Appropriation of Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya 11
2. The Topos of Intransigence
In his Encyclopaedia of Islam entry on the Ḥanbalīs that was published
in 1971, Laoust diagnoses an “often intransigent rigidity of the dog-
matic position of Ḥanbalism”.^32 This expresses both a familiar value
judgement and popular perception. Consequently, nine years later,
Makdisi in his turn deplores the widespread contempt for Ḥanbalī
authors, “who are variously regarded as conservative to the core, rigid,
intransigent, even fanatical”.^33 He attributes this trend primarily to
the 19th century, “the great enemy of Hanbali studies”^34 , and identi-
fies Goldziher as the figurehead of such disregard.^35 Here is not the
place to dwell on the genesis of this attitude in Arabic sources. Suffice
it to say that nowadays in Arabic the idiomatic phrase “don’t behave
like a Ḥanbalī” (lā takun ḥanbaliyyan) means to be not too rigid or
fussy. The famous Ḥanbalī preacher Ibn al-Jawzī, for instance, is
also regarded as “l’un des plus intransigeants ʿulamāʾ de son temps”.^36
Intransigence was, of course, neither invented nor monopolized by the
Ḥanbalī school, but is a recurrent pattern in Islamic history. Already
the Khārijīs (khawārij), who had seceded from the camp of the caliph
ʿAlī, were unwilling to compromise: “for many Muslims, early Khari-
jis were the first intransigent group to emerge among Muslims.”^37
Again Laoust speaks of “l’intransigence khârijite”^38 and henceforth
it is the Khārijīs with whom Ibn Taymiyya is most often compared.
Like him, the leaders of early Khārijite thinking were “no arm-chair
32 Laoust, Henri: Ḥanābila, in: EI^2 , vol. 3 (1971), pp. 158–162, here p. 158.
33 Makdisi, George: The Hanbali School and Sufism, in: Boletin de la Asociacion
Española de Orientalistas 15 (1979), pp. 115–126, here p. 115.
34 Makdisi, George: Hanbalite Islam, in: Studies on Islam, translated and edited by
Merlin L. Swartz, New York and Oxford 1981, pp. 216–274, here p. 219 [trans-
lated from “L’Islam Hanbalisant”, in: Revue des études islamiques 42 (1974),
pp. 211–244; 43 (1975), pp. 45–76].
35 Makdisi, Hanbalite Islam, p. 223; compare Krawietz, Vater des islamischen
Fundamentalismus?, p. 58.
36 Hartmann, Angelika: La prédication islamique au moyen age. Ibn al-Ǧauzī et
ses sermons (fin du 6/12e siècle), in: Quaderni di Studi Arabi 5–6 (1987–88),
pp. 337–345, here p. 338.
37 Saeed, Abdullah and Hassan Saeed: Freedom of Religion, Apostasy and Islam,
Aldershot and Burlington 2004, p. 24.
38 Laoust, Henri: La profession de foi d’Ibn Baṭṭa. Traditionniste et jurisconsulte
musulman d’école hanbalite mort en Irak à ʿUkbarâ en 387/997, Damascus
1958, p. xlix.
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