258 Anke von Kügelgen
and their works; the body becomes addicted to the frequent use of poison
so that it is secreted, by God, in the very bones.^16The authenticity of al-Dhahabī’s authorship was for some time doubt-
ed, but can be now regarded as proven.^17 The accusation against Ibn
Taymiyya is corroborated by a statement of the Ḥanbalī tradition-
ist (muḥaddith) and biographer Ibn Rajab (d. 795/1393) saying that
some of Ibn Taymiyya’s learnt and pious admirers “disapproved of his
preoccupation with (tawaghghul maʿa) the kalām theologians and the
philosophers”.^18
16 Wal-lāhi qad ṣirnā ḍuḥka fī al-wujūd fa-ilā kam tanbush daqāʾiq al-kufriyyāt al-
falsafiyya li-narudda ʿalayhā bi-ʿuqūlinā. Yā rajul qad balaʿta sumūm al-falāsifa
wa-muṣannafātihim marrāt, wa-bi-kathrat istiʿmāl al-sumūm yudmin ʿalayhā
al-jism wa-takmun wal-lāhi fī al-badan, al-Dhahabī, Shams al-Dīn: al-Naṣīḥa
al-dhahabiyya li-Ibn Taymiyya, ed. by Muḥammad Zāhid al-Kawtharī, Damas-
cus 1347/1928–1929, p. 33; I follow the translation of Little, Donald P.: Did Ibn
Taymiyya Have a Screw Loose?, in: Studia Islamica 41 (1975), pp. 93–111, here
p. 101; also hinted at by Michot, Yahya: Vanités intellectuelles... L’impasse des
rationalismes selon le Rejet de la contradiction d’Ibn Taymiyyah, in: Oriente
Moderno 19 (2001), pp. 597–617, here p. 600, n. 10.
17 Doubts were uttered by Laoust (Essai sur les doctrines sociales et politiques,
p. 484) and two Pakistani scholars (Little, Did Ibn Taymiyya Have a Screw
Loose?, p. 102), but Donald Little (ibid., pp. 100–105) and especially Cateri-
na Bori (Ibn Taymiyya, pp. 142–148) have provided strong evidences for
al-Dhahabī’s authorship. Bori, furthermore, indicates possible personal reasons
for the polemical tone of his letter (ibid., pp. 144–148).
18 Ibn Rajab Zayn al-Dīn, Abū al-Faraj: Dhayl ʿalā ṭabaqāt al-ḥanābila, part 4
(part 2), Beirut n. d. (based on the print of Maṭbaʿat al-Sunna al-Muḥammadiyya
1372/1953), p. 394 (biography n. 495); cited already by Michot, Yahya: A
Mamlūk Theologian’s Commentary on Avicenna’s Risāla aḍḥawiyya Being
a Translation of a Part of the Darʾ taʿāruḍ al-ʿaql wal-naql of Ibn Taymiyya,
with Introduction, Annotation, and Appendices, in: Journal of Islamic Studies
14 (2003), pp. 149–203, here p. 166, n. 39. Ibn Taymiyya’s deep knowledge of
kalām theology and philosophy was considered by several of his biographers
as outstanding to such a degree that he excelled over the best in the respective
disciplines and was able to counter them and to disclose their weaknesses (Ibn
Rajab, Dhayl ʿalā ṭabaqāt al-ḥanābila, p. 388, his praise includes Ibn Taymiyya’s
knowledge of arithmetics and algebra; al-Karmī, Marʿī b. Yūsuf: al-Kawākib al-
durriyya fī manāqib al-mujtahid Ibn Taymiyya, ed. by Najm ʿAbd al-Raḥmān
Khalaf, Beirut 1406/1986, pp. 62, 66 (quotations from al-Dhahabī)). For a thor-
ough analysis of the dissent towards Ibn Taymiyya from within the Ḥanbalī and
traditionalist community in general and Ibn Rajab in particular, see the study
of Caterina Bori: Ibn Taymiyya wa-Jamāʿatuhu under the heading “Voices of
Internal Dissent – Ḥanbalīs”.
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