276 Anke von Kügelgen
Besides these highly rationalistic rejections and discussions of
falsafa,^98 there were also long and harsh refutations and anathemati-
zations that mainly argued on the basis of the Koran and the Sunna.
Especially successful were the attacks by a contemporary of al-Rāzī,
Shihāb al-Dīn Abū Ḥafṣ ʿUmar al-Suhrawardī (d. 632/1234), the so-
called founder of the Sufi brotherhood al-Suhrawardiyya. His books
Idālat al-ʿiyān and Kashf al-faḍāʾiḥ al-yūnāniyya wa-rashf al-naṣāʾiḥ
al-īmāniyya (or Rashf al-naṣāʾiḥ al-īmāniyya wa-kashf al-faḍāʾiḥ
al-yūnāniyya), which demonstrate his utilization of the Ismāʿīlī argu-
ments of al-Shahrastānī in addition to the Koran and the Sunna,^99
were utilized by the ʿAbbāsid rulership to persecute scholars inter-
ested in falsafa.^100 Kashf al-faḍāʾiḥ al-yūnāniyya wa-rashf al-naṣāʾiḥ
al-īmāniyya was translated into Persian under the Muẓaffarid Shāh
Shujāʿ (d. 786/1384) and his clique, who were also outspoken enemies
of all kinds of rationalism.^101
7. Ibn Taymiyya’s Opus Magnum Against Rationalism
In his major rejection of rationalism, Ibn Taymiyya takes into account
al-Ghazālī’s, al-Shahrastānī’s, and al-Rāzī’s refutations of falsafa. He
harshly criticizes, however, his forerunners for having given prefer-
ence to reason in cases where it conflicts with the religious tradition
98 Probably still more common at that time were short and banal, pseudo-ratio-
nalistic refutations like Zakariyyā al-Qazwīnī’s (600/1203–682/1283) Fī al-
Radd ʿalā l-falāsifa (a chapter of his Mufīd al-ʿulūm wa-mubīd al-humūm, ed.
by Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Qādir ʿAṭāʾ, Beirut n. d., around 1985, pp. 86–87; the
work is often attributed to Jamāl al-Dīn Abū Bakr al-Khwārazmī).
99 Hartmann, Angelika: Ismāʿīlitische Theologie bei sunnitischen ʿulamāʾ des
Mittelalters?, in: Ludwig Hagemann and Ernst Pulsfort (eds.): “Ihr alle aber
seid Brüder”. Festschrift für A. Th. Khoury zum 60. Geburtstag, Würzburg and
Altenberge 1990, pp. 190–206, here 201–203; Hartmann, Angelika: al-Suhra-
wardī, Shihāb al-Dīn Abū Ḥafṣ ʿUmar, in: EI^2 , vol. 9 (1997), pp. 780–781.
100 Hartmann, an-Nāṣir li-dīn Allāh, pp. 34–36, 250–260.
101 The translator was a well known jurist of his region, Muʿīn al-Dīn Yazdī
(d. 789/1387). He freely intermingled his own opinions in the text and left sev-
eral passages out. In his rejection of falsafa and of all those who even touched
it, he is no less fervent than al-Suhrawardī. (Hartmann, Angelika: Eine ortho-
doxe Polemik gegen Philosophen und Freidenker – eine zeitgenössische Schrift
gegen Ḥāfiẓ? – Muʿīn ud-Dīn Yazdī und sein “Tarǧama-yi rašf an-naṣāʾiḥ”, in:
Der Islam 56 (1979), pp. 274–293; idem, al-Suhrawardī, p. 781; idem: Muʿīn
al-Dīn Yazdī, in: EI^2 , vol. 7 (1993), pp. 480–481).
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