342 Georges Tamer
Taymiyya, as discussed above, has become – not incidentally – perhaps
the most influential author in Muslim conservative circles.
In several of his writings, Ibn Taymiyya spared no critique of Ibn
Rushd.^68 Despite fundamental discrepancies, however, both think-
ers seem to agree on one thing: namely, the unity of truth, which is
accessible to human beings through divine revelation and by means
of rationality equivalently.^69 Arguing against the prevailing view that
Ibn Rushd’s influence is to be sought in late Medieval and Renaissance
Europe rather than in the Islamic world, the Moroccan scholar ʿAbd
al-Majīd al-Ṣaghīr presents Averroistic positions in Ibn Taymiyya’s
work to demonstrate aspects of Ibn Rushd’s legacy in the pre-modern
Islamic context.^70 His study serves also as a response to the alleged
epistemological break, proclaimed by none less than Muḥammad
ʿĀbid al-Jābirī, between intellectual discourses in the Islamic East and
the Islamic West.^71 In the following, al-Ṣaghīr’s views will be presented.
First, al-Ṣaghīr makes clear that Ibn Taymiyya shares a basic meth-
odological principle with Ibn Rushd: the ultimate agreement between
reason and religion. For Ibn Taymiyya, clear reason necessarily agrees
with true tradition transmitted through the Koran and the authentic
statements of the prophet. In stating, therefore, that the purpose of the
Koran is identical with the purpose of pure rational demonstration,
Ibn Taymiyya actually adds nothing new to Ibn Rushd’s teachings.^72
According to al-Ṣaghīr, both thinkers respectively developed their
critique of Muslim philosophers and kalām-theologians based on
semcs.net/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-3/averroism-COM_24253, accessed
April 10, 2011.
68 Saʿd, al-Ṭablāwī Maḥmūd: Mawqif Ibn Taymiyya min falsafat Ibn Rushd fī
al-ʿaqīda wa-ʿilm al-kalām wal-falsafa, Cairo 1409/1989, provides a thorough
presentation of Ibn Taymiyya’s critical attitude towards Ibn Rushd’s major
theological and philosophical views.
69 See on this topic von Kügelgen, Anke: Dialogpartner im Widerspruch. Ibn
Rushd und Ibn Taymīya über die “Einheit der Wahrheit”, in: Rüdiger Arnzen
and Jörn Thielmann (eds.): Words, Texts and Concepts Cruising the Mediterra-
nean Sea. Studies on the Sources, Contents and Influences of Islamic Civilization
and Arabic Philosophy and Science; Dedicated to Gerhard Endress on His Sixty-
fifth Birthday, Leuven 2004, pp. 455–481.
70 Al-Ṣaghīr, ʿAbd al-Majīd: Mawāqif “rushdiyya” li-Taqī al-Dīn Ibn Taymiyya?,
in: Dirāsāt Maghribiyya muhdāt ilā al-mufakkir al-Maghribī Muḥammad
ʿAzīz al-Ḥabbābī, Casablanca 19872, pp. 164–182.
71 He articulates this view in several works. See e. g. al-Jābirī, Muḥammad ʿĀbid:
Naḥnu wal-turāth, Beirut 1993^6 , pp. 49–50, 212.
72 Al-Ṣaghīr, Mawāqif, p. 166.
Brought to you by | Nanyang Technological University
Authenticated