308 Anke von Kügelgen
denial of the Aristotelian “real definition” (ḥadd ḥaqīqī) that is held
to grasp the “essence” of a thing (see chapter 10.1) gains a new dimen-
sion.^234 Ibn Taymiyya obviously negates neither that a particular thing,
a species, or a genus has a natural disposition peculiar to it – like the
philosophers, he too calls these dispositions ḥaqāʾiq (“true natures”,
“essences”)^235 and māhiyya (sg., “essence”)^236 – nor that man’s knowl-
edge about them is certain. Ibn Taymiyya, thus, seems to accept the
very substance of the Peripatetic theory of causality, namely the natu-
ral necessity of cause and effect inherent in the essence of things.
Coming back to Ibn Taymiyya’s assertion that “empirical matters”
are comprehended as universal propositions, we must uncover wheth-
er he distinguishes his claim from those of his enemies. He himself
produces that confrontation:
It is known that through the senses universal and general matters cannot
be perceived. Sensory matters do not lend themselves to universal and
general propositions which can serve as premises in apodictic demonstra-
tion (al-burhān al-yaqīnī). In their (the logicians’) example ‘Fire burns’,
etc., they do not know for certain the universality of this proposition.
All they rely on is experiment (tajriba) and custom (ʿāda), which are of
the same kind as analogy. If the universality of the proposition is knownMajmūʿat al-Fatāwā, Cairo, vol. 5, part 9, p. 153; Michot, Ibn Taymiyya on
Astrology, pp. 155–156, n. 34 (I follow his translation, the Arabic terms in
angular brackets are my additions)). In fact, the Muʿtazilīs negated the second-
ary, intermediary causes, assuming that God governs the world all by him-
self (Wolfson, Harry Austryn: The Philosophy of the Kalam, Cambridge and
London 1976, pp. 520–543). This denial, however, concerns only the world,
i. e., nature, as long as man does not intervene. In regard to man’s acting in
the world, most of them upheld an efficient causal relation between the act
and the result, a theory they usually called tawallud (van Ess, Josef: Theo-
logie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra. Eine Geschichte des
religiösen Denkens im frühen Islam, Berlin and New York 1991–1997, vol. 3,
pp. 116–117, 250, 423; vol. 4, pp. 139, 475, 487, see also Index s. v. tawallud).
See also below, n. 250.
234 For the role of causality in the Aristotelian theory of definition and demonstra-
tion, see, for instance, Madkour, Ibrahim: L’organon d’Aristote dans le monde
arabe, ses traductions, son étude et ses applications, Paris 1969, pp. 125–127
(with further references).
235 Ibn Taymiyya, al-Radd, pp. 26, 299; al-Suyūṭī, Jahd al-qarīḥa, p. 314; Hallaq,
Ibn Taymiyya, p. 142 (he translates al-ḥaqāʾiq al-mawjūda fī al-khārij only as
“extramental reality”).
236 See above, n. 232; Henry Laoust holds that Ibn Taymiyya’s logical terminolo-
gy is largely taken from al-Ghazālī (Essai sur les doctrines sociales et politiques,
p. 84).
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