48 M. Sait Özervarli
edge.^38 Muṭahhar al-Maqdisī emphasizes that, despite the differences
in their traditions, communities, countries, and views, societies around
the world do not differ in having a belief. There is a word for God
in all languages, and people usually take refuge in their beliefs when
they face dangers.^39 al-Rāghib al-Isfahānī, too, in his division between
necessary and rational knowledge, cites the existence of God as self-
evident (badīhī) knowledge, because all rational beings agree that they
were not their own creators. Al-Iṣfahānī considers Abraham’s identi-
fication of God with a star, the moon, and the sun, mentioned in the
Koran (6:76–77), a sign of the human inborn nature to believe in God.
That the majority of people pray to God in desperate situations and
that most communities observe some sort of belief is further evidence
of the inner foundation of believing.^40 In Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn, al-Ghazālī
also clearly indicated that human nature and the examples of the Koran
do not require further proofs (fī fiṭrat al-insān wa-shawāhid al-qurʾān
mā yughnī ʿan iqāmat al-burhān).^41
Although some Muslim thinkers in the earlier period discussed
using human nature as an argument, no one had made it theory yet.
In order to build a natural relationship between human inner capacity
and divine guidance, Ibn Taymiyya constructed the concept of fiṭra as
an alternative argument in Islamic theology to the kalām cosmologi-
cal (ḥudūth) argument.^42 In classical Islamic theology, the methods of
argumentation to prove the existence of God are called ithbāt al-wājib,
which means proving the existence of the Necessary Being. The exis-
38 See al-Jāḥiẓ, Abū ʿUthmān: al-Dalāʾil wal-iʿtibār ʿalā al-khalq wal-tadbīr, Beirut
- See also Vajda, George: La connaissance naturelle de Dieu selon al-Ǧāḥiẓ
critiqueé par les muʿtazilites, in: Studia Islamica 24 (1966), pp. 19–33.
39 Al-Maqdisī, Muṭahhar b. Ṭāhir: Kitāb al-Badʾ wal-taʾrīkh, edited by Clément
Huart, Baghdad n. d., vol. 1, pp. 58–60.
40 Al-Iṣfahānī, al-Rāghib: al-Iʿtiqādāt, edited by Shamran al-ʿAjli, Beirut 1988,
pp. 34–38.
41 Al-Ghazālī, Abū Ḥāmid: Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn, Cairo 1933, vol. 1, pp. 93–94.
42 Henri Laoust refers in a footnote to Ibn Taymiyya’s use of fiṭra as a proof of
the existence of God. He describes the proof as our innate and universal belief
in Him (l’innéisme et l’universalité de notre croyance en lui). See Laoust, Henri:
Essai sur les doctrines sociales et politiques de Takī-d-dīn Aḥmad Ibn Taimīya,
canoniste Ḥanbalite. Né à Ḥarrān en 661/1262, mort à Damas en 728/1328; thèse
pour le doctorat, Cairo 1939, p. 153, n. 1. See also Ssekamanya, Siraje Abdul-
lah: Ibn Taymiyya’s Theological Approach Illustrated. On the Essence (Dhat)
and the Attributes (Sifat) of Allah, in: al-Shajarah 9 (2004), pp. 43-61, here
pp. 50–51; Anjum, Ovamir: Reason and Politics in Medieval Islamic Thought.
The Taymiyyan Moment, Madison 2008, pp. 267–273.
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