266 Anke von Kügelgen
al-Ishārāt wal-tanbīhāt^50 and calls it the “muṣḥaf [Koran copy] of
these heretical philosophers.”^51 He probably also drew his knowl-
edge of logic from Abū al-Barakāt (d. after 560/1164–5), to whose
al-Muʿtabar fī al-ḥikma and other writings he refers in several passages
of Darʾ taʿāruḍ al-ʿaql wal-naql.^52 To trace all the sources from which
Ibn Taymiyya gained his knowledge on logic, let alone to compare his
understanding and exposition of them with the original, is a task far
beyond the present study.
Ibn Taymiyya’s major refutation of logic is al-Radd ʿalā al-man-
ṭiqiyyīn (The Refutation of the Logicians), which is also known as
Naṣīḥat ahl al-īmān fī al-radd ʿalā manṭiq al-yūnān (Advice to the
People of Faith to Refute Greek Logic).^53 Ibn Taymiyya starts this
major refutation by asserting that he always knew that “Greek logic
is neither needed by the intelligent nor of any use to the dullard”, but
that he had first considered its propositions true and then discovered
the falseness of some of them (ṭāʾifa min qaḍāyāhu), whereupon he
took up his pen against it.^54 Of this work, only one manuscript has
come down to us; it bears many glosses by Ibn Taymiyya himself.^55
Ibn Taymiyya started its composition in 1309/1310 while he was held
50 Ibn Taymiyya, Darʾ taʿāruḍ, vol. 11, “Fihris asmāʾ al-kutub,” s. v.; “al-Ishārāt
wal-tanbīhāt,” s. v.; see also chapter 11.1.
51 Ibn Taymiyya, Darʾ taʿāruḍ, vol. 6, p. 19. At two points, in relation to ontology
and epistemology, he also hints to al-Shifāʾ (vol. 1, p. 288, vol. 6, pp. 47–48; see
also chapter 11.1). His distinction between taṣawwur (conception) and taṣdīq
(judgement to which one assents) is a further indication that his main source for
Peripatetic logic was Ibn Sīnā and those who followed his line in logic. Concern-
ing this distinction, see Street, Arabic Logic, pp. 540–542. Al-Ghazālī, obvious-
ly in the footsteps of Ibn Sīnā, also explicitly and sharply distinguishes between
taṣawwur and taṣdīq (Rudolph, Die Neubewertung der Logik, p. 76). Although
Ibn Taymiyya does not mention one of al-Ghazālī’s logical treatises in his two
major refutations, he seems at least to have known al-Qisṭās al-mustaqīm (see
below, n. 270).
52 Ibn Taymiyya, Darʾ taʿāruḍ, vol. 11, “Fihris al-aʿlām,” s. v.; “Fihris asmāʾ al-
kutub,” s. v.
53 The second title is mentioned by al-Suyūṭī (al-Suyūṭī, Jahd al-qarīḥa, p. 201;
Hallaq, Ibn Taymiyya, p. 3).
54 Ibn Taymiyya, al-Radd, p. 3; al-Suyūṭī, Jahd al-qarīḥa, p. 202; Hallaq, Ibn
Taymiyya, pp. 3–4. (I follow his translation). The Shāfiʿī jurist Muḥammad b.
ʿAbd Allāh b. Aḥmad al-Hakkārī al-Salṭī (d. 786/1384) reproduces in his sum-
mary of Ibn Taymiyya’s major rebuttal of rationalism (see chapter 7) a bit-
ing poem against logic that he attributes to the young Ibn Taymiyya (see Ibn
Taymiyya, Darʾ taʿāruḍ, introduction, pp. 63–64).
55 For the history of this manuscript, see Ibn Taymiyya, al-Radd, pp. zāʾ-mīm.
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