344 Georges Tamer
- Like Ibn Rushd, Ibn Taymiyya was aware of the need to criticize
the syllogism of the kalām-theologians and fundamental notions relat-
ed to it: indeed, the arguments the kalām-theologians used to prove
God’s existence were based on thinking that the invisible could be held
as analogous to the visible (qiyās al-ghāʾib ʿalā al-shāhid). This induc-
tive view, Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Rushd point out, radically differs
from the deductive method used in the Koran.^76 - Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Rushd share a negative attitude towards the
theologians’ rejection of God’s corporeal attributes. For both of them,
these arguments empty the divinity of any attributes (taʿṭīl) whatsoev-
er. They differ, however, in the way they deal with Koranic anthropo-
morphisms: Ibn Taymiyya advocates, in the name of both reason and
scripture, a literal reading of such passages; Ibn Rushd strongly argues
for their allegorical interpretation. Nevertheless, they again seem to
be on the same line; in the name of both the Koran and rationality,
they defend the theological teaching about God’s spatiality – i. e., His
“being somewhere” (al-jiha) – against the Ashʿarīs.^77 - Ibn Taymiyya follows Ibn Rushd in rejecting the theological argu-
ments for the createdness of the world; their response to the most con-
troversial question in Islamic philosophy is, therefore, the same.^78 By
stating that the createdness of the world was made possible without
reason (al-tarjīḥ bilā sabab), the kalām-theologians not only opposed
rationality, but moreover supported the Dahrīs and those who argued
for the eternity of the world.^79 Though both philosophers and the theo-
logians brought arguments to assert a maker (al-ṣāniʿ) for the world,
Ibn Taymiyya, similar to Ibn Rushd, dismissed these assertions as use-
less and confusing, emphasizing thereby the proof of predestination
(dalīl al-ʿināya). This proof, in a simple, understandable way, presented
76 Al-Ṣaghīr, Mawāqif, p. 169. Regarding this, see Ibn Rushd: al-Kashf ʿan manāhij
al-adilla fī ʿaqāʾid al-milla, edited by Muṣṭafā Ḥanafī and Muḥammad ʿĀbid
al-Jābirī, Beirut 1998, pp. 100–102; Ibn Taymiyya, Darʾ, edited by Sālim, vol. 3,
pp. 389–438; vol. 8, pp. 136–251; vol. 9, pp. 68–105.
77 Al-Ṣaghīr, Mawāqif, pp. 175–176. See Ibn Rushd, al-Kashf, pp. 138–142, 145–
148; Ibn Taymiyya, Darʾ, edited by Sālim, vol. 6, pp. 212–249; vol. 9, pp. 105–
132, 334–400; vol. 10, pp. 147–157, 197–317. See von Kügelgen, Dialogpartner,
pp. 462–470.
78 See Al-Alousī, Husām Muhī Eldīn: The Problem of Creation in Islamic Thought,
Baghdad 1968.
79 Al-Ṣaghīr, Mawāqif, p. 170. On the Dahrīs see Goldziher, Ignaz and Goichon,
Amélie Marie: Dahriyya, in: EI2, vol. 2 (1965), pp. 95–97; Shaki, Mansour: Dahrī
I (In Middle Persian Literature), in: Encyclopedia Iranica, vol. 6, p. 587b.
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