The Curse of Philosophy 355
philosophical critique” of the theologians who, in their conceptions
of divine knowledge, neglected the role of the divine will. Based on
premises borrowed from philosophy, Ibn Taymiyya states that God’s
will, just as it acts in harmony with the other attributes, also acts in
concord with His knowledge. This cooperation makes it possible that
God both creates and knows the particulars.^128 God’s knowledge, how-
ever, acts in eternal succession, which Ibn Taymiyya often describes as
“self-renewal” (tajaddud).^129 Ajhar points out that Ibn Taymiyya was
primarily concerned with offering the most rational explanation of the
process of creation, even if doing so “would lead [him] to destroy all
foundations of Islamic kalām.” Ibn Taymiyya’s “intellectual and phil-
osophical adventure could have been easier and ‘safer’, in a religious
dogmatic sense, if he would have determined his premises arbitrarily,
without philosophical justification, as his predecessors used to do.” In
regards to the teaching of creation, however, Ibn Taymiyya “was, on
a philosophical level, committed to the rational and logical demands
which he held to be in agreement with the Koran and the Sunna in a
state of real purity.”^130
3.2. Creation of the WorldIbn Taymiyya’s views regarding the creation of the world are to be
situated, according to Ajhar, in the context of the intensive debate on
this topic between Muslim philosophers and theologians. By empha-
sizing God’s will and power as the means by which God created the
world, the kalām-theologians were unable to develop a worldview
which could include causal relations between the existents. According
to the theologians, existents – being totally dependent on divine will –
are void of any latent ability to come into being or influence other
existents. This is in sharp contrast with the philosophers’ view, which
saw the world as subordinated to a determined order due to a natural
causality actually reflective of God’s eternal plan for the world.^131
128 Ajhar, Ibn Taymiyya, 188; Ibn Taymiyya, Darʾ, edited by ʿAbd al-Laṭīf ʿAbd
al-Raḥmān, vol. 5, pp. 295–296.
129 Ajhar, Ibn Taymiyya, p. 189. Ibn Taymiyya, Jāmiʾ al-Rasāʾil, edited by
Muḥammad Rashād Sālim, Cairo 1969, p. 180.
130 Ibid., pp. 189–190.
131 See, for instance, Davidson, Proofs for Eternity, pp. 147–172; Fakhry, Majid:
Islamic Occasionalism and Its Critique by Averroës and Aquinas, London and
Brought to you by | Nanyang Technological University
Authenticated