The Curse of Philosophy 369
of human languages when describing objects the Koran considers as
unseen. Only God knows objects such as sanctions in the Hereafter,
God’s essence, and God’s attributes. Ibn Taymiyya also rejects the act
of interpretation as the search for a truth beyond the metaphor, which
ascribes to the text an outward level in opposition to an inward one.
Dismissing this opposition as invalid, Ibn Taymiyya raises awareness
of the fact that the metaphorical and real meanings of expressions are
bound to “verbal conditions” (quyūd lafẓiyya); he utilizes Arabic phil-
ological and linguistic materials in his argumentation in a way that,
according to al-Marzūqī, should help resolve the contemporary dilem-
ma of Koranic exegesis. Ibn Taymiyya develops, furthermore, a philo-
sophical theory of language according to which single expressions do
not have significance except when constrained by linguistic evidence
and the state of discourse of which they are part. This achievement
is important for the understanding of science, as such: based on this
premise, a science is “an artificial language whose function is to analyze
a phenomenon in a way presupposing that its logical and analytical
system consists of pure cognitive values”^177.
5. Conclusions
Contemporary Muslim authors overwhelmingly intrigued by philo-
sophical elements in Ibn Taymiyya’s works do not limit his impact to
his critique of past philosophers and kalām-theologians; on the con-
trary, they ascribe specific philosophical qualities to him, qualifying
him as a philosopher in his own right. What’s more, some of these
authors widely extend his philosophical impact to include theoretical
alternatives he suggested, which, they allege, possess worth beyond
their historical value in regards to the establishment of modern Islam-
ic philosophy. Naturally, imputing the status of a philosopher to Ibn
Taymiyya means connecting him to former and later philosophers;
his refutation of Aristotelian logic is seen, therefore, both as a con-
tinuation of Stoic and Skeptic positions and as a predecessor of early
modern empiricism. Furthermore, his nominalistic interpretation of
basic elements of logic and his realistic conception of existence are
presented as an ambitious philosophical project, based on the founda-
177 Al-Marzūqī, Fikr Ibn Taymiyya al-iṣlāḥī, http://www.alfalsafa.com/fikr ibn
taymia.html, accessed on August 16, 2011.
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