The Poison of Philosophy 323
the sole methods to prove God’s existence. Ibn Taymiyya blames them
for not taking into account inference by signs or indicators, wherein
the existence of one particular entails the absence of the other and vice
versa.^298 Ibn Taymiyya calls it “God’s method of proof through signs”
(istidlāluhu taʿālā bil-āyāt),^299 and considers it an immediate – that is a
fiṭrī knowledge – insofar as the signs indicate the existence of one Cre-
ator.^300 He cites the examples that the existence of daylight indicates the
rising of the sun (an inference which he supports also by God’s signs
in the Koran)^301 and that the rising of one star indicates the setting of
another.^302 Here again, Ibn Taymiyya implicitly assumes that God has
created a stable order of nature. He explains that this kind of inference
could be understood either as that from a particular to a particular
(“that from a particular rising of the sun there is a particular daylight”)
or as “an inference that proceeds from universal to universal” (“that
from the genus of daylight there follows the genus of the rising of the
sun”).^303 By speaking of a “genus of daylight” and of the genus as a
universal, Ibn Taymiyya is once again accepting what he otherwise so
vehemently rejects.
The other kind of inference, which he blames his enemies for
neglecting, is the a fortiori argument (qiyās al-awlā; via eminen-
tiae), which was used, as Ibn Taymiyya emphasizes, by the early
Muslims (salaf).^304 He also calls it “the method of the prophets”
(ṭarīqat al-anbiyāʾ) and holds that “the rational, demonstrative infer-
ences mentioned in the Koran” (al-aqyisa al-ʿaqliyya al-burhāniyya
al-madhkūra fī al-Qurʾān) are of this kind.^305 In fact, this kind of
inference is restricted to establish that God “has no like, and He
298 Ibn Taymiyya, al-Radd, pp. 163–165; shortened: al-Suyūṭī, Jahd al-qarīḥa,
pp. 262–264; Hallaq, Ibn Taymiyya, pp. 84–85, n. 128–131.
299 Ibn Taymiyya, al-Radd, p. 151; al-Suyūṭī, Jahd al-qarīḥa, p. 252; Hallaq, Ibn
Taymiyya, p. 71, n. 107.
300 Hallaq, Ibn Taymiyya on the Existence of God, pp. 58–60.
301 Koran (17:12); Ibn Taymiyya, al-Radd, p. 151; al-Suyūṭī, Jahd al-qarīḥa,
p. 252; Hallaq, Ibn Taymiyya, p. 71.
302 Ibn Taymiyya, al-Radd, 163–165; shortened: al-Suyūṭī, Jahd al-qarīḥa,
pp. 262–264; Hallaq, Ibn Taymiyya, pp. 84–85, n. 128–131.
303 Ibn Taymiyya, al-Radd, p. 163; al-Suyūṭī, Jahd al-qarīḥa, p. 262; Hallaq, Ibn
Taymiyya, p. 84.
304 Ibn Taymiyya, al-Radd, p. 154; al-Suyūṭī, Jahd al-qarīḥa, p. 255; Hallaq, Ibn
Taymiyya, p. 74, n. 111. A fortiori arguments were used, for instance, by Ibn
Ḥanbal (Hoover, Ibn Taymiyya’s Theodicy, pp. 59–60, n. 150).
305 Ibn Taymiyya, al-Radd, pp. 150, 157; al-Suyūṭī, Jahd al-qarīḥa, p. 252; Hallaq,
Ibn Taymiyya, pp. 71–72, n. 106–107.
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