The Poison of Philosophy 301
ligence and the senses. He regards them as belonging to “the relative,
relational matters” (min al-umūr al-nisbiyya al-iḍāfiyya):^210
It is well known that people vary in mental aptitude more than they do
in physical strength. The quickness and quality of one man’s percep-
tion may be much greater than that of another. Such a man would then
form a complete concept of the two terms so as to reveal through that
complete concept the necessary attributes which would not be evident
to those who cannot form such a concept. That in some propositions
certain people need the middle, which is the indicant, while others do
not, is an obvious matter. For many people the proposition may be sen-
sory (ḥiṣṣiyya), empirical (mujarraba), demonstrative (burhāniyya), or
multiply transmitted (mutawātira), while for others it may be known by
means of investigation and inference.^211In this statement Ibn Taymiyya plainly expresses his conviction that
the mental aptitudes of people differ. He holds that for some people
there is no need to form a definition or a syllogism or an analogy in
order to comprehend a concept or a judgment. Being evident knowl-
edge, concepts and judgments thus become necessary and certain. He
clearly states that sense perception, experience, demonstration,^212 and
multiply transmitted reports provide immediate and therefore evi-
dent, certain (yaqīnī) knowledge.^213 In fact, Ibn Taymiyya also counts
210 Ibn Taymiyya, al-Radd, p. 13; al-Suyūṭī, Jahd al-qarīḥa, p. 205; Hallaq, Ibn
Taymiyya, p. 11.
211 Ibn Taymiyya, al-Radd, p. 91; al-Suyūṭī, Jahd al-qarīḥa, pp. 219–220; Hallaq,
Ibn Taymiyya, p. 32 (I follow his translation; the additions in angular brackets
are mine.).
212 Ibn Taymiyya does not explain what he means in this context by burhān. It
could well be the first figure of categorical syllogism, which he considers to be
spontaneously apprehensible (see chapter 11.3) or “the rational, demonstrative
inferences mentioned in the Koran” (see chapter 12).
213 It is noteworthy that ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Baghdādī (d. 429/1037–1038) exposes
in his Uṣūl al-dīn that “deduction” (istidlāl bil-ʿaql), “experience and common
practice” (al-tajārub wal-ʿādāt), “divine commands” (al-sharʿ), and “inspira-
tion” (ilhām); “e. g. the taste for poetry, the knowledge of metre, the composi-
tion of melodies” (Wensinck, Arent Jan: The Muslim Creed. Its Genesis and
Historical Development, London 1965, p. 259) may belong to the primary,
necessary kind of knowledge, if God gives that knowledge directly to the heart
(al-Baghdādī, Abū Manṣūr ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Tamīmī: Kitāb Uṣūl al-dīn, Bei-
rut 1401/1981 (reprint, Istanbul 1346/1928), pp. 14–15; Wensinck, The Muslim
Creed, pp. 259–260). Yet Ibn Taymiyya considerably deviates from him in sev-
eral respects, adopting a terminology and tenets that evoke the epistemology
of philosophers and “later” kalām theologians.
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