300 Anke von Kügelgen
be described, then, as the predisposition and the faculty to correctly
and immediately grasp true knowledge and to reject false knowledge.
It enables man to apprehend the existence of God,^204 to distinguish the
useful from the harmful^205 and the true from the untrue,^206 to know the
causal efficiencies of things (see chapter 11.2), or to form sound con-
cepts and judgments (see chapter 10.1, 11.2).^207
Ibn Taymiyya admits, however, that there are great differences
between people concerning the soundness of their innate intelligence
and their organs of perceptions. Ibn Taymiyya connects these differ-
ences with the common distinction between two modes of knowledge:
necessary (ḍarūrī) or evident (badīhī) knowledge, on the one hand,
and acquired (kasbī/muktasab) or speculative (naẓarī) knowledge, on
the other.^208 The first is regarded as immediate and “certain” (yaqīnī)
and the latter as inferred and only “probable” (ẓannī). Ibn Taymiyya
maintains this distinction for concepts (taṣawwurāt) and judgments
(taṣdīqāt).^209 It is most likely that Ibn Taymiyya considered evident
knowledge to be clear and “uncontaminated.” Still, in his view the
evident or speculative character of a concept or a judgment does not
depend on the subject matter, but on the soundness of the innate intel-
Présentation et traduction annotée, in: Annales Islamologiques 20 (1984),
pp. 29–53, here 31, 49, 52–53 et passim). See Hallaq, Ibn Taymiyya on the
Existence of God, pp. 65–66.
204 Ibid.; Madjid, Ibn Taymiyya on Kalām and Falsafa, pp. 71–72. In Darʾ taʿāruḍ
al-ʿaql he claims that the fiṭra understanding that God is above the world is
shared by old and young and by every people, be they Muslims, Jews, Chris-
tians or polytheists (vol. 6, p. 12); see also above, n. 203.
205 Ibn Taymiyya, al-Radd, p. 428–430; Madjid, Ibn Taymiyya on Kalām and Fal-
safa, pp. 65–69.
206 For instance, Ibn Taymiyya, al-Radd, p. 71; al-Suyūṭī, Jahd al-qarīḥa, p. 216;
Hallaq, Ibn Taymiyya, pp. 26–27; Ibn Taymiyya, Darʾ taʿāruḍ al-ʿaql, vol. 9,
p. 366.
207 See Hoover, who studied other writings of Ibn Taymiyya and came to similar
conclusions in regard to Ibn Taymiyya’s understanding of ʿaql (Ibn Taymiyya’s
Theodicy, pp. 32–34), states that it is difficult “to pinpoint the exact relation-
ship” between Ibn Taymiyya’s concepts of ʿaql and fiṭra (ibid., p. 39).
208 For the development of this distinction, see van Ess, Die Erkenntnislehre,
pp. 114–128; Marmura, Michael E.: Ghazali’s Attitude to the Secular Sciences
and Logic, in: George F. Hourani (ed.): Essays on Islamic Philosophy and Sci-
ence, Albany 1975, pp. 104, 110, n. 13.
209 Ibn Taymiyya, al-Radd, pp. 11, 13–14, 88–91; (al-Suyūṭī severely shortened
Ibn Taymiyya’s explanation: Jahd al-qarīḥa, pp. 205–206, 219–220; Hallaq,
Ibn Taymiyya, pp. 10–12, 31–32); see also chapter 11.3.
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