The Curse of Philosophy 359
Abū al-Barakāt al-Baghdādī provided Ibn Taymiyya with significant
rational support.^143
As Ibn Taymiyya emphasizes God’s eternal agency, he also negates
the theological teaching of creatio ex nihilo. For him, the state of non-
existence is nothing but
a state of being in potentia (bil-quwwa) [...]. Ibn Taymiyya does not
acknowledge at all a state of nonexistence preceding existence as a whole.
Even a particular existent is not preceded by nonexistence, but it was
latent (kāmin) [...] in a preceding thing which constitutes its condition
from which it results. The state of nonexistence which precedes the exis-
tent is for Ibn Taymiyya nothing but a state of latency.^144Ajhar points out, furthermore, that Ibn Taymiyya utilizes the same
Koranic verses used by Ibn Rushd in his treatise Faṣl al-maqāl to assert
that the world was not created out of nothing.^145
In contrast to the philosophers, Ibn Taymiyya understands causal-
ity in a way that maintains a temporal difference between God and
the world, therefore upholding God’s temporal priority. Against the
kalām-theologians, he acknowledges the eternity of God’s agency and
acknowledges its connection to His eternal will and power.^146 Accord-
ingly, Ibn Taymiyya argues both rationally and philosophically for the
infinite regress of the causes as an inevitable premise for God’s eter-
nal agency. As infinite as the chain of causes could be, each one of
the causes is naturally in a state of potential existence and necessarily
requires another cause to move it into the state of actual existence. God
remains, thus, the absolute cause of the world; He brings all existents
into being through their immediate natural causes.^147 In his view, the
cause (ʿilla) does not create an existent, but it functions as a “necessary
condition” (sharṭ ḍarūrī) for it to come into being.^148 God’s will and
143 Ibid., pp. 197–198. For his views see al-Baghdādī, Abū al-Barakāt Hibat Allāh
b. ʿAlī b. Malkā: Kitāb al-Muʿtabar fī al-ḥikma al-ilāhiyya, Haydarabad 1357–
1358/1938–1939.
144 Ajhar, Ibn Taymiyya, p. 213; Ibn Taymiyya, Darʾ, edited by ʿAbd al-Laṭīf ʿAbd
al-Raḥmān, vol. 5, p. 217.
145 Ajhar, Ibn Taymiyya, p. 217. See Koran (11:7; 14:48; 41:11); Ibn Rushd, Faṣl,
pp. 21–22; Ibn Taymiyya, Majmūʿat al-rasāʾil, vol. 5, p. 352.
146 Ajhar, Ibn Taymiyya, p. 21.
147 Ibid., pp. 199–201; Ibn Taymiyya, Darʾ, edited by ʿAbd al-Laṭīf ʿAbd
al-Raḥmān, vol. 2, pp. 198–199.
148 Ajhar, Ibn Taymiyya, pp. 204–206. The kalām-theologians denied the imme-
diate effect of natural causes, seeing God to be the immediate cause of every-
thing in the world. They often illustrated their position by saying that man
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