Divine Wisdom, Human Agency and the fiṭra in Ibn Taymiyya’s Thought 57
Thus, in Ibn Taymiyya’s approach, love of God (maḥabbat allāh) is
similarly essential for the believer as knowing and believing in God
(maʿrifat allāh).^66
The essence of believing, according to Ibn Taymiyya, is therefore
connected to love of God and submission to His path. The Koran’s
emphasis on the close relationship between belief and good actions
and its requirement of sincere dedication in prayers, Ibn Taymiyya
suggests, reminds believers of the inner and profound aspects of believ-
ing in God. Hence, for Ibn Taymiyya, the denial or rejection of the
existence of God is mostly due to a lack of proper love and sufficient
knowledge. People are usually not interested in things they do not
like, and if they do not care about certain things for a while they begin
to deny them. However, if they like something it becomes special and
its acknowledgment turns into happiness for them. The essence of
belief is a combination of confirmation, which is the language of the
heart, and love in submission, which is the action of the heart. Noth-
ing is so close to satisfying human souls as God. Therefore, it is not
sufficient to define religious belief only in technical terms by limiting
it to mere acceptance without connecting it to love.^67 In understand-
ing the meaning of faith, Ibn Taymiyya continues to distinguish this
approach from the methods of the theologians and Sufis with the fol-
lowing words:
As for the people of knowledge and faith, they combined two matters:
knowledgeable confirmation and loving practice. Therefore, their con-
firmation is based on knowledge and their practice and love is based on
knowledge as well. As a result, they are safe from two disasters of the
mutakallimūn and Sufis that turn people away from the true path.^68In this sense, according to Ibn Taymiyya, since it is beyond the sphere
of “direct perception” by reason and physical senses, belief is a larger
concept than simple confirmation. In order to verify certain judgments
concerning physical existences, for example, Ibn Taymiyya asserts that
while the term confirmation is employed, the term belief is not; there-
fore, the existence of God is a matter of belief. The principles that are
received through revelation on His unity and qualities, on the other
hand, are issues of confirmation. In other words, God is believed in;
66 Ibn Taymiyya, Majmūʿ Fatāwā, vol. 16, pp. 343–345; Ibn Taymiyya, Kitāb
al-Nubuwwāt, pp. 68–69.
67 Ibn Taymiyya, Majmūʿ Fatāwā, vol. 2, pp. 39–40.
68 Ibn Taymiyya, Majmūʿ Fatāwā, vol. 2, p. 41.
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