The Curse of Philosophy 331
ous perspectives. Later, Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328) delivered a fero-
cious attack against the Greek philosophers and their Muslim follow-
ers; this was articulated in his substantial critique of logic, al-Radd
ʿalā al-manṭiqiyyīn,^9 as well as in his voluminous work Darʾ taʿāruḍ
al-ʿaql wal-naql (Averting the Conflict between Reason and Religious
Tradition)^10. Ibn Taymiyya’s diatribe is possibly the fiercest assault on
falsafa in the intellectual history of Islam: criticizing his predecessors
among theologians and theorists of jurisprudence for their laxity in
refuting both logic and the basic metaphysical ideas of Greek and Mus-
lim philosophers, Ibn Taymiyya upholds the utter supremacy of the
Koran and the Sunna of the Prophet. These, he asserts, are the exclu-
sive gates to correct knowledge.
Interestingly, however, authors seeking to renounce philosophy were
ensnared by the very methods they sought to refute; al-Ghazālī, for
instance, was viewed with suspicion among traditionalists for his specu-
lative leanings and for his infusion of logic into fiqh; furthermore, he was
roundly condemned for simultaneously employing and being inextri-
cably entangled with the very philosophical methods he sought to dis-
prove.^11 Ibn Taymiyya, likewise, found himself criticized for his simul-
taneous rejection and absorption of philosophical principles. Though
he railed against philosophers and repudiated the exalted position of
their science, the Shāfiʿī scholar and historian Shams al-Dīn al-Dhahabī
(d. 748/1348), in a famous statement, excoriates Ibn Taymiy ya for hav-
ing “repeatedly swallowed the poison of the philosophers and their
works” (qad balaʿta sumūm al-falāsifa wa-muṣannafātihim marrāt). As
a result, Ibn Taymiyya’s body had become addicted to the frequent use
of poison so that it was secreted in the very bones; through this route,
his speech had likewise been corrupted.^12 Through an organic, recip-
9 See below, footnote 20.
10 Darʾ taʿāruḍ al-ʿaql wal-naql, edited by Muḥammad Rashād Sālim, Riyadh
1399–1403/1979–1983. Both works, al-Radd and Darʾ, need to be subjected to
comparative study in order to uncover their relationship and how they comple-
ment each other.
11 Paradigmatic for the traditionalist critique against al-Ghazālī is Ibn Taymiyya’s
famous dictum: Wa-qad ankara aʾimmat al-dīn ʿalā Abī Ḥāmid hādhā fī kutubih,
wa-qālū maraḍuhu al-shifāʾ, yaʿnī Shifāʾ Ibn Sīnā fī al-falsafa (The religious lead-
ers blamed Abū Ḥāmid for that what is in his books. They said: he is sick, and his
sickness is “the healing”, meaning by this Ibn Sīnā’s book The Healing in philoso-
phy), Majmūʿ fatāwā Ibn Taymiyya, Riyadh 1416/1995, vol. 10, p. 552.
12 For this, see Anke von Kügelgen’s valuable contribution in the present volume,
especially n. 16.
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