Divine Wisdom, Human Agency and the fiṭra in Ibn Taymiyya’s Thought 47
connected to the original neutral purity of human nature, which may
change in different directions during one’s lifetime.
In this Koranic approach supported by traditions, each person has a
human nature by virtue of being created; it consists of his or her origi-
nal and distinctive qualities that would direct activities if left unaffect-
ed by his or her family or social environment. Thus, all kinds of essen-
tial elements that make us human, including the ability to believe, are
within the scope of this concept. Humans’ instinctual bodily actions,
though displaying their nature in some sense, are insufficient if they
are not in accordance with inner moral consciousness. The majority
of scholars considered this human distinction from other creatures a
sign of divine wisdom and benevolence that led them to great material
and spiritual achievements.^37 The common point in the discussions is
that some thinkers believe happiness can be reached by merely pro-
tecting the qualities of human nature and avoiding the effects that may
degrade it, even in the absence of education. Ibn Ṭufayl’s (d. 581/1185)
philosophical novel, Ḥayy b. Yaqẓān, tries to demonstrate this positive
dimension of human nature.
Most of them, however, did not evaluate human nature as a means
of discovering divine wisdom by acknowledging a transcendent exis-
tent in God’s creation. Even in theological books, the majority of the
mutakallimūn did not include the human nature argument among their
proofs of the existence of God: focusing mainly on the cosmological
argument, they paid some attention to the design (niẓām) argument,
which emphasizes the perfect harmony within the natural world. In
the classical period, only a few independent-minded scholars, such as
al-Jāḥiẓ (d. 869), Muṭahhar b. Ṭāhir al-Maqdisī (d. 966?), al-Rāghib
al-Iṣfahānī (d. early 11th century), and al-Ghazālī (d. 1111), touched
upon human nature as an argument for the divine existence, without
discussing it in detail. In the later period, Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328) paid
more attention to this argument.
Unlike his fellow Muʿtazilīs, Abū ʿUthmān al-Jāḥiẓ suggests that, for
human beings, believing in God is based on natural knowledge rather
than argumentative reasoning (naẓar). All humans (if not ignorant), he
argues, know that God is their creator; they need a prophet to receive
His divine message; and they are convinced by this natural knowl-
37 The Koran describes some humans who do not follow their fiṭra qualities as
“they have hearts but they don’t understand with them, they have eyes but they
don’t see with them, they have ears but they don’t hear with them, they are like
animals, or even below them!” Koran (7:179).
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