286 Anke von Kügelgen
9.2. The Attitude Towards the Prophets’ Veracity
as a Criterion of DistinctionIn al-Radd ʿalā al-manṭiqiyyīn and Darʾ taʿāruḍ al-ʿaql wal-naql, Ibn
Taymiyya attacks the same strains of thought and circles of people,
even though in Darʾ taʿāruḍ al-ʿaql wal-naql he addresses many more
thinkers personally. Ibn Taymiyya often refers to the different schools
of thought using the categories established at his time, but draws an
unusual line of distinction between them. He distinguishes among
the many persons and groups he considers as having gone astray in
accordance with their approach to revelation. On the highest level, he
discerns two general approaches, I: ṭarīqat al-tabdīl (the method of
alteration) and II: ṭarīqat al-tajhīl (the method of stultification). The
approach to revelation that Ibn Taymiyya regards as characteristic of
the second category (II) is the conviction that the prophets and those
who follow them were either without knowledge about the meaning
of God’s words or knew it but concealed it from the people, thus mak-
ing people ignorant. Some of these thinkers hold that the real meaning
of scripture, which no one knows but God, is exactly the opposite of
its outward meaning; others would say that it has to be understood in
accordance with its outward meaning, but nevertheless they interpret
in a way that contradicts it.^140 Ibn Taymiyya does not attribute these
attitudes to any specific group, but – as an example of the latter posi-
tion – mentions the Ḥanbalī scholar Abū Yaʿlā b. al-Farrāʾ (380/990–
458/1066).^141 The conjecture is thus not far that Ibn Taymiyya counted
also other schoolfellows as belonging to this category.
He instead subsumes the main addressees of Darʾ taʿāruḍ al-ʿaql
wal-naql under the first approach, “the method of alteration” (I). He
subdivides this category into the method of ahl al-wahm wal-takhyīl
(the people of delusion and suggestion) and the method of ahl al-taḥrīf
wal-taʾwīl (the people of distortion and interpretation).^142 “The peo-
ple of delusion and suggestion” (I. 1) are those who profess that some
140 Ibn Taymiyya, Darʾ taʿāruḍ al-ʿaql, vol. 1, pp. 8–19, here 15–19. A part of this
section has been translated by Michot, Ibn Taymiyya, pp. 26–27. M. Sait Özer-
varli has summarized some key points of the classifications (Özervarlı, İbn
Teymiyye, pp. 409–410).
141 Ibn Taymiyya mentions that Ibn ʿAqīl (see above, chapter 2) blamed him for
precisely this reason (Darʾ taʿāruḍ al-ʿaql, vol. 1, p. 16).
142 The whole section, of which I give but a short summary, has been translated by
Michot, Lettre à Abū l-Fidāʾ, pp. 21–26.
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