Divine Wisdom, Human Agency and the fiṭra in Ibn Taymiyya’s Thought 51
The ḥudūth argument may demonstrate the need for a Creator, Ibn
Taymiyya maintains, but it does not prove it in reality. Besides, in
the Koran, the existence of God is firmly grounded in the creation
of concrete and visible entities (aʿyān) by God. The continuous cre-
ation of the universe, humans, animals, and other physical beings in
a perfect way is there for all to see. It constitutes a more direct proof
of the existence of God than theological and philosophical theories.^46
The cosmological argument in fact makes the issue of divine existence
more tangled and less grounded in reality.^47 However, the knowledge
of God by our inner nature, Ibn Taymiyya suggests, does not require
proofs and argumentation to discover His existence. If the person did
not know and believe in God prior to the theoretical proofs of the
theologians, he would not be able to connect the proof with God. To
know God without proof is like knowing a person without know-
ing his name, or understanding and using things without knowing
the rules:^48 “The essence of declaration of belief in God and its con-
fession,” he states, “is placed in the hearts of all humans and jinns”
(anna aṣl al-iqrār bil-ṣāniʿ wal-iʿtirāf bihi mustaqirr fī qulūb jamīʿ al-
ins wal-jinn).^49 Ibn Taymiyya gives a specific example to explain his
point: those who plan to visit the Kaaba for pilgrimage already know
that it exists and may be familiar with some of its attributes through
descriptions given by previous visitors and confirmation expressed by
guides. Just as people perceive the immediate relation between day-
light and the sun or smoke and fire without going into philosophical
propositions or logical analogies, a similar relation can be easily set up
between created and Creator.^50
Thus, in Ibn Taymiyya’s view, within fiṭra the knowledge of truth
and human attestation of truth exist, as well as the recognition of false-
Jon: Perpetual Creativity on the Perfection of God. Ibn Taymiyya’s Hadith
Commentary on God’s Creation of this World, in: Journal of Islamic Studies
15 (2004), pp. 287–329, here pp. 293–295; al-Ālūsī, Ḥusām Muḥyī al-Dīn: The
Problem of Creation in Islamic Thought. Qurʾan, Hadith, Commentaries, and
Kalam, Baghdad 1968, pp. 95–96, 185–186.
46 Ibn Taymiyya, Taqī al-Dīn: Majmūʿat Tafsīr, edited by ʿAbd al-Ṣamad Sharaf
al-Dīn, Mumbai 1993, pp. 210–212.
47 Ibn Taymiyya, Darʾ taʿāruḍ al-ʿaql wal-naql, vol. 1, pp. 38–99; idem, Majmūʿ
Fatāwā, vol. 3, pp. 303–304. For detailed discussion of the ḥudūth argument, see
Craig, William Lane: The Kalām Cosmological Argument, New York 1979.
48 Ibn Taymiyya, Majmūʿ Fatāwā, vol. 1, pp. 48–49.
49 Idem, Darʾ taʿāruḍ al-ʿaql wal-naql, vol. 8, p. 482.
50 Idem, Majmūʿ Fatāwā, vol. 2, pp. 70–74.
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