The Curse of Philosophy 343
their shared conviction that reason and revelation stood in fundamen-
tal agreement. Ibn Taymiyya’s “critical project” (al-mashrūʿ al-naqdī)
resulted from a comprehensive vision similar to that of his predeces-
sor: Muslim theologians were to be criticized because they did not
distinguish between “clear reason” (al-ʿaql al-ṣarīḥ) on the one hand
and corrupt dialectic and syllogism on the other. While “clear reason”
was desirable, Greek logic could only lead them astray from the very
Koran and Hadith they claimed to be defending. As a result of the
theologians’ adoption of the corrupt methods of the philosophers, so
al-Ṣaghīr, Ibn Taymiyya took to calling them “the Harranian Sabians”
(al-ṣābiʾa al-ḥarrāniyya), accusing them of corrupting the original phi-
losophy of Aristotle.^73
Al-Ṣaghīr acknowledges the differing outcomes of both Ibn Rushd’s
and Ibn Taymiyya’s critical projects in regards to the relation between
religion and philosophy. He states, nevertheless, that Ibn Taymiyya’s
critique of Islamic philosophy in the East (al-mashriq) actually “enrich-
es and supports” Ibn Rushd’s critique. Due to his intellectual envi-
ronment, Ibn Taymiyya was well acquainted with the “Eastern ideas”
under which influence this philosophy deviated from its Aristotelian
origins; his critique of kalām-theology is, thus, an extension of Ibn
Rushd’s critique of the Ashʿarī school and particularly of al-Ghazālī.^74
Furthermore, al-Ṣaghīr points out that both personalities, although liv-
ing under different social and political circumstances, shared a strong
desire to reject established theological traditions and to both challenge
and transform the predominant intellectual situation in which they
respectively flourished. Ibn Taymiyya fought rigorously for the politi-
cal and dogmatic unity of the umma, a goal which had been formulated
by Ibn Tūmart (d. 524/1130). This was also the aim of Ibn Rushd.^75
Discussing specific Averroistic ideas in Ibn Taymiyya’s works,
al-Ṣaghīr highlights the following:
73 Ibid., p. 167. On Harran and its famous school of philosophy, which had a
considerable impact on Arabic philosophy, see Fehérvári, G.: Ḥarrān, in: EI2,
vol. 3 (1971), pp. 227–230; Chwolsohn, Daniel: Die Ssabier und der Ssabismus,
St. Petersburg 1856; Lewy, Hans: Chaldean Oracles and Theurgy, Paris 1978;
Theurgus, Iulianus: The Chaldean Oracles. Text, translation and commentary
by Ruth Majercik, Leiden 1989.
74 Al-Ṣaghīr, Mawāqif, pp. 167–168.
75 Ibid., p. 168. A possible influence of Ibn Tūmart on Ibn Taymiyya is contested
by Al-Matroudi, Abdul Hakim I.: The Ḥanbalī School of Law and Ibn Taymiy-
ya. Conflict or Conciliation, London and New York 2006, p. 18.
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