, in the Western and Muslim worlds alike, scholars as well as the masses
remember Ibn Taymiyya for his anti-Sufi polemics.1 Unfortunately, however, scholars often
focus on his criticism of Sufism at the expense of noting his affinity for the tradition. To be sure,

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118 Elliott A. Bazzano

Ibn Taymiyya vociferously opposed certain Sufis and Sufi doctrines. He saw monistic
tendencies as morally equivocal and readily labeled numerous Sufi practices as heretical
innovations (bid‘a), including celebrating the Prophet’s birthday and certain types of
Sufi chants.2 But he also held a deep reverence for Sufi principles such as self-purification
and ethical development.3
Ibn Taymiyya’s particularly sober vision of Sufism contrasts starkly with much of the wider
Sufi tradition, but he decidedly did not oppose Sufism per se, despite many authors who have
characterized his worldview as such.4 In Ibn Taymiyya’s 36-volume Collection of Legal Rulings
(Majmū‘ al-fatāwā), two lengthy volumes cover his critiques as well as praises of Sufism.5 He even
wrote a treatise on the virtues of Sufism as well as a commentary (sharh) on the famous mystical
˙ (Futūhal-ghayb).6 This
treatise of ‘Abd al-Qādir al-Jilānī (d. 595/1198), Revelations of the Unseen
commentary has led some scholars to assert that that Ibn Taymiyya may have ˙ even formally
belonged to the Qādirī Sufi brotherhood.
George Makdisi, for example, refers to a cloak (khirqa)—often a sign of initiation—that Ibn
Taymiyya supposedly inherited; Makdisi quotes Ibn Taymiyya: ‘I have worn the Sūfī cloak of a
number of Shaikhs belonging to various tarīqas (or brotherhoods), among them the˙ Shaikh ‘Abd
al-Qādir al-Jilī whose tarīqa is the greatest of the well-known ones.’7 Makdisi also notes Ibn
Taymiyya’s reference to ˙ al-Jilānī as ‘our master (shaykh)’ and favorable accounts of early ascetics
like al-Junayd (d. 297/910). Makdisi goes further to say that Ibn Taymiyya is no less a Sufi than
al-Ghazālī.8 In his article on Ibn Taymiyya in The Encyclopedia of Religion, moreover, Makdisi
nonchalantly describes Ibn Taymiyya as a ‘jurisconsult, theologian and a Sūfī.’9 Yahya Michot
also asserts that Ibn Taymiyya was ‘quite probably himself a Qādirī.’10 ˙
Other scholars such as Thomas Michel and Fritz Meier remain more skeptical of Ibn
Taymiyya’s formal place in a Sufi lineage. Meier argues that traditions about Ibn Taymiyya’s
reception of the cloak are likely fabricated and that ‘to infer membership in an order’ based
on the cloak is to misunderstand the language of these later traditions.11 Conclusive evidence
of Ibn Taymiyya’s affiliation with a Sufi order remains to be seen but Makdisi’s work as well
as that of Michel and Meier has nonetheless ref lected scholarly interest in Ibn Taymiyya’s
appreciation for aspects of the Sufi tradition.12 In ‘Sufism without Mysticism?’ Ovamir Anjum
puts it this way:

Ibn Taymiyyah endorsed Sufism devoid of mysticism, and wished to recover the earliest tradition of
Sufism when mystical knowledge had not challenged the primacy of scriptural knowledge. This
rejection of mysticism was not a rejection of divine disclosure (kashf ) and other spiritual states, but
of its epistemological independence.13

As Anjum articulates, Ibn Taymiyya did not oppose encounters with unseen realms; rather,
he was unwilling to endorse the validity of such encounters without confirmation from Islamic
scripture. Even Ibn Taymiyya encountered the Prophet in a dream according to an account by
Khalīl b. Aybak al-Safadī (d. 764/1363). As al-Safadī reports, Ibn Taymiyya attended a Friday
prayer where a female˙ student of his, Umm˙ Zaynab Fātima bint ‘Abbās al-Baghdādiyya
(d. 714/1314-15), preached in a sermon. Ibn Taymiyya ˙ had praised the scholar for her
knowledge and good character but left the sermon unsettled by the female presence on the
pulpit. Shortly thereafter, however, he returned home, fell asleep, and encountered the Prophet
in a dream, who rebuked him saying, ‘This is a pious woman.’14 Mishandling of spiritual states,
though, was of grave concern for Ibn Taymiyya.
The Mongol onslaught and rule as well as the general sociopolitical upheavals of his age, were
undeniable aspects of his personal context, but spiritual and intellectual corruption were at
the fore of his concerns. According to Ibn Taymiyya, Sufis like Ibn Sab‘īn (d. 669/1270) and

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 Ibn Taymiyya, Radical Polymath, Part 2 119

Muhyī al-Dīn ibn al-‘Arabī (d. 637/1240) taught heretical doctrines and spawned antinomian
˙
admirers who would perpetuate deviant ideas. On this topic, Ibn Taymiyya writes:

Opposing (by word and deed) these [deviant intellectuals] is the greatest of religious obligations, for
they have corrupted intellects and creeds of the people including shaykhs [Sufis], scholars and
rulers….Their harm is greater in religion than harm of the one who corrupts the worldly affairs of
the Muslims but leaves their religion untouched such as the bandit or the Mongols who take away
people’s wealth but leave alone their religion.15

Ibn Taymiyya found a particular disdain for the work of Ibn al-‘Arabī. Born in southern
Spain, Ibn al-‘Arabī would settle in Damascus, where he remains buried today.16 Indeed his
presence in the city likely ripened the context for Ibn Taymiyya to take notice of him,
even though the two scholars never met in the f lesh, as they were never alive at the same
time. Ibn Taymiyya censured Ibn al-‘Arabī and his followers for their allegedly monistic
views and disregard for the apparent meaning of the Qur’an. On this point, however,
perhaps ironically, both Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn al-‘Arabī shared many aspects in their
approaches to interpreting the Qur’an: they both performed exegesis outside of the
tradition of running commentaries, they both went to great pains in order to communicate
the solemnity to which they regarded the authority of the Prophet Muhammad (Ibn
al-‘Arabī writes that he received the entire text of the Bezels of Wisdom, Fusūs al-hikam, in
a vision from the Prophet himself ), and they both bypassed the discursive ˙ ˙ ˙scholarly
17
tradition when offering their interpretations. Thus, both scholars were radical in their
own ways, at times overlapping in method.
In his youth, Ibn Taymiyya actually praised Ibn al-‘Arabī, until encountering texts like the
Fus ūs , in which Ibn Taymiyya saw monistic doctrines that he adamantly rejected. On the
one ˙ ˙hand, he notes that many who innovate practices not present in the life of the Prophet
or early Muslim community are often lax about obeying the explicit commands of Islam.18
On the other hand, Ibn Taymiyya still concedes that even reprehensible (makrūh) acts if done
‘with good purpose and independent reasoning’ could reap rewards with God.19 This view,
however, hardly softened his contempt for the ideas of Ibn al-‘Arabī.20
In addition to Sufis, Ibn Taymiyya went after a number of other groups including Jews,
Christians, Mu‘tazilīs, philosophers, and Shī‘īs.21 His Correct Response to Those Who Alter the
Religion of the Messiah (Al-jawāb al-sahīh li man baddala dīn al-Masīh) comprises perhaps the longest
and most systematic anti-Christian ˙ ˙ polemical
˙ ˙
treatise by a premodern Muslim author.22 He
wrote the text in reaction to Christians who had claimed the Qur’an as a Christian document,
and although Ibn Taymiyya uses that context to frame the treatise, he primarily addresses threats
to Islamic orthodoxy from within.23 That he is writing in response to a Christian document is
almost incidental, because in many cases in the Response, his wide net allows him to hit two birds
with one stone. He denounces the doctrine of the Christian incarnation (al-hulūl), for example,
while simultaneously noting alleged analogues in Islamic tradition such as the ˙ ideas of the Sufi
24
Abū Yazīd al-Bistāmī (d. ca. 264/877).
Indeed, much of Ibn Taymiyya’s writings rely heavily on critiquing scholars, intellectual
schools, and texts. As Thomas Michel insightfully notes, Ibn Taymiyya ‘seemed best able to
say what Islam is (or should be) by pointing up its contradistinctions to what Islam is not (or must
not become).’25 He also wrote a polemical treatise that specifically targets Shi‘īs entitled the Way
of the Prophetic Example in Refutation of Theology of the Qadarite Shī‘a (Minhāj al-sunna al-nabawiyya
fī naqd kalām al-Shī‘a al-Qadariyya). Its title is a play on words, responding to a Shi‘ī text, the Way
˙
of Nobility in Knowing the Imamate (Minhāj al-karāma fī ma‘rifat al-imāma), penned by Ibn
al-Mut ahhar al-Hillī (d. 726/1325).26
˙ ˙
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120 Elliott A. Bazzano

Like the Response, the Way of the Prophetic Example addresses larger concerns beyond the Shī‘a,
using al-Hillī’s text as a starting point. And also like the Response, Ibn Taymiyya conveys in a
comparative ˙ spirit that Shī‘ī insistence on relegating the proclamation of righteous warfare to
the sole authority of the Imam is of Jewish and Christian origin.27 Ibn Taymiyya’s opposition
to the Shī‘a, moreover, ‘went beyond his use of the pen’ as Tariq al-Jamil articulates, and ‘on
two separate occasions he participated in military campaigns against Shi‘is,’ in 700/1300, and
704/1305.28
Given Ibn Taymiyya’s critiques of non-Muslims, Shi‘īs, and philosophers, among others,
Paul Heck’s monograph on skepticism in classical Islam devotes a chapter to Ibn Taymiyya.
Although ‘it seems odd,’ Heck writes, ‘to associate Ibn Taymiyya with skepticism’ given that
that Damascene thinkers gave so much focus to the certainty of the early Muslim community,
there is a logic to this connection.29 Ibn Taymiyya was skeptical not of revelation but rather he
‘mounted skeptical attacks on the rationality of logic.’30 That is, he was skeptical of attempting
to prove the cosmos with reason but not revelation. They go hand in hand, as he argues in many
places.
As we have already seen, moreover, the skepticism that Heck identifies also extends to realms
beyond philosophy. Ibn Taymiyya questioned the abilities of mysticism and various theological
schools of the day to give genuine answers to foundational religious issues. As Heck argues, for
example, Ibn Taymiyya lamented the inability of the Muslim community to understand the
Qur’an at the level of plain language. The dilemma, Ibn Taymiyya claims, ‘lies at the level of
language: If one understood the language of the righteous predecessors, one would realize that
they were of one accord.’31 And here, Heck connects Ibn Taymiyya not only to notions of
skepticism, but also to qur’anic hermeneutics, a field of Ibn Taymiyya studies that has begun
to receive increasing attention in recent years and which in its nascent stage has already
questioned the degree to which Ibn Taymiyya was indeed able to follow a paradigm that
claimed to read the Qur’an according to its plainest meaning and lens of the righteous ancestors
(al-salaf al-sālih).
˙ ˙

Qur’anic Hermeneutics and Epistemology

Although Ibn Taymiyya produced hundreds of books, he is not generally known for his work in
qur’anic exegesis, even though he made important contributions to the field. Although
Western scholarship has just begun to give attention to Ibn Taymiyya’s approach to interpreting
the Qur’an, the epistemology that undergirds his scholarship quintessentially relates to his
reliance on the Qur’an.32 Like much of Islamic scholarship, Ibn Taymiyya’s writings are,
to use the words of Jane McAuliffe, ‘Qur’an saturated.’33 In fact, Ibn Taymiyya’s deference
to the Qur’an and early Muslim community oftentimes precludes him from engaging with
what Ebrahim Moosa calls the ‘pluralities of discursive traditions,’ which provide the
backbone of the normative Islamic intellectual heritage.34 Indeed, Ibn Taymiyya also
challenged the normative boundaries of Islamic scripture by casting doubt on certain
prophetic reports even when they could be found in both al-Bukhārī and Muslim, the
two most authoritative collections.35
With respect to challenging the methods of the day for interpreting the Qur’an itself, Ibn
Taymiyya’s treatise, A Treatise on the Principles of Qur’anic Exegesis (Muqaddima fī usūl al-tafsīr),
launched just such a challenge. It argues that looking to the Qur’an itself, canonical ˙ hadiths,
and reports of the early generations of Muslims (al-salaf ) comprises the best and perhaps only true
way to understand the meaning of the Islamic holy book. The extent to which Ibn Taymiyya
follows this prescription, however, in the Treatise and his other writings, remains questionable.
Given the tenuous distinction between be al-tafsīr bi-l-ra’ī (exegesis according to opinion) and

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 Ibn Taymiyya, Radical Polymath, Part 2 121

al-tafsīr bi-l-ma’thūr (exegesis according to tradition), one could argue that much of what Ibn
Taymiyya casts as al-tafsīr bi-l-ma’thūr is actually al-tafsīr bi-l-ra’ī.36 Walid Saleh and others,
moreover, have argued that in the Islamic exegetical tradition more broadly, the distinction
between these two camps is largely polemical and ‘turned out to be a mirage’ insofar as it
primarily establishes partisanship more than a significantly meaningful divergence in approach.37
Differences between ‘exegesis according to opinion’ and ‘exegesis according to tradition’
notwithstanding, there are likely no such other Arabic texts from the medieval period—aside
from Ibn Taymiyya’s Treatise—that present a theory of qur’anic exegesis, which are not also part
of a larger commentary.38 Ibn Taymiyya ostensibly wrote the text to stand on its own, but as
Walid Saleh asserts that it is impossible to know with certainty if another comparable text
exists—even though he is unaware of its like.39 Most importantly, the ambitious schema that
Ibn Taymiyya presents in the text argues for a reinvention of the entire Islamic exegetical
tradition. Saleh—who has written the only article-length study in English on Ibn Taymiyya’s
qur’anic hermeneutics—calls Ibn Taymiyya’s program ‘not only a restriction of options, but a
reformulation of what exegesis is and is not.’40 In creating it, he challenged a plethora of qur’anic
commentaries that consisted of hundreds if not thousands of volumes. Ibn Taymiyya also uses
the Treatise as opportunity to critique Shi‘īs and Mu‘tazilīs in particular, for what he considered
heterodox views. Regarding this controversialist tendency in Ibn Taymiyya’s writing, Saleh
notes that ‘it is no wonder that most of his production was theological or polemical in nature.
The man could hardly muster the composure to write dispassionately.’41
The Treatise also addresses sayings of the Jews and Christians whose traditions might bear on
making sense of the Qur’an, especially where one seemingly encounters narrative gaps. Many
classical Muslim authors made use of these reports—which later came to be known as
isrā’īliyyāt—to supplement other sources used to interpret the Qur’an. As Jane McAuliffe argues,
Ibn Taymiyya was one of the strongest critics of using these traditions for exegetical purposes.42
Importantly, though, he does not prohibit their citation entirely, but he does argue that they are
ultimately of no value other than data collection.43 Younus Mirza has built upon the scholarship
of McAuliffe and Saleh by taking a close look at Ibn Taymiyya’s position toward isrā’īliyyāt in his
exegetical writings. Mirza additionally shows how Ibn Taymiyya helped popularize the notion
that it was Ishmael, not Isaac, who was the intended sacrifice in the Qur’an.44
Sydney Griffith has argued that after Ibn Taymiyya, for the rest of the Middle Ages, Muslim
authors seem to have lost interest in any possible authoritative value in scriptures of the Jews or
Christians, as well as in anything arising from Jewish or Christian exegetical traditions.45 The
case of Ibrāhīm ibn ‘Umar al-Biqā‘ī (d. 885/1480), however, would seem to challenge Griffith’s
argument, as he wrote a qur’anic commentary that makes extensive use of materials from the
Hebrew Bible.46 In any case, Ibn Taymiyya may well have affected the ways in which Muslim
scholars theorized about the epistemological value of Christian and Jewish scriptures, but this
hypothesis requires further study.
One of Ibn Taymiyya’s students, Ibn Kathīr (d. 774/1373), as well as the much later
al-Suyūt ī, also took particular inf luence from the treatise on qur’anic exegesis.47 Ibn Kathīr cites
the final˙ two chapters verbatim in the introduction to his own Qur’an commentary and
invariably draws inspiration from the Treatise throughout his work.48 Younus Mirza has
challenged the idea held by Norman Calder and others, however, that Ibn Kathīr’s method
of exegesis was merely an extension of Ibn Taymiyya’s.49 Ibn Kathīr cites Ibn Taymiyya and
follows his prescriptions to a point, but Ibn Kathīr’s idiosyncratic intellectual commitments,
including affiliation with the Shafi‘i legal school (and not the Hanbali school of Ibn Taymiyya),
should also account for the divergence of his views from those of Ibn Taymiyya. Just as studies of
Ibn Taymiyya’s qur’anic hermeneutics and exegesis have only begun to explore the depths of
his writing on the subjects, Ibn Taymiyya’s theological writings fall into a similar camp.

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Theological Controversies
Although significant attempts have been made to map the universe of Ibn Taymiyya’s
theological writings, the study of Ibn Taymiyya’s theology is in its infancy.50 The growing body
of literature on the subject includes a number of publications, including Islam and the Fate of
Others: The Salvation Question, where Mohammad Khalil explores the hot-button topic of
salvation, from the perspective of several well-known Muslim scholars, including Ibn
Taymiyya.51 As Khalil demonstrates, among classical Muslim thinkers, Ibn Taymiyya remains
one of the greatest proponents of ‘soteriological inclusivism.’ Because the Qur’an informs the
reader about the fate of only certain individuals (e.g., Abū Lahab), Ibn Taymiyya concedes that
the fates of specific humans are ultimately and entirely up to God—making it impossible for a
person to ever exact certainty on the fate of another, whether Muslim or non-Muslim.52
Khalil also draws plausible connections between Ibn Taymiyya’s soteriological theology and
American Muslim movements.53 Maulana Muhammad Ali (d. 1951), famous for an English
translation of the Qur’an, also wrote The Religion of Islam, in which he discusses themes of
salvation and cites Ibn Taymiyya as an authority. Ali’s case for universal salvation shaped the views
of many people, particularly in the English-speaking world, ostensibly including Nation of Islam
leader Elijah Muhammad (d. 1975). In his manifesto, The Supreme Wisdom: Solution to the So-Called
Negroe’s Problem, Elijah Muhammad asserts that unlike Heaven, Hell is not eternal.54 He concludes the
work by recommending the translation of the Qur’an by Muhammad Ali. Thus, Khalil argues that
if there is, indeed, a soteriological connection between Muhammad Ali and Elijah Muhammad, this
would mean that Ibn Taymiyya’s arguments for universal salvation may have played a role—however
minor or indirect—in the theological development of an indigenous, non-traditionalist American
movement centuries later.55

Recent scholarship has also approached one of Ibn Taymiyya’s chief works, The Repulsion
of Opposing Reason and Tradition (Dar’ ta‘ārud al-‘aql wa-l-naql).56 The multi-volume text
explores the relationship between reason and˙ revelation, which Ibn Taymiyya holds to be
always compatible because reason has no independent status, contrary to what many of the
philosophers held.57 Ibn Taymiyya developed, moreover, what scholars have called ‘Qur’ānic
rational theology,’ and ‘theology of the Sunna’ because of his insistence that the Qur’an and
the Sunna provide superior and sufficient rational proofs, making the philosophical proofs of
the theologians redundant.58
Striving to make rational sense of the Qur’an, without interpreting it allegorically, led Ibn
Taymiyya to offer some unusual interpretations of numerous verses. These interpretations
helped develop his controversial theological views on ostensibly anthropomorphic conceptions
of God, which remain anathema to mainstream Islamic understandings of God’s oneness. Such
criticisms would eventually lead to one of his many trials and imprisonments.59 Some scholars
question, however, whether these trials and sentences were more rooted in politics rather than
theology. Jon Hoover contends that Ibn Taymiyya’s contemporaries misunderstood, or were
unwilling to understand, his theological views on God’s attributes.60 Hoover argues that Ibn
Taymiyya’s opposition to allegorical interpretations to the Qur’an, in the style of Sufis, Shi‘īs,
and Mu‘tazilis, indeed led ‘him to ref lect on the apparent contradiction between [for example,]
God’s sitting on the Throne and His omnipresence found in “He is with you wherever you are”
(Q. 57:4).’61 Ibn Taymiyya suggests that this might be ‘as when someone says that the moon or
stars are with him when traveling’. Similarly, a father sitting on a roof may say to a son crying
below, ‘Do not be afraid! I am with you.’62
In addition to Ibn Taymiyya’s controversial views on his allegedly anthropomorphic views of
God, he received disapproval as well for his views on the so-called ‘Satanic Verses,’ which

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infamously set him apart from his peers and stirred up controversy.63 According to some two
dozen sources, the Prophet Muhammad articulated what he thought was revelation in the
presence of members from the Quraysh tribe that was oppressing Muhammad and his people.
Following a verse from Sūrat al-Najm (Q 53:19), ‘and have you considered what it is you are
worshipping in al-Lat, al-‘Uzza and Manat, the third, the other,’ the Prophet recites, ‘Indeed,
they are as high-f lying cranes! And, indeed, their intercession [with God] is hoped for!’64
The question then became, was revelation actually permitting the intercession of pagan deities?
If so, was Islam actually a polytheistic religion? Answering these questions in the affirmative
would have spelled disaster for Muslim theology.65 Not surprisingly, then, by Ibn Taymiyya’s
time, the majority of Muslim scholars had come to deny the historicity of the incident.
Scholars had long-believed that those who transmitted the story were unreliable and that the
implications of Satan beguiling the Prophet Muhammad would contradict the doctrine of
‘infallibility’ (‘isma), or divine protection, that God granted to His prophets.66 Ibn Taymiyya,
however, argued ˙ that the so-called Satanic Verses were indeed uttered by the Prophet and that
the sources of attestation were reliable. He saw nothing in the incident that should upset the
doctrine of ‘isma and asserted that belief in the incident was the position of the early Muslims
and thus the ˙original and authentic truth.67
Most significantly, Ibn Taymiyya understood ‘isma differently from previous scholars. As
Shahab Ahmed points out, Ibn Taymiyya argued ˙ that ‘prophets are not infallible in the
transmission of Divine Revelation but are rather Protected only from any error coming to be
permanently established in Divine Revelation.’68 Indeed, although translators commonly
render and understand ‘isma as ‘infallibility,’ Ibn Taymiyya and others scholars have viewed it
more along the lines of ˙ ‘protection,’ which lexical possibilities allow.69 Therefore, Ibn
Taymiyya held that so long as Muhammad’s community eventually understood that the
whisperings of Satan were not revelation, there would be no harm in the incident. Moreover,
he argues that precisely because prophets err, they are better equipped to understand and
therefore communicate truth.70 Ibn Taymiyya explains:

The individual who has known Evil and tasted it, and has then known Good and tasted it: his
knowledge of Good and love of it and his knowledge of Evil and hatred of it may be more complete
than that of the individual who has not known and tasted Good and Evil as has the first person.71

Ibn Taymiyya’s scholarship was not always maverick, however, and he often fell within the
mainstream. In his analysis of the story of Pharaoh’s death (Q 10:88–92), for example, he tackles
the issue of whether the tyrant’s faith, declared on the brink of drowning, was sincere. He took
up this matter prompted by the claim of none other than his rival Ibn al-‘Arabī, who believed
that Pharaoh’s faith was sincere.72 Ibn Taymiyya appears to be the first scholar to critique Ibn
al-‘Arabī’s view in this regard and sparked a centuries-long polemical discourse that has
continued into the modern period.73 Like the majority of exegetes, Ibn Taymiyya denies
the validity of Pharaoh’s death-bed testimony, but Ibn Taymiyya’s interpretive methods
diverge from most scholars, as he relies almost entirely on intra-qur’anic references to buttress
his arguments.74

Law, Politics, and War

Like Ibn Taymiyya’s exegetical and theological writings, his legal opinions often challenged the
status quo, in part due to his emphasis on independent reasoning and skepticism of the inherited
tradition. One of his most controversial legal opinions involves his views on divorce.
Mainstream Islamic law holds that after three divorces, a Muslim man and woman cannot

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124 Elliott A. Bazzano

remarry each other. The legal tradition also defines a waiting period following an individual
divorce, in which said man and woman cannot remarry.
For the majority of Muslim legal scholars, all three divorces may take place at once. For example,
if the man tells his wife, ‘I divorce you, I divorce you, I divorce you,’ then the marriage becomes
irrevocably dissolved. According to Ibn Taymiyya, however, not more than one divorce could be
uttered at once, until the waiting period had expired. The effect of his opinion on the matter
might appear trivial, but its implications were not. His departure from juristic consensus
represented a challenge to the stability of local politics and the greater Islamic legal tradition.75
Indeed, according to Yossef Rapoport, Ibn Taymiyya’s rejection of legal authority implies
a ‘legal pluralism’ that could allow any knowledgeable Muslim to form his own opinion.76
Even today, most Arab countries have legislated that a triple divorce pronounced in one
utterance shall count as only one repudiation.77 Thus, we see Ibn Taymiyya’s footprint firmly
pressed on many modern legal systems. This example also goes to show how Muslim-majority
countries selectively incorporate ‘Islamic law’ into their legal codes. In addition to his unusual
views on divorce, Ibn Taymiyya also appears to be one of the few premodern scholars to directly
and unambiguously apply the qur’anic prohibitions on infanticide to the case of abortion.78
Beyond matters of family law, Ibn Taymiyya also invested substantial energy in discussing
different types of warfare, and his works portray a tension between pacifism and the
sometimes-violent struggle for justice. In modern times in particular, jihadist groups have drawn
on the authority of Ibn Taymiyya in order to justify suicide missions. As Rebecca Molloy notes,
a short treatise by Ibn Taymiyya’s has proven particularly relevant to these discussions—namely
Qā‘ida fī-l-inghimās fī-l-‘adū wa hal yubāh? (A Principle Regarding Plunging into the Enemy, and is it
Permissible?).79 In the text, Ibn Taymiyya ˙ articulates deadly situations in which combatants may
enter, under the presumption that they could likely die. None of these situations seem to
indicate fighting civilians, however, and for this reason among others Malloy does not take a
neutral stance regarding interpretations of Qā‘ida fī-l-inghimās. She notes that jihadist ideologues
distort ‘Islamic tradition and law to suit their cause’ and ‘blurred the line within Islamic law
between expression of bravery and anti-Shari‘a, deviant criminal behavior.’80 Because of the
high-stakes, political implications of texts such as Qā‘ida fī-l-inghimās, one can surmise why
scholars like Malloy would offer normative readings.
Despite reasons Ibn Taymiyya may have given that would justify violence in specific
contexts, according to Khaled Abou El Fadl, Ibn Taymiyya believed that ‘the best response
to unjust rulers is patience.’81 His anti-rebellion stance, for example, seems to be pro-state,
whereas his emphasis on obeying Islamic law at the risk of disobeying a ruler points in the
opposite direction.82 In general, though, Ibn Taymiyya argues that an unjust ruler is better than
chaos. He considered fighting fellow Muslims an especially grave offense and placed emphasis
on pacifistic political dissent.
He was comfortable at times, however, declaring certain allegedly Muslim groups to be
unbelievers, in which case fighting them was not simply permissible but praiseworthy. His
treatise on public law, Al-siyāsa al-shar‘iyya (Islamic Politics), moreover, gives unprecedented
praise to jihād (righteous struggle; in this case righteous warfare), calling it better than any other
religious duty, including prayer and pilgrimage.83 Some thinkers would translate Ibn
Taymiyya’s responsa on warfare to their different contexts—in turn justifying violence through
a selective application of Ibn Taymiyya’s writings.84 That said, these applications prove ironic,
perhaps because Ibn Taymiyya himself often chose to avoid violence even at the risk of personal
endangerment. He once refused, for example, to issue a legal opinion that would have permit-
ted the sultan to exterminate some of his political foes. As a result, Ibn Taymiyya was
imprisoned.85 His struggle between pacifism and military force is but one of the many paradoxes
that characterize his writings and personal inclinations.

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 Ibn Taymiyya, Radical Polymath, Part 2 125

Conclusions
Repeated run-ins with the law would eventually lead Ibn Taymiyya to spend his final days in
the Damascus citadel. Multiple sources attest that authorities arrested him because of his
prohibition on visiting the graves of Muslim saints. Although many scholars have accepted this
supposition, Yahya Michot and others demonstrate that such accusations were likely a pretext
for a polity already intent on locking up Ibn Taymiyya for good.86 Ibn Kathīr supports Michot’s
assertion, moreover, stating that Ibn Taymiyya never opposed visiting shrines, but rather
discouraged, as do prophetic reports, performing the ritual prayer at such sites, which Ibn
Taymiyya confirms in his own writings.87
Death would finally take Ibn Taymiyya, alone in his Damascus cell, in 728/1328.88 According
to Ibn Kathīr’s account, the funeral was a momentous occasion attended by tens if not hundreds of
thousands.89 Michael Chamberlain even writes that Damascenes seeking benefit came to drink the
water in which Ibn Taymiyya performed his ablutions; and after his death, some eager folks even
vied to drink the water with which his corpse was washed.90 Ibn Taymiyya was buried in Damascus
at a Sufi cemetery, and today, located off main thoroughfares, the spot remains discrete. Notably,
Yahya Michot has explored the contrast between Ibn Taymiyya’s unremarkable gravesite and the
more celebrated Damascus tomb of Ibn al-‘Arabī, whose burial place commands a lively presence
in the neighborhood, Muhyī al-Dīn, named after him.91
˙
In conclusion, Ibn Taymiyya, for many reasons, became one of the most important figures in
Islamic history. But is he the father of radical Islamic fundamentalism and religious violence, or
terrorism? Was he inf luential throughout the Muslim world during his lifetime and prior to the
18th century? Given the range of opinions Ibn Taymiyya expresses in his writings and the
limited evidence we have about this premodern legacy, jumping to quick conclusions would
prove dangerous and intellectually irresponsible. In the sense that he departed from the inherited
tradition on several occasions and contended with political and religious authorities, he proves
indeed radical and iconoclastic. But perhaps we might best remember the Damascene scholar as
a difficult-to-pin-down polymath, given his abilities to adroitly navigate and contribute to all
manners of debates in his time, and the copious intellectual fodder that his legacy and pen have
left in the modern world.
Acknowledgements
Several people aided me in writing this article. I would like to thank Ovamir Anjum,
Mohammad Khalil, Rose Aslan, and Yasmin Amin for looking at drafts along the way, and
Ahmad Ahmad for sparking my interest in Ibn Taymiyya. I also thank the anonymous reviewers
at Religion Compass who gave me valuable feedback this article. Most of all, I would like to thank
my wife, Emily Pollokoff, for reading draft upon draft upon draft and offering her meticulous
stylistic and substantive critiques. Any mistakes are of course my responsibility alone.
Short Biography
Elliott Bazzano’s research focuses on the interplay of qur’anic exegesis, polemics, and mysticism as
well as ethical concerns in Islamic studies pedagogy and scholarship. He has written a book
chapter, ‘Research Methods and Problems,’ in The Bloomsbury Companion to Islamic Studies and
authored several articles in The Encyclopedia of Muslim-American History and Encyclopedia of Global
Religion. He studied Arabic in Yemen on a Critical Language Scholarship and in Cairo and
Damascus as a fellow with the Center for Arabic Study Abroad. He co-founded the Annual
Islamic Studies Conference at the University of California, Santa Barbara and serves on the Steering
Committee for the Study of Islam Section in the American Academy of Religion. He currently
works as an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York.

© 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Religion Compass 9/4 (2015): 117–139, 10.1111/rec3.12115
126 Elliott A. Bazzano

Notes
* Correspondence: Le Moyne College, Religious Studies, 1419 Salt Springs Rd. Box 208 Syracuse, NY 13214, USA.
Email: [email protected]

1
Elizabeth Sirriyeh gives substantial attention to Ibn Taymiyya’s affect on perceptions of Sufism in the modern world in
Sufis and Anti-Sufis: The Defence, Rejection, and Rethinking Sufism in the Modern World (Richmond, UK: Curzon Press, 1999).
2
Raquel Ukeles offers a detailed discussion of Ibn Taymiyya’s views on celebrating the Prophet’s birthday. See ‘The
Sensitive Puritan? Revisiting Ibn Taymiyya’s Approach to Law and Spirituality in Light of 20th-century Debates on the
Prophet’s Birthday (mawlid al-nabī),’ in Ibn Taymiyya and His Times (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2010), 269–318.
3
See, for example, Thomas Homerin, ‘Ibn Taimīya’s al-Ṣūfīyah wa-al-Fuqarā’,’ Arabica 32:2 (1985), 237.
4
Even though many authors ignore Ibn Taymiyya’s positive views of Sufism, others present a more nuanced treatment. For
examples of the latter group, see Christopher Melchert, ‘The Hanābila and the Early Sufis,’ Arabica 48:3 (2001), 352; Abdul
Haq Ansari, ‘Ibn Taymiyya and Sufism,’ Islamic Studies 24:1 (1985), ˙ 1–12; and George Makdisi ‘Hanābila,’ in Encyclopedia of
Religion, 2nd ed. Lindsay Jones (Farmington Hills, MI: Gale, 2005), 6:3759–62. Many contributions ˙ to Islamic Mysticism
Contested: Thirteen Centuries of Controversies and Polemics, eds. Frederick de Jong and Bernd Radtke (Boston: Brill, 1999),
also account for Ibn Taymiyya’s complex relationship to Sufism. Although no English monographs devote themselves
exclusively to the question of Ibn Taymiyya’s views of Sufism, at least two Arabic monographs cover the topic. See Mustafā
˙
H ilmī, Ibn Taymiyya wa-l-tasawwuf (Alexandria: Dār al-Da‘wa, 1982) and Ahmad b. Muhammad Banāni, Mawqif al-Imām ˙Ibn
˙ ˙ ˙ ˙
Taymiyya min al-Tasawwuf wa-l-Sūfiyya ( Jedda: Sharikat Dār al-‘Ilm li-l-Ṭibā‘a wa-l-Nashr, 1986).
5 ˙ ˙
See volumes 10 and 11 in Majmū‘ fatāwā shaykh al-Islām Ahmad b. Taymiyya, ed. ‘Abd al-Rahmān b. Muhammad b. Qāsim
˙ ˙ Works in the two volumes ˙ range from
˙ ‘Illnesses of the
al-‘Āsimī al-Najdī al-Hanbalī. Beirut: Matābi ‘Dār al-‘Arabīyya, 1978.
˙ ˙ ˙
Heart’ (Amrād al-qulūb), to polemical works against what Ibn Taymiyya considers ‘excessive’ Sufis in ‘the Difference Between
˙
Allies of the Merciful and Allies of the Devil’ (Al-farq bayn Awliyā’ al-Rahmān wa Awliyā’ al-Shaytān).
6 ˙ ˙
See Thomas Michel, ‘Ibn Taymiyya’s Sharh on Futūh al-Ghayb of ‘Abd al-Qādir al-Jilānī,’ Hamdard Islamicus 4:2
˙ ˙
(1981), 3–12; and Thomas Homerin, ‘Ibn Taimiya’s al-S ūfīyah wa-al-Fuqarā’,’ 219–244.
7 ˙
George Makdisi, ‘Ibn Taimīya: A Sūfī of the Qādiriyya Order,’ American Journal of Arabic Studies 1 (1973), 124. Here,
˙
however, Makdisi cites Ibn Taymiyya indirectly, via Targhīb al-mutahābbīn fī lubs khirqat al-mutamayyizīn of Jamāl al-Dīn
˙
al-Talyānī. Published information on al-Talyānī remains scarce and Makdisi cites only a manuscript.
8 ˙ ˙
George Makdisi, ‘Ibn Taimīya: A Sūfī of the Qādiriyya Order,’ 119. Abū Hāmid al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111), a proponent
of Sufism, also ranks among the most ˙ famous and influential Muslim scholars.˙ His magnum opus, Ihyā’‘ulūm al-dīn
˙
(The Resuscitation of the Religious Sciences) aims to fuse exoteric and esoteric dimensions of Islam.
9
George Makdisi, ‘Ibn Taymīya,’ in The Encyclopedia of Religion, 2nd ed. Lindsay Jones (Farmington Hills, MI: Gale, 2005),
6:4276.
10
Yahya Michot, ‘Ibn Taymiyya’s commentary on the Creed of al-Hallāj,’ in Sufism and Theology, ed. Ayman Shihadeh
(Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007), 123. ˙
11
Fritz Meier, ‘The Cleanest About Predestination: A Bit About Ibn Taymiyya,’ in Essays on Islamic Piety and Mysticism
(Leiden: Brill, 1999), 317–8, fn. 9.
12
Also see George Makdisi, ‘The Hanbali School and Sufism,’ Humaniora Islamica 11 (1974), 61–72; Muhammad Umar
Memon, Ibn Taymiyya’s Struggle against Popular Religion (Paris: Mouton & Co, 1976); and Gavin Picken, ‘The Quest for
Orthodoxy in Islam: Hanbali Responses to Sufism,’ in Fundamentalism in the Modern World, ed. Ulrika Mårtensson et al.
(London: I.B. Taurus, 2011), 2:237–263. Recent scholarship has also highlighted that those who support or oppose
particular Sufi practices often coopt Ibn Taymiyya to support their position while ignoring his broader arguments. See
Ukeles, ‘The Sensitive Puritan?’ 321.
13
Ovamir Anjum, ‘Sufism without Mysticism?: Ibn Qayyim al-Gawziyyah’s Objectives in Madārig al-Sālikīn,’ in A Scholar
in the Shadow: Essays in the Legal and Theological Thought of Ibn Qayyim al-Gawziyyah eds. Caterina Bori and Livnat Holtzman,
Oriente Moderno 90:1 (2010), 185.
14
For the full account, see Khalīl b. Aybak al-Safadī, A‘yān al-‘asr wa a‘wān al-nasr, ed. ‘Alī Abū Zayd et al. (Beirut: Dār
˙
al-Fikr al-Mu‘āsir, 1998), 4:29. For a creative narration ˙
of the anecdote, ˙
see Sa‘diyya Shaikh, Sufi Narratives of Intimacy:
˙
Ibn ‘Arabī, Gender, and Sexuality (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012), 1f.
15
Quoted in Ovamir Anjum, Politics, Law, and Community: The Taymiyyan Moment (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2012), 177. Also see Ibn Taymiyya, Majmū‘ fatāwā, 2:132.
16
Alexander Knysh provides a rich, if brief, analysis of Ibn Taymiyya’s critiques of Ibn al-‘Arabī. See ‘Ibn Taymiyya’s
Formidable Challenge,’ in Ibn ‘Arabi in the Later Islamic Tradition: The Making of a Polemical Image in Medieval Islam (Albany:
State University of New York Press, 1999), 87–111.

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 Ibn Taymiyya, Radical Polymath, Part 2 127
17
For Ibn al-‘Arabī’s account of receiving the text in a vision, see Fusūs al-hikam, ed. Abū ‘Alā ‘Afīfī (Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb
al-‘Arabī, 1946), 47. ˙˙ ˙
18
Ukeles, ‘The Sensitive Puritan?’ 325.
19
Ibn Taymiyya’s Necessity of the Straight Path to Oppose the Followers of Hellfire (Kitāb iqtidā’ al-sirāt al-mustaqīm mukhālafāt
˙ ˙ ˙ Memon calls ‘popular
ash āb al-Jah īm) gives extensive attention to Muslims participating in what Muhammad Umar
˙˙
religion.’ ˙ Ibn Taymiyya’s Struggle Against Popular Religion, Memon provides an annotated translation to sections of
In
Necessity of the Straight Path, in addition to a substantial introduction.
20
Ibn Taymiyya also clashed with other noteworthy and prominent Sufis. Unlike Ibn al-‘Arabī, however, Ibn ‘At ā’
Allāh was a contemporary. For references to their encounters, see George Makdisi, ‘Ibn ‘At ā’ Allāh,’ in The ˙
˙
Encyclopaedia of Islam, 3:722–23, and Victor Danner ‘Ibn ‘At ā’ Allāh,’. Lindsay Jones (ed.), in The Encyclopedia of
Religion, 6:4261–62. ˙
21
For a treatment of Ibn Taymiyya’s critique of philosophers, see Wael Hallaq, Ibn Taymiyya Against the Greek Logicians
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), which includes a translation and commentary of Ibn Taymiyya’s Al-radd
‘ alā-l-mantiqiyyīn. Also see George Tamer, ‘The Curse of Philosophy: Ibn Taymiyya as a Philosopher in
Contemporary Islamic Thought,’ in Islamic Theology, Philosophy, and Law: Debating Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim
al-Jawziyya, eds. Birgit Krawietz and Georges Tamer (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2012), 329–74, as well as Anke von
Kügelgen, ‘The Poison of Philosophy: Ibn Taymiyya’s Struggle For and Against Reason,’ in Islamic Theology,
Philosophy, and Law: Debating Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, eds. Birgit Krawietz and Georges Tamer
(Berlin: de Gruyter, 2012), 253–328, and Thomas Michel, ‘Ibn Taymiyya’s Critique of Falsafa,’ Hamdard Islamicus
6:1 (1983), 3–14.
22
David Thomas has written extensively on Ibn Taymiyya’s Muslim-Christian exchange in the Correct Response. See,
for example, ‘Apologetic and Polemic in the Letter from Cyprus and Ibn Taymiyya’s Jawāb al-sah īh li-man baddala dīn
al-Masīh,’ in Ibn Taymiyya and His Times, eds. Y. Rapoport and S. Ahmed (Karachi: Oxford University ˙ ˙ ˙ Press, 2010):
˙
247–265. Also see Mark Swanson, ‘Ibn Taymiyya and the Kitāb al-burhān: A Muslim Controversialist Response to a
Ninth-Century Arabic Christian Apology,’ in Christian-Muslim Encounters, eds. Yvonne Y. Haddad and Wadi Z.
Haddad (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1995), 95–107. For a treatment of Muslim-Christian polemics
beyond the writings of Ibn Taymiyya, see Hava Lazarus-Yafeh, ‘Some Neglected Aspects of Medieval Muslim
Polemics Against Christianity’ in The Harvard Theological Review 8:1 (1996), 61–84. In A Muslim Theologian’s
Response to Christianity (Delmar, NY: Caravan Books, 1984), Thomas Michel provides a partial translation of the
Response, which includes a rich analysis of the text.
23
In this regard, Ibn Taymiyya also wrote about apostasy in Islam and its legal consequences. See, for example, Ahmad
Ahmad, Islam, Modernity, Violence, and Everyday Life (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 161–65.
24
Michel, 291.
25
Michel, vii.
26
In some cases (e.g., the 1962 Cairo edition), the two works are even published together as part of the same multi-volume set.
27
Tariq al-Jamil, ‘Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn al-Mutahhar al-Hillī,’ in Ibn Taymiyya and His Times, 233.
28 ˙ ˙
Al-Jamil, 233–4.
29
Paul Heck, Skepticism in Classical Islam: Moments of Confusion (New York: Routledge, 2014), 153.
30
Heck, 153.
31
Heck, 161.
32
His biographers, too, however, mention his expertise in the field. See Makari, Ibn Taymiyya’s Ethics: The Social Factor
(Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1983), 2; Thomas Michel, A Muslim Theologian’s Response to Christianity, 383; and
Muhammad Husayn al-Dhahabī, Al-tafsīr wa-l-mufassirūn: bahth tafsīlī ‘an nasha’at al-tafsīr wa tatawwurihi (Cairo: Dār
˙
al-Kutub
˙ ˙
al-H˙ adītha: 1961–2), 1:204. Despite also significant attention
˙
given to Ibn Taymiyya throughout the
Encyclopaedia of˙ the Qur’ān (Leiden, Brill: 2001), 6 vols., ed. Jane McAuliffe, scholarship focusing on his approach to the
Qur’an remains scant.
33
Jane McAuliffe, ‘The Genre Boundaries of Qur’an Commentary,’ in With Reverence for the Word: Medieval Scriptural
Exegesis in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, eds. Jane Dammen McAuliffe, Barry G. Walfish and Joseph W. Goering
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 445.
34
Moosa employs the term to mean the accumulation of knowledge, developed over time, from which Muslim
scholars draw in order to engage with the intellectual heritage of Islam. This type of discursivity has formed
normative Muslim intellectual thought throughout history, which highlights the significance of Ibn Taymiyya’s
reaction to ‘tradition’ as a repository of scholarship. See Ghazali and the Poetics of Imagination (Chapel Hill, University
of North Carolina, 2005), 54.
35
See Jonathan Brown, The Canonization of Bukhārī and Muslim: The Formation of the Sunnī Hadīth Canon (Leiden: Brill, 2007),
˙
313–14.

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128 Elliott A. Bazzano
36
I explore the issue of ‘exegesis according to opinion’ in Ibn Taymiyya’s qur’anic hermeneutics and practice in ‘The
Qur’ān According to Ibn Taymiyya: Redefining Exegetical Authority in the Islamic Tradition,’ (PhD dissertation)
(Santa Barbara, CA: University of California, 2013).
37
Walid Saleh, ‘Preliminary Remarks on the Historiography of Tafsīr in Arabic: A History of the Book Approach,’ Journal of
Qur’anic Studies 12 (2010), 23.
38
Some scholars have suggested that Ibn Taymiyya indeed penned a running 40-volume commentary entitled, Al-bahr al-muhīt,
which Ibn Battuta has mentioned. See ‘Adnān Zarzūr, introduction to Muqaddima fī usūl al-tafsīr, 14–15. ˙ ˙
39 ˙˙ ˙ ˙
See Walid Saleh, ‘Ibn Taymiyya and the Rise of Radical Hermeneutics: An Analysis of An Introduction to the Foundations of
Qur’ānic Exegesis,’ in Ibn Taymiyya and His Times, eds. Y. Rapoport and S. Ahmed (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2010),
125, fn. 6, and 155–56.
40
See Saleh, 149. Aside from Saleh’s article, one of the richest treatments of Ibn Taymiyya’s approach to exegesis
comes from Kristin Zahra Sands, Sūfī Commentaries on the Qur’ān in Classical Islām (New York: Routledge, 2006),
esp. 50–56 and 143–44. She often˙ mentions him as a counterpoint to some of the mystically inclined exegetes she
discusses but nonetheless engages with his Treatise and broader exegetical concerns. Sarra Tlili also offers an insightful
analysis of Ibn Taymiyya’s approach to the Qur’an in light of the debate about ‘tradition-based’ vs. ‘opinion-based’
exegesis. See ‘Exegesis, Relevant Notions, and Exegetes,’ in Animals in the Qur’ān (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2012), esp. 46–49.
41
Saleh, 132.
42
See Jane McAuliffe, ‘Assessing The Isrā’īliyyāt: An Exegetical Conundrum,’ in Story-telling in the Framework of Nonfictional
Arabic Literature, ed. S. Leder (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 1999), 345–69. For the origins and challenge of using
isrā’īliyyāt for interpreting the Qur’an, also see Roberto Tottoli, ‘Origin and use of Isrā’īliyyāt in Muslim Literature,’
Arabica 46 (1999), 193–210; Gordon Newby, ‘Tafsir Isra’iliyyat,’ Journal of the American Academy of Religion 47, supplement
(1979), 685–97; and Ismail Albayrak, ‘Revaluating the Notion of Isra’iliyyat,’ D.E.Ü. İlahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi (2001),
69–88. For an account of Ibn Taymiyya’s views on the corruption/distortion (tahrīf ) of Christian and Jewish scriptures
more broadly, see Abdullah Saeed, ‘The Charge of Distortion of Jewish and Christian ˙ Scriptures,’ Muslim World 92
(2002), 419–36.
43
Ibn Taymiyya, Muqaddima fī usūl al-tafsīr, 98–100.
44 ˙
See Younus Mirza, ‘Ishmael as Abraham’s Sacrifice: Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Kathīr on the Intended Victim,’ Islam and
Christian-Muslim Relations 24:3, 277–98.
45
Sidney Griffith, ‘Arguing from Scripture: The Bible in the Christian/Muslim Encounter in the Middle Ages,’ in Scripture
and Pluralism: Reading the Bible in the Religiously Plural Worlds of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, eds. Thomas Heffernan and
Thomas Burman (Boston: Brill, 2005), 33.
46
See Walid Saleh, ‘A Fifteenth-Century Muslim Hebraist: Al-Biqā‘ī’s Bible Treatise and His Defence of Using the Bible to
Interpret the Qur’ān,’ Speculum 83 (2008), 629–654; In Defense of the Bible: A Critical Edition and an Introduction to al-Biqā‘ī’s
Bible Treatise (Boston: Brill, 2008); ‘Sublime in its Style, Exquisite in its Tenderness: the Hebrew Bible and Quotations in
al-Biqā‘ī’s Qur’ān Commentary,’ in Adaptations and Innovations: Studies on the Interaction Between Jewish and Islamic
Thought and Literature from the Early Middle Ages to the Late Twentieth Century, eds. Y. Tzvi Langermann and Josef Stern
(Paris-Louvain: Peters, 2007), 331–347.
47
See Saleh, ‘Ibn Taymiyya and the Rise of Radical Hermeneutics,’ 125.
48
See Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr al-Qur’ān al-‘azīm, ed. Mus t afā al-Sayyid Muḥammad et al. (Cairo: Maktabat Awlād
˙˙
al-Shaykh li-l-Turāth, 2000), 1:6–19.˙ Also see Roy Young Muhammad Mukhtar Curtis, ‘Authentic
Interpretation of Classical Islamic Texts: An Analysis of the Introduction of Ibn Kathīr’s Tafsīr al-Qur’ān al-
‘Azīm,’ (PhD dissertation) (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1989).
49 ˙
See Younus Mirza, ‘Was Ibn Taymiyya the “Spokesperson” for Ibn Taymiyya?’ Jonah as a Prophet of
Obedience, Journal of Qur’anic Studies 16:1 (2014), 1–19; also see his dissertation, ‘Ibn Kathīr (d. 774/1373):
His Intellectual Circle, Major Works, and Qur’ānic Exegesis,’ (PhD dissertation) (Washington, DC:
Georgetown University, 2012), 128–62. For one example of Calder’s work on Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Kathīr,
see ‘Tafsīr from Ṭabarī to Ibn Kathīr: Problems in the Description of a Genre, Illustrated with Reference to
the Story of Abraham,’ in Approaches to the Qur’ān, eds. G.R. Hawting and Abdul-Kader A. Shareef (London:
Routledge, 1993), 101–40.
50
Jon Hoover, ‘God Acts by His Will and Power: Ibn Taymiyya’s Theology of a Personal God in his Treatise on the
Voluntary Attributes,’ in Ibn Taymiyya and His Times, 55.
51
Ibn Taymiyya treats the topic particularly in Al-radd ‘alā man qāla bi fanā’ al-Janna wa-l-Nār (The Rejoinder to
those who Maintain the Annihilation of the Garden and the Fire), ed. Muh ammad b. ‘Abd Allāh al-Samharī
(Riyadh: Dār al-Balansiyya, 1995). Ibn Taymiyya’s own position is that Heaven ˙ exists eternally, while Hell
eventually perishes.

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 Ibn Taymiyya, Radical Polymath, Part 2 129
52
Mohammad Khalil, Islam and the Fate of Others (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 77.
53
Khalil, 102–106.
54
Elijah Muhammad, Supreme Wisdom (Phoenix: Secretarius Memps Publications, 2008) 1:44 and 2:53.
55
Khalil, 105.
56
At least two doctoral dissertations, in English, devote themselves to this text. See Carl Sharif El-Tobgui, ‘Reason,
Revelation, and the Reconstitution of Rationality: Taqī al-Dīn Ibn Taymiyya’s (d. 728/1328) Dar’ Ta‘ārud al-‘Aql
˙
wa-l-Naql or “The Refutation of the Contradiction of Reason and Revelation,”’ (PhD dissertation) (Montreal: McGill University,
2013) and Yasir Qadhi, ‘Reconciling Reason and Revelation in the Writings of Ibn Taymiyya: An Analytical Study of
Dar’ al-Ta’ārud ,’ (PhD dissertation) (New Haven, CT: Yale University, 2013).
57 ˙
Binyamin Abrahamov, ‘Ibn Taymiyya on the Agreement of Reason with Tradition,’ The Muslim World 82:3–4 (1992),
272. Also see Nicholas Heer, ‘The Priority of Reason in the Interpretation of Scripture: Ibn Taymiyah and the
Mutakallimūn,’ in Literary Heritage of Classical Islam: Arabic and Islamic Studies in Honor of James A. Bellamy, ed. Mustansir
Mir (Princeton: Darwin Press, 1993), 181–95.
58
M. Sait Özervarli, ‘The Qur’ānic Rational Theology of Ibn Taymiyya and his Criticism of the Mutakallimūn,’ in Ibn
Taymiyya and His Times, 79–81; and Racha El Omari, ‘Ibn Taymiyya’s “Theology of the Sunna” and his Polemics with
the Ash’arites,’ in Ibn Taymiyya and His Times, 101. El Omari also notes the relevance of Ibn Taymiyya’s Dar’ Ta’ārud
˙
al-‘aql wa-l-naql, for its fragmentary citation of the apocryphal Kitāb al-hayda (The Book of Evasion), which influenced
˙
Ḥanbalī thought. See ‘Kitāb al-Ḥayda: The Historical Significance of an Apocryphal Text.’ in Islamic Philosophy, Science,
Culture, and Religion: Studies in Honor of Dimitri Gutas, eds. Felicitas Opwis and David Reisman (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 419–52.
59
On the trials over anthropomorphism, see Sherman Jackson, ‘Ibn Taymiyyah on Trial in Damascus,’ Journal of Semitic
Studies 39 (1994), 41–85.
60
See Jon Hoover, Ibn Taymiyya’s Theodicy of Perpetual Optimism (Brill: Leiden, 2007), 7, 48, and 64.
61
See Hoover, 55.
62
See Hoover, 55. Also see Ibn Taymiyya, Majmū‘ fatāwā, 5:103; and Jackson, ‘Ibn Taymiyya on Trial in Damascus,’
71–2. For a study of anthropomorphism in Islamic thought, see Wesley Williams, ‘Aspects of the Creed of Imam Ahmad
Ibn Hanbal: A Study of Anthropomorphism in Early Islamic Discourse,’ International Journal of Middle East Studies 34 (2002),
441–63. For a related study, see Livnat Holtzman ‘Does God Really Laugh? Appropriate and Inappropriate Descriptions of
God in Islamic Traditionalist Theology,’ in Laughter in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times, ed. Albrecht Classen (Berlin:
de Gruyter, 2010), 165–200.
63
In Arabic, the Satanic Verses are known as Qissat al-gharānīq (the Story of the Cranes).
64 ˙˙
Shahab Ahmed, ‘Ibn Taymiyya and the Satanic Verses,’ Studia Islamica 88 (1998), 69.
65
Ahmed, 72.
66
Ahmed, 122.
67
Ahmed, 111.
68
Ahmed, 78.
69
See, for example, Ahmed, 71 and 122. Younus Mirza explores Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Kathīr’s concepts of ‘isma in ‘Was
Ibn Taymiyya the “Spokesperson” for Ibn Taymiyya?’ 7–13. ˙
70
Ibn Taymiyya also speaks to this notion when exploring the story of the prophet Jonah in Majmū‘ fatāwā, 10:238–335.
71
Ibn Taymiyya, Majmū‘ fatāwā, 10:301–02, quoted in Ahmed, ‘Ibn Taymiyya and the Satanic Verses,’ 93–4.
72
For Ibn al-‘Arabī’s view on Pharaoh’s faith, see Fusūs al-hikam, 201 and 212. For Ibn Taymiyya’s critique, see ‘Risāla fī al-
radd ‘alā Ibn ‘Arabī fī da‘wā īmān Fir‘awn,’ in rasā’il wa˙fatāwā
˙ ˙ fī dhamm Ibn ‘Arabi al-S ūf ī ed., Mūsā b. Sulaymān al-Duwaysh
˙
(Medina: n.p., 1990), 51–68. Ibn Taymiyya’s treatise in this edition is a revised edition from his Jāmi‘ al-rasā’il, ed.
Rashād Sālim ( Jedda: Dār al-Madanī, 1984), 1:203–216. Ibn Taymiyya wrote two short treatises on the matter, and treats
it elsewhere in his Majmū‘at al-rasā’il wa-l-masā’il (Cairo: Lajnat al-Turāth al-‘Arabī, 1976).
73
For a list of those texts that explore the matter of Pharaoh’s faith, see Eric Ormsby, ‘The Faith of Pharaoh: a
Disputed Question in Islamic Theology,’ in Reason and Inspiration in Islam, ed. Todd Lawson (New York: I.B. Taurus,
2005), 471–89. This list does not include standard works of exegesis; rather, it is devoted to particular treatises on the
topic of Pharaoh’s faith. Also see Carl Ernst, ‘Controversies over Ibn al-‘Arabī’s Fusūs : The Faith of Pharaoh,’ Islamic
Culture 59:3 (1985), 259–266; and Alexander Knysh, Ibn ‘Arabi in the Later Islamic Tradition,˙ ˙ 96. Knysh, however, does not
mention Ibn Taymiyya’s longer treatise. He refers instead to another text in which Ibn Taymiyya discusses Ibn al-‘Arabī’s
assertions, namely ‘Haqīqat madhhab al-Ittihādiyyīn’ (‘The Reality of the Doctrine of the Monists’), found in Majmū’at
˙
al-rasā’il wa-l-masā’il,˙ 4:2–101. The final section (98–101) discusses Ibn al-‘Arabī’s view of Pharaoh but adds little to the
longer exposition in the longer work. It does, however, reinforce many of his arguments. Ibn Taymiyya also briefly
discusses Pharaoh in Majmū’ fatāwā, 2:285.

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130 Elliott A. Bazzano
74
I explore this matter in depth my article in progress, ‘Assessing Ibn Taymiyya’s Qur’ānic Hermeneutics: Ibn al-‘Arabī and
the Faith of Pharaoh.’
75
For a detailed analysis of Ibn Taymiyya’s view on the ‘triple divorce’ issue, see Abdul Hakim Al-Matroudi, The Hanbali
School of Law and Ibn Taymiyyah: Conflict or Conciliation (New York: Routledge, 2006), 171–85. For Ibn Taymiyya’s views on
marriage and divorce more broadly, see also Yossef Rapoport, Marriage, Money, and Divorce in Medieval Islamic Society
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 89–110, and ‘Ibn Taymiyya on Divorce Oaths,’ in The Mamluks in
Egyptian and Syrian Politics and Society, eds. A. Levanoni and M. Winter (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 191–217. For an example of
a refutation of Ibn Taymiyya’s heterodox views on divorce, see Taqī al-Dīn al-Subkī, Al-rasā’il al-Subkiyya fī al-radd ‘ala
Ibn Taymiyya wa tilmīdhihi Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, ed. Kamāl Abū al-Mūnā (Beirut: ‘Ālam al-Kutub, 1983), 154–61.
76
Rapoport, ‘Ibn Taymiyya’s Radical Legal Thought,’ 193.
77
Rapoport, ‘Ibn Taymiyya’s Radical Legal Thought,’ 219. Ibn Taymiyya’s views on divorce, specifically ‘oaths on pain of
divorce,’ also led him to clashes with the legal authorities of his time, for which he was eventually arrested. See Yossef
Rapoport, Marriage, Money, and Divorce in Medieval Islamic Society, 90.
78
Ibn Taymiyya, Majmū’ fatāwā, 36:160. Also see Marion Holmes Katz, ‘The Problem of Abortion in Classical Sunni Fiqh,’
in Islamic Ethics of Life: Abortion, War, and Euthanasia, ed. Jonathan Brockopp (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press,
2002), 25–50; Abdul Aziz Sachedina, ‘Religious Perspectives on Abortion and Secular Response: an Islamic Perspective,’
Journal of Religion and Health 49 (2010), 520–523; and Q 17:31 and Q 81:8–9.
79
See Ibn Taymiyya, Qā’ida f ī-l-inghimās f ī-l-‘adū wa hal yubāh , ed. Abū Muḥammad Ashraf b. ‘Abd al-Maqsūd (Riyadh:
Adwā’ al-Salaf, 2002). ˙ ˙
80˙
Rebecca Molloy, ‘Deconstructing Ibn Taymiyya’s Views on Suicide Missions,’ Combating Terrorism Center 2:3 (2009), 3.
81
Abou El Fadl, Rebellion and Violence in Islamic Law, 274. Also see Ibn Taymiyya, Majmū‘ fatāwā, 35:21.
82
Anjum, Politics, Law, and Community, 252.
83
Paul Heck, ‘“Jihad” Revisited,’ The Journal of Religious Ethics 32:1 (2004), 116. For an in-depth look at Ibn Taymiyya’s views
on the word and concept ‘Jihad,’ see Mohammad Farid bin Mohammad Sharif, ‘Jihād in Ibn Taymīyyah’s Thought,’ The Islamic
Quarterly 49:3 (2005), 183–203. Also see Mohd Farid bin Mohammad Sharif, ‘Baghy in Islamic Law and the Thinking of Ibn
Taymiyya,’ Arab Law Quarterly 20:3 (2005), 289–305, and Rudolph Peters, ‘The Religious and Moral Doctrine of Jihad: Ibn
Taymiyya on jihād,’ in Jihad in Classical and Modern Islam: A Reader (Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers, 1996), 43–54.
84
For a nuanced discussion on the supposed misappropriation of Ibn Taymiyya’s writings as such, see Yahya Michot, ‘Ibn
Taymiyya’s “New Mardin Fatwa”: Is Genetically Engineered Islam Carcinogenic?’ Muslim World 101 (2011), 130–181. The
treatment also gives substantial attention to Ibn Taymiyya’s views on the Mongols.
85
Abou El-Fadl, Rebellion and Violence in Islamic Law, 275.
86
For examples of Ibn Taymiyya’s acceptance of visiting tombs, see Yahya Michot, ‘For a Grave in Damascus,’ trans. from
French by Jamil Qureshi (Oxford, 2006), originally published in French for Saphir News (2006): http://www.saphirnews.
com/Pour-une-tombe-a-Damas_a4483.html [Accessed July 23, 2014], 6; and Paul Heck, ‘Sufism, What is it Exactly?’
Religion Compass 1:1 (2007), 157. Makdisi, however, seems to accept the so-called pretext in ‘Ibn Taymīyah,’ in
Encyclopedia of Religion, 6:4278. Khaliq Nizami also assumes that Ibn Taymiyya ‘considered illegal all journeys undertaken
to visit shrines.’ See ‘The Impact of Ibn Taymiyya on South Asia,’ Journal of Islamic Studies 1 (1990), 123.
87
See Ibn Kathīr, Al-bidāya wa-l-nihāya, ed. ‘Abd Allah b. ‘Abd al-Muhsin al-Turkī, 18:270 and Ibn Taymiyya, Majmū’
fatāwā, 27:330. ˙
88
All standard biographical sources list this death date. Some modern scholars (e.g., Knysh, Ruthven, Rapoport), however,
have listed 726/1326 in some of their publications, but this alternative date is not always consistent in their other publications.
I suspect, therefore, that the earlier date originated as a typographical error and subsequently circulated to other sources. I
would maintain that there is no reason to assume the standard date is inaccurate.
89
Ibn Kathīr, Al-bidāya wa-l-nihāya, 18:288ff.
90
Michael Chamberlain, Knowledge and Social Practice in Medieval Damascus, 1190–1350 (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1994), 122.
91
See Michot, ‘For a Grave in Damascus.’
92
For nearly exhaustive lists of Ibn Taymiyya’s works, see the bibliography of Ibn Taymiyya and His Times as well as Jon
Hoover’s website on Taymiyyan studies.

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Websites
Jon Hoover’s Taymiyyan Studies website. https://sites.google.com/site/jhoover363/taymiyyan-studies [Accessed July 23, 2014].
Islamic Philosophy Online. https://www.muslimphilosophy.com [Accessed July 23, 2014].
A searchable Arabic website for Ibn Taymiyya’s works. http://ibntaimiah.al-islam.com [Accessed July 23, 2014].
Yahya Michot’s Hartford Seminary syllabus on Ibn Taymiyya. http://www.hartsem.edu/wp-content/uploads/TH-693-
Pre-syllabus.pdf [Accessed July 23, 2014].

© 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Religion Compass 9/4 (2015): 117–139, 10.1111/rec3.12115