Islamic Theology, Philosophy and Law

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The Poison of Philosophy 281


al-Mawṣilī (d. 774/1372–1373) included some of them in his Mukhtaṣar
al-ṣawāʾiq al-mursala.^116 Beyond the Ḥanbalī circles, less is known
about the impact of Darʾ taʿāruḍ al-ʿaql wal-naql. The Shāfiʿī jurist
Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Aḥmad al-Hakkārī al-Salṭī (d. 786/1384)
abridged it into two volumes in 773/1371 on the basis of a six-volume
manuscript,^117 which he claims was partly an autograph.^118 It is an open
question whether al-Hakkārī’s abridgement fostered a dissemination of
that work. Some of its contents, at least, seem to have been discussed.


logical Treatises, in: Yossef Rapoport and Ahmed Shahab (eds.): Ibn Taymiyya
and His Times, Karachi 2010, pp. 163–188).
116 Ibn al-Mawṣilī, Muḥammad: Mukhtaṣar al-Ṣawāʿiq al-mursala ʿalā al-jahmiyya
wal-muʿaṭṭila li-Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, ed. by al-Ḥasan b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān
al-ʿAlawī, Riyadh 1425/2004, vol. 1, pp. 246–364, vol. 2, pp. 365–544 (pdf file
at http://www.archive.org/details/ muktsr_swaik_mursla, last accessed April
4, 2008). Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya’s al-Ṣawāʾiq al-mursala of which only the
first half has come down to us and the abridgement of the entire work by
al-Mawṣilī deserve a thorough study. One aspect of it, namely Ibn Qayyim
al-Jawziyya’s discussion of the fire’s duration has recently been scrutinized
by Jon Hoover: Islamic Universalism. Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya’s Salafī
Deliberations on the Duration of Hell-Fire, in: The Muslim World 1 (2009),
pp. 181–201.
117 Muḥammad Rashād Sālim refers to al-Hakkārī’s Mukhtaṣar in his introduction
to Darʾ taʿāruḍ al-ʿaql (vol. 1, pp. 60–64) and uses it for his collation. Appar-
ently, only one copy of it is known. Al-Hakkārī states that he has summarized
it, because of “the many strange citations” from “strange books”, but to have
fully preserved Ibn Taymiyya’s intentions (Ibn Taymiyya, Darʾ taʿāruḍ, vol. 1,
p. 62).
118 According to a letter from the Ḥanbalī scholar Shihāb al-Dīn Ibn Murrī
al-Baʿlbakī, one of Ibn Taymiyya’s pupils, which he addressed to other fol-
lowers of his master, the autograph was soon “severely disrupted.” He also
states that the complete copy of it that he himself used to possess was scat-
tered, and he urges them to bring all parts together. Ibn Murrī refers to the
work as al-Radd ʿalā ʿaqāʾid al-falāsifa. Thanks to Caterina Bori, I was able to
trace the origin of the letter, which I knew only from Rashīd Riḍā’s reprint in
the journal al-Manār 10 (1325/1907), pp. 616–621 under the heading Athāra
min al-taʾrīkh, here p. 617. She was kind enough to provide me with her forth-
coming study on the methods and difficulties of collecting Ibn Taymiyya’s
works after his death, in which she presents the same paragraph as an example.
According to her well founded assumption, the letter was written between 728
and 731 (1327–1331); it was published by M. ʿA. Shams and ʿA. b. Muḥammad
al-ʿImrān (al-Jāmiʿ li-sīrat Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymiyya, Mecca 1420/1999,
pp. 97–104, see: Bori, Caterina: The Collection and Edition of Ibn Taymiyya’s
Works. Concerns of a Disciple, in: The Mamlūk Studies Review 13 (2009),
pp. 1–21. I thank Caterina Bori for having provided me with the article while
still in press.


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