The Poison of Philosophy 305
In contrast, the falāsifa and some “later” kalām theologians more or
less doubt the certainty of the widespread propositions (mashhūrāt).^226
Ibn Taymiyya therefore tries to show that their distinction between
axioms (awwaliyyāt) and widespread propositions is arbitrary.^227 He
further shows that man by himself (al-insān min nafsihi) finds justice,
sincerity, and knowledge more delightful than tyranny, falsehood, and
ignorance and adduces arguments to prove that a judgment, such as
“justice is good and tyranny is deplorable,”^228 can be grasped immedi-
ately and is thus certain.^229
So one might already say that, in principle, Ibn Taymiyya regarded
a broader spectrum of propositions as certain than the philosophers
did.
ed. by Rafīq al-ʿAjam, Beirut 1994, p. 105; see Rudolph, Die Neubewertung
der Logik, p. 79; van Ess, Die Erkenntnislehre, p. 398. For ʿAbd al-Qāhir
al-Baghdādī, the mutawātirāt already included geographical and historical
knowledge (al-Baghdādī, Kitāb Uṣūl al-dīn, pp. 11–12; Wensinck, The Muslim
Creed, p. 257).
226 See, for instance, Ibn Sīnā, al-Ishārāt wal-tanbīhāt, vol. 1, pp. 342, 350–353;
Avicenna, Remarks and Admonitions, pp. 119, 122–123. Ibn Taymiyya mainly
refers to al-Rāzī’s commentary on this work of Ibn Sīnā.
227 Ibn Taymiyya, al-Radd, pp. 396–420.
228 Ibid., p. 423; see the following note.
229 Ibid., pp. 420–437. Hallaq summarized some of his arguments (Ibn Taymiyya,
p. 167, n. 307.1); see van Ess, Die Erkenntnislehre, p. 400, for the discussion
in philosophical and theological circles in general. They certainly deserve a
thorough comparative study, not least with other of Ibn Taymiyya’s own
writings. In a tract published in a collection of Ibn Taymiyya’s formal legal
opinions, he expounds a theory of ethics comprising three levels: “rational”
(ʿaqlī), “confessional” (millī) and “legal” (sharʿī) (Ibn Taymiyya, Majmūʿat
al-Fatāwā, al-mujallad 20, Cairo 1421/2001, vol. 10, pp. 37–43; transl. by
Michot, Yahya J.: Textes spirituels d’Ibn Taymiyya. XIV. Raison, confes-
sion, loi. Une typologie musulmane du religieux, in: Le Musulman 27 (1996),
pp. 24–29, here 24, 26–28). The “rational” level encompasses the basis of eth-
ics, “that what all sons of Adam bestowed with reason agree upon, whether
they were given a scripture (lahum ṣilat kitāb) or not” (Majmūʿat al-Fatāwā,
al-mujallad 20, Cairo, vol. 10, p. 40). As one example among others, he men-
tions “justice,” though admitting that its application depends on the concrete
situation (ibid., p. 69). See also Hoover, Ibn Taymiyya’s Theodicy, p. 42.
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