354 Georges Tamer
but is also objective; although not composite, it is the source of an eter-
nal agency that does not begin or end in time.^123
This ingenious philosophical concept, combining God’s oneness with
the plurality of His attributes intends, according to Ajhar, to offer a ratio-
nal explanation for the creation of the manifold world by the one God.
Ibn Taymiyya rejects, therefore, the classical theological classification
of God’s attributes into essential (dhātiyya) and abstract (maʿnawiyya)
qualities, claiming an equality for all divine attributes as eternal univer-
sals in perpetual action united with the divine essence. Each one of these
attributes produces its particulars according to specific functions.^124
Separating himself from traditional kalām’s view on God’s oneness,
Ibn Taymiyya obviously aimed to “establish a new philosophical posi-
tion” different from mainstream kalām and falsafa. His “philosophical
principles” are the unity of God’s essence and attributes; the eternity
of the divine attributes which are both genera and species; and the eter-
nity of the divine agency.^125 Ajhar states that such a view is “unique in
the history of Islamic thought and particularly in the history of Islamic
theology”.^126 Distinguishing between Ibn Taymiyya’s divine attributes
and Plato’s ideas, he states that the divine attributes do not, like Plato’s
forms, exist autonomously beyond time and space, with real existents
seeming to be no more than their pale imitations. On the contrary,
the divine attributes exist in the very essence of God united with His
essence, and this unification produces God’s oneness. All existents in
the material world have their origin in the divine attributes through an
eternal process of creation.
Another focus of Ibn Taymiyya’s philosophical endeavor is the
nature of God’s knowledge, which he considers to be, like the divine
attributes, one genus with multiple manifestations that cause the objects
of knowledge (al-maʿlūmāt).^127 It is, once again, God’s will which
plays a mediating role in relating God’s knowledge to the perceptible
world. As Ajhar relates, Ibn Taymiyya uniquely offers “a systematic
Muʿtazila on this point, which has been criticized by Ibn Taymiyya, al-Kashf,
pp. 134–136.
123 Ajhar, Ibn Taymiyya, p. 89. See Ibn Taymiyya, Darʾ, edited by ʿAbd al-Laṭīf
ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, vol. 1, p. 215.
124 Ajhar, Ibn Taymiyya, p. 90. See Ibn Taymiyya, Darʾ, edited by ʿAbd al-Laṭīf
ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, vol. 2, pp. 108–109.
125 Ajhar, Ibn Taymiyya, p. 91.
126 Ibid., p. 92.
127 Ibid., pp. 181–182; Ibn Taymiyya, Darʾ, edited by ʿAbd al-Laṭīf ʿAbd
al-Raḥmān, vol. 5, pp. 262–263.
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