Understanding Ibn Taymiyya’s Approach to Theology

Indibutably, Ibn Taymiyya is heralded as one of the more unique figures within the Islamic civilization and its scholastic tradition. A radically non-conformist scholarly dissenter, he considered himself unbound by the expectations of tradition and the religious accretions of preceding centuries, which had molded contemporary Islam into its normative, orthodox form. He considered his work as representing a pure Sunnī orthodoxy, hearkening back to the Prophet’s ﷺ companions and early generations, and was a vociferous opponent of any conceptualization that he deemed contrary to their inheritance. As such, Ibn Taymiyya regularly challenged established orthodoxy and held minority and idiosyncratic views when it came to both reason and language. This article aims to discuss these views by presenting examples of Ibn Taymiyya’s theological conclusions — arrived through his rejection of reason and his unique linguistic hermeneutics — in contrast to normative Sunnī ʿilm al-kalām.

In order to contextualize Ibn Taymiyya’s views, one must first attempt to understand his intellectual circumstances. During his time, within the Sunnī world, the science of ʿilm al-kalām or dialectic theology, as embodied within the Ashʿarī and Māturīdī schools, reigned dominant. The kalām theologians were represented by luminaries, including, but not limited to, Imāms such as al-Ashʿarī, al-Bāqillānī, al-Ghazālī and Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī. Outside of the Sunnī tradition there existed the peripatetic school of the Philosophers, which had reached its zenith under Ibn Sīna, but was on the decline following the blows dealt by Imām al-Ghazālī. Finally, of note, were the Shīʿa, who existed in a somewhat scattered manner across the Islamic world. The Shīʿa were represented by a panoply of competing theologies, such as those of the Ismāʿīlīs and the Twelvers. Ibn Taymiyya would dispute with each of the aforementioned groups using his revelation-based apologetics.¹

Having noted his intellectual setting, we can now turn to outline Ibn Taymiyya’s hostility toward reason and logic and draw the path that led him to his Islamically-isolated conclusions in theology, including those beliefs related to God and His prophets. As professor John Walbridge notes in his book, “God and Logic in Islam: The Caliphate of Reason,” in comparison to the overwhelming majority of scholars of his time, “the fourteenth-century fundamentalist reformer Ibn Taymīya hated reason wherever it expressed itself in Islamic intellectual life.”² His opposition to reason can be summarized into four aspects. First, he argues that reason is not the basis of revelation. Second, he presents his own counter-points to rational argumentation, such as that they can be numerous, self-contradictory, doubtful, mixed with falsehood, etc. Third, he advocates a wholesale rejection of philosophy and ʿilm al-kalām. Fourth, he professes that incorrect conclusions result from the preference for reason.³ Moreover, as Hallaq⁴ notes, regarding Ibn Taymiyya’s opposition, “he held the logic of Aristotle and of those who followed him to be the ultimate culprit. His grievance against logic was not simply that it existed, but rather that it existed in and infested the core of the Islamic religious sciences.” However, the inherent contradiction of Ibn Taymiyya’s stance lies precisely in his opposition to reason — he attempts to dismiss the importance of reason, while simultaneously relying on it to support his argument. 

An infamous example of this is the debate surrounding the attribution of spatial location to the divine. Ibn Taymiyya disreputably did not deny the belief that God was located spatially upwards, in contradistinction to the Sunnīs who opined that God existed transcending space and time — in other words, the divine is not limited to a spatial location or any other imperfection. Ibn Taymiyya rejected the reasoning of the mainstream Sunnīs (Ashʿarīs and Māturīdīs) who argued that for God to be spatially located “up” necessitates that He is bound by space and direction and therefore limited, or in other words not fully divine. He denied such logical concomitants and held that there was no reason to preclude the divine from dwelling within a direction which he backed with references from Islamic scripture. Contrasting Ibn Taymiyya with the exemplar of Ashʿarīsm, Imām Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, against whom Ibn Taymiyya penned belligerent polemics, Professor John Hoover⁵ sums, “Ibn Taymiyya’s thoroughly reasoned theology of divine spatiality stands firmly against al-Rāzī’s Ashʿarī incorporealism and theological incorporealism more generally.” Considering this example we can see how in his staunch opposition to the reasoning employed in the Sunnī orthodox schools of theology, Ibn Taymiyya was able to arrive at his own, often very controversial, conclusions.

A further example of Ibn Taymiyya’s critique of reason can be seen within the realm of theology as it pertains to God’s prophets or “prophetology.” The Ashʿarī and Māturīdī schools of Sunnī ʿilm al-kalām had developed the doctrine of “prophetic infallibility,” that the prophets of God were held to be essentially perfect human role models as bearers of the divine message as it states in the verse: 

Verily you have in the Messenger of Allah a splendid example for whoever hopes in Allah and the Last Day and remembers Allah much.

Quran, 33.21

Granted, there were some internal orthodox disputes over the boundaries of this doctrine, such as whether or not prophets were capable of sin before having become prophets and whether a minor sin might be conceivable. However, such minutiae aside, the widely held belief considered prophets as infallible and divinely protected from all grave sins in their mission. This was backed by the reasoning that “were it possible for a prophet to commit a grave sin, it would also be possible for him to commit an act of unbelief (kufr), which is clearly absurd.”⁶ In addition, if a prophet were able to lie, then it would be conceivable that he could lie about revelation. As well, in normative Islamic belief, Muslims are generally understood to be bound to follow the prophetic practice (sunna). Acts such as the five daily prayers are only clearly borne out in the sunna, rather than the Qurʾān. If a prophet, therefore, was to neglect one of the daily prayers out of sloth, then the question arises as to whether Muslims would only be required to undertake four daily prayers in imitation. 

Ibn Taymiyya roundly rejected any such reasoning employed in defense of prophetic infallibility, which he viewed as being ungrounded in revelation. In addition, there exist references in the Qurʾānic text itself to the ‘disobedience’ of prophets. The Sunnī kalām schools had developed linguistic and contextual hermeneutics to interpret such verses. Ibn Taymiyya, though, rejected such interpretations, regardless of their implications. For him, the excellence of prophets manifested in the fact that they could slip, yet would swiftly turn in repentance to God. This example of prophetic humility in their fallibility is what made them worthy of emulation.⁷ Having thus considered Ibn Taymiyya’s uncompromising opposition to the application of reason in the development of prophetology, it is further cemented as to how his approach came to inform his theological conclusions.

Moreover, within the realm of language and hermeneutics, Ibn Taymiyya similarly pursued a unique approach. Frequently described as a nominalist, he rejected any noncommittal or metaphorical reading of Qurʾānic verses that pertained to God’s attributes, advocating instead for strict literalism.⁸ For example, when the Qurʾān states: “… and the very heavens be folded up by His right hand…”⁹, Sunnī kalām theologians reject the literal meaning and either consign the meaning of such a verse to God or would assign a metaphorical interpretation, such as that the verse conveys God’s omnipotence. Ibn Taymiyya belligerently rejected such readings, claiming that the text must be taken at face value without any reflection or consideration to the scripture as a whole. In his view, to assert that the verse is ambiguous would be to imply that God’s revelation was unclear and to afford a metaphorical reading would be simply speaking from his oft-reviled, bitter enemy: reason. Ibn Taymiyya’s theory of language held that all language is literal.¹⁰ If one were to praise an individual, describing him as “a lion in battle,” a typical reading would understand this as a simple metaphor for courage. Ibn Taymiyya, however, would say that in each and every circumstance there is an apparent meaning which is understood and should be taken. As such, no person would believe that the individual literally became a lion, rather, the meaning that “first comes to mind,” that the individual is courageous, is in fact the literal meaning. Ibn Taymiyya, therefore offers a contextual theory of definition and accordingly, “literal definition is all the meaning there is”¹⁰. He would employ this literal hermeneutic throughout his scholarship of Islamic scripture, and in doing so, affirmed literally all the verses that speak of God’s apparent human-like attributes. His failure to deny imperfections that do not befit the divine, such as being in a spatial location or any form of corporealism, also led many scholars from different schools to charge him with anthropomorphism. 

Ibn Taymiyya’s theological views situated him in stark contrast to his Shīʿa, Philosophical, and Sunnī interlocutors. Specifically, his wholesale rejection of reason, however contradictory, led him to assert that God existed in a spatial location and that prophets were hypothetically capable of grave sins. Moreover, his nominalist hermeneutics led him to interpret the verses that speak of God’s apparent human-like attributes in a literal fashion, for which he was charged with anthropomorphism. Understanding how Ibn Taymiyya’s approach to reason and language directly informed his theological conclusions is important, as the average layman often reduces his perspective to preferring sacred texts above all else, failing to comprehend what else it entails. As Ibn Taymiyya’s contemporary, Imam Al-Subki, and the majority of Muslim scholars at that time would concur, “his learning exceeded his intelligence.”¹¹ Lamentingly, his arguments opposing Sunnī orthodoxy have been revived by fundamentalist reformists such as Ibn Abdul-Wahhab, and others, and Ibn Taymiyya remains an influential figure for many.

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