Appropriation of Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya 3
who traces the (un)popularity of Ibn Taymiyya over five centuries, dis-
cusses assumed proto-Salafis’ and early revivalists’ commitment to this
figure, and stresses that his importance must be historically relativized:
“From a little-read scholar with problematic and controversial views,
he was to become for many Sunnis of the modern age one of the central
figures in the Islamic religious tradition.”^2
The present volume provides glimpses into some of the grandest
fields of Islamic intellectual history – such as theology, jurisprudence
and philosophy – by elucidating some of their subgenres. Although
an edited volume on the same two authors was published relatively
recently,^3 the exploration of their writings is far from exhausted (and, as
a matter of fact, gained considerable momentum with regard to Ibn al-
Qayyim only at the turn of the 21st century): research needs to be done,
in a collective effort, on various levels. Hence, this volume addresses:
(i) the oeuvre of Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya; (ii) ways
in which their works are intertwined; (iii) modes in which these two
writers of Islamic law and theology make use of prior authors; (iv)
the manner in which they both (re)construct and normatively refer to
an ideal(ized) early Islamic past; and (v) the processes by which they
themselves become appropriated by later authors who are not neces-
sarily full-fledged scholars.
To avoid the widespread feature of biological metaphors (most
famously enshrined in the notion of Ibn Taymiyya being the “father”
of Islamic fundamentalism)^4 and to steer clear from implying respon-
2 El-Rouayheb, Khaled: From Ibn Ḥajar al-Haytamī (d. 1566) to Khayr al-Dīn
al-Ālūsī (d. 1899). Changing Views of Ibn Taymiyya Among Non-Ḥanbalī Sun-
ni Scholars, in: Yossef Rapoport and Shahab Ahmed (eds.): Ibn Taymiyya and
His Times, Karachi 2010, pp. 296–318, here p. 305.
3 Rapoport and Ahmed, Ibn Taymiyya and His Times, Karachi 2010; Bori, Cateri-
na and Holtzman, Livnat (eds.): A Scholar in the Shadow. Essays in the Legal
and Theological Thought of Ibn Qayyim al-Ǧawziyyah, in: Oriente Moderno 15
(2010).
4 Sivan, Emmanuel: Ibn Taymiyya. Father of the Islamic Revolution; Medi-
eval Theology & Modern Politics, in: Encounter 60 (1983), pp. 41–50; Jansen,
Johannes J. G.: Ibn Taymiyyah and the Thirteenth Century. A Formative Peri-
od of Modern Muslim Radicalism, in: Quaderni di Studi Arabi 5–6 (1987–88),
pp. 391–396; Krawietz, Birgit: Ibn Taymiyya, Vater des islamischen Fundamen-
talismus? Zur westlichen Rezeption eines mittelalterlichen Schariatsgelehrten,
in: Manuel Atienza, Enrico Pattaro, Martin Schulte, Boris Topornin and Dieter
Wyduckel (eds.): Theorie des Rechts in der Gesellschaft, Berlin 2003, pp. 39–62,
here pp. 50–55; Rapoport, Yossef and Ahmed, Shahab: Introduction, in: idem
(eds.), Ibn Taymiyya and His Times, pp. 3–20, here p. 4.
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