Sheikh Al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah, his positions with the ruling regime, what he offered to Islam, and his wisdom, Part 8
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00:00Biography of Shaykh al-Islam ibn Taymiyyah
00:06Was he suffering from the ruling political system?
00:09His qualities and morals since the emergence of the Islamic message and its spread in the
00:14world.
00:15Part 8 We continue to narrate a stage in the life
00:19of Shaykh al-Islam ibn Taymiyyah.
00:22He composed his masterwork averting the conflict between reason and revealed tradition.
00:27Al-Tahrid al-Aquel wa al-Niquel, sometime after 1313 followed by his refutation of Twelver
00:33Shi'ism the way of the prophetic Sunnah, Manaj al-Sunnah al-Nabawiyyah.
00:39These three works take up ten, eleven, and nine volumes, respectively, in their modern
00:44Arabic critical editions.
00:46Ibn Taymiyyah also wrote large works on law, prophecy, and Christianity.
00:52Of special philosophical interest is his refutation of the logicians, al-Rad ala al-Mantikeyan,
00:58which he started while under house arrest in Alexandria in 1309–1310 and completed
01:03later in Damascus.
01:06Also of interest is Ibn Taymiyyah's work on political theology law guided public policy,
01:11al-Siyasa al-Shari'ah, which appears to have been drafted around 1310 and then completed
01:16upon his return to Damascus.
01:19While Ibn Taymiyyah's large works have been published separately, a great many of his
01:23small and medium-length writings have been published in collections, the most cited of
01:27which is the thirty-seven-volume Majmu Fatawa first published 1961–7, Murad 1979, Bori
01:352009, 2010, 2021, Hoover 2019b, 1–39.
01:43Contrary to the dominant currents of post-classical Islamic thought, Ibn Taymiyyah's ontology
01:48is physicalist or materialist.
01:51All existence, including God, are concrete particulars capable of being perceived, masis,
01:57by at least one of the five senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch.
02:03Whatever is not susceptible to perception by the senses does not exist.
02:08Even existence in the unseen world, alam al-ghaib, are accessible to sense perception under certain
02:13conditions.
02:15The unseen, according to Ibn Taymiyyah, is not an intellectual world or a world of immaterial
02:20images.
02:22Instead, the unseen world, like the seen, consists of concrete particulars with temporal
02:27and spatial dimensions that may be perceived by the senses when unimpeded.
02:32Among other things, the unseen includes God, angels, the afterlife, and the human soul,
02:38which is distinct from the human body but not immaterial.
02:42Some things in the unseen world have already been perceived in this life by prophets in
02:46visions and dreams, and believers will see God in front of them with their eyes in the
02:51hereafter.
02:53God is in fact more seeable than any other existent because God's existence is more perfect
02:57than the existence of anything else.
03:00Conversely, according to Ibn Taymiyyah, the incorporeal god of Kalam theology and philosophers
03:06like Ibn Sina, Avicenna, D. 1037, and Ibn Rushd is tantamount to a non-existent.
03:13That god is no more than a concept in the mind.
03:16Mustafa 2017, Suleiman 2019, 98-102, El-Tobgi 2020, 230-5, 251-2, Hoover 2022, 647-8.
03:31Parallel to this physicalism, Ibn Taymiyyah denies that universals exist in extramental
03:36reality.
03:38He rejects universals existing independently of particulars, platonic realism, or as shared
03:44essences or quiddities, mahiyyat, within particulars that the mind abstracts as universals, Aristotelian
03:50and Avicennan moderate realism.
03:54Shared meanings and universal notions abstracted from concrete particulars in the extramental
03:58world exist only in the mind.
04:01There is for example no extramental absolute human in which concrete and particular humans
04:06participate or of which they are instantiations, and there is no real quiddity human that exists
04:11in every human.
04:13There are only ontologically distinct existence that a mind groups together under a shared
04:17meaning or mental universal called human.
04:21For Ibn Taymiyyah, extramental existence do share in the fact of existing and in the fact
04:26of having unique essences and quiddities.
04:29In any two existence is something that they share and something that distinguishes them.
04:34They must share in being two existence that subsist and obtain, and in each one having
04:38a reality, haqqiqa, which is its essence.its identify, nafs, and its quiddity, even if
04:45the two existence are obviously different as in the case of black and white.
04:50Dar Tared 5.83-4.
04:53It is then the unique essences that distinguish existence from each other and render them
04:57all completely unique individuals.
05:00The essence of something is in fact its very existence along with its attributes.
05:05El-Tobgi 2020, 246-50 Ibn Taymiyyah's views on universals are not
05:11entirely unique within post-classical Islam.
05:15He is part of a wider drift toward nominalism or conceptualism found in earlier figures
05:19such as Shihab al-Din al-Surawarti, D. 1191, Adamson & Benovich 2023, 189-256.
05:29Ibn Taymiyyah also maintains that certain rational principles obtain universally, both
05:34in the mind and in extramental reality.
05:38These principles accord with his physicalist ontology, and they include logical axioms
05:42like the law of non-contradiction and the law of the excluded middle.
05:47It is not possible, for example, that something exist and not exist at the same time or that
05:52something exist neither inside the world nor outside of it.
05:56Likewise, one of two existence cannot be neither suffused within the other nor distinct from
06:01it.
06:02Ibn Taymiyyah also affirms the division of existence into two fundamental types.
06:08Every existent is either eternal or originated, necessary or possible, and self-subsisting
06:13or subsisting in another.
06:16He insists on the universal applicability of efficient causality as well.
06:21Nothing possible or temporal can come into existence without a sufficient cause.
06:26Everything originated requires an originator, mudith, and everything preponderated needs
06:30a preponderator, maraji.
06:33It is for this reason, Ibn Taymiyyah maintains, that normally functioning human beings perceive
06:39directly from their own existence that there must be a God who created them.
06:43El-Tobgi 2020, 255-60, 283 Ibn Taymiyyah's epistemology is based on
06:51sense perception, his, report, kabar, reason, aql, and the human natural constitution, fitra.
07:00Sense perception is both outer and inner.
07:03Outer sense perception comes through the five senses.
07:06It perceives the particulars of the visible world in this life, and it perceives God in
07:10the hereafter.
07:12Inner sense perception is of hunger, thirst, joy, pain, the existence of one's own soul,
07:19and the existence of God.
07:22Sense perception, according to Ibn Taymiyyah, is immediate and necessary in the sense that
07:26it cannot be denied.
07:29Report is related to sense perception insofar as it derives from the sense perceptions of
07:33others who have experienced what they report.
07:37Reports may be of particulars and universals and of the seen and the unseen.
07:42Much of what we know comes from reports because our own sense perception is limited in range.
07:47Divine revelation constitutes a special category of reports providing knowledge about the unseen
07:52world and the hereafter.
07:55Reports provide certain knowledge only if they are so abundantly transmitted as to preclude
07:59collusion and forgery.
08:02Muslims consider the Qur'an and some reports from the Prophet Muhammad to be abundantly
08:06transmitted, mutawatur.
08:09Ibn Taymiyyah regards some reports of the early Muslims, the Salaf, to be abundantly
08:13transmitted as well.
08:15Al-Taubghi 2020, 227-9, 235-41.
08:22Reason for Ibn Taymiyyah is both a rational faculty and a kind of immediate, badeehi,
08:26and necessary, daruri, knowledge.
08:30The latter includes logical axioms like those noted above, e.g., the law of excluded middle
08:36and the law of non-contradiction, and basic moral intuitions, e.g., that God must be
08:41the only object of worship and that what is beneficial is good.
08:45The functions of reason as a faculty include forming universals in the mind from the extramental
08:50concrete particulars known through the senses and carrying out rational inferences.
08:55Al-Taubghi 2020, 253-60.
08:59The Fitrah frames Ibn Taymiyyah's epistemological outlook as the original normative disposition.
09:05Al-Taubghi 2020-260, or, Natural Constitution, Hoover 2007-39, of the human being to believe
09:13in and worship God alone just as an infant instinctively seeks to drink its mother's
09:18milk.
09:19God creates human beings with a Godward orientation, and this includes many things known by reason
09:25such as the basic rules of thought and fundamental moral intuitions.
09:30Perfecting influences and incorrect kalam and philosophical reasoning may divert the
09:34Fitrah from its proper ends.
09:37The role of prophecy and divine revelation then is to perfect the Fitrah by removing
09:41sources of corruption, providing correct arguments, and revealing aspects of the divine law not
09:47known through natural means.
09:48Holtzman 2010, 165-78, Anyam 2012, 215-27, Qazi 2013, 232-313, and Zubayn Al-Taubghi
10:002016, Vasalu 2016, 77-92, Al-Taubghi 2020, 260-4, Kandird 2023-309-28.
10:12Apart from prophecy, Ibn Taymiyyah also appeals to the collective Fitrah of humankind to secure
10:18the reliability of sensory knowledge and rational axioms against the corrupt reasoning of kalam
10:23theologians and philosophers.
10:25For example, the axiom that one of two existents is either suffused within the other or distinct
10:31from it is so abundantly transmitted from ordinary people of sound Fitrah as to preclude
10:35collusion and error.
10:37This unmasks the faulty reasoning of theologians of corrupted Fitrah who posit a third type
10:42of existent that is neither suffused within another existent nor distinct from it, i.e.,
10:48God.
10:50With this, abundant transmission, tawatur, guarantees for Ibn Taymiyyah not only the
10:55authenticity of divine revelation but also the certainty of knowledge that accords with
10:59logical axioms and sense perception.
11:02Al-Taubghi 2018-A, Al-Taubghi 2020, 267-75.
11:09Ibn Taymiyyah devotes his refutation of the logicians, Al-Rad Allah Al-Mantian, to Aristotelian
11:15logic as reformulated by Ibn Sina.
11:18The avicennan logical system is foundationalist.
11:22New knowledge is built up from primary knowledge through discursive reasoning.
11:26Otherwise, without a foundation of primary knowledge, rational inferences would regress
11:31infinitely.
11:33Avicennan logic furthermore divides knowledge, ilm, into conceptualization, tasawwur, and
11:39assent, tazdik.
11:42Conceptualization is the formation of a notion or concept in the mind.
11:46Some concepts like, thing, and, existent, are primary.
11:50They are known immediately without discursive reasoning, nizar.
11:55Other concepts are acquired by formation of a real definition, had, which indicates the
12:00essence or quiddity, mahaya, of a species by specifying its genus and specific difference.
12:06For example, the definition of, human, as, rational animal, is acquired through reflection
12:11on prior knowledge of the species, animal, and the specific difference, rational.
12:17The definition generates a concept in the mind that corresponds to the quiddity of the
12:21existing thing in instrumental reality.
12:24Assent, the second division of avicennan logic, affirms the truthfulness of a proposition.
12:31Assents are also primary or acquired, and they may be either certain, yaqeen, or probable.
12:38Primary assents that are certain include, among other things, primary truths, e.g.,
12:43the whole is greater than the part, sense perceptions, e.g., seeing that the sun is
12:48shining, and abundantly transmitted reports, e.g., of the existence of a given city.
12:55Probable primary assents include beliefs about human customs and laws.
13:00Acquired assents are derived through induction, analogy, and syllogism.
13:05Assent and analogy impart no more than probability, but a valid categorical syllogism with certain
13:10premises provides apodictic certainty.
13:14Such a syllogism is called a demonstration, Burhan, Ennadi, 1984, Halleck, 1993, xiv xvii,
13:24xxvii xxviii, 4-5n.
13:284.
13:29Ahmed, 2011, Black, 2013.
13:33Ibn Taymiyyah falls within a tradition going back to the twelfth century that subjected
13:37Ibn Sina's Aristotelian notion of real definition to skeptical critique.
13:43He rejects the ontology underpinning avicennan definitions.
13:47Definitions do not delineate real avicennan quiddities shared by multiple existence outside
13:51the mind, and the attributes of extramental realities are not divided into those which
13:56are quidditive or essential and those which are not.
13:59Ibn Taymiyyah maintains instead that definitions are matters of linguistic convention.
14:04They simply name and identify what is defined, and they distinguish one thing from another.
14:10This is the view of definitions common among Kalam theologians.
14:14Following on from this, Ibn Taymiyyah asserts that Aristotelian definitions are not needed
14:19to form concepts and that in fact, as the Ash'ari theologian Far al-Din al-Razi, d.
14:24606, 1200 tense, argued earlier, real definitions cannot lead to the acquisition of conceptualizations
14:32at all.
14:35Conceptualizations are all primary and empirical in character.
14:38They arise from experience and the senses, both external, e.g., sight and hearing, and
14:43internal, e.g., hunger, pain, love.
14:49Aristotelian definitions do not impart knowledge not already known.
14:53Those who hear definitions will not understand them unless they have previously conceptualized
14:57and understood the terms used to form the definitions themselves.
15:02The definition of human as rational animal, for example, is merely an assertion of the
15:06person who defines it.
15:08A hearer who knows this to be true will know it based on prior knowledge and not from the
15:13definition.
15:14A hearer who does not know it to be true cannot be sure that the testimony of this one person
15:19who defined it is correct without further corroboration.
15:22Antikyan 7-87, 49-129.
15:27Halleck 1993, XVIIIXX, XLVIXLVII, Von Kugelgen 2005, 179-204.
15:38Ryan 2009, 2010, 2011b.
15:43On earlier critiques of definition, including al-Razi's, see Jacobson-Benhamed 2020.
15:49Griffel 2021, 312-3, 336-87, Benevich 2022.
16:00Ibn Taymiyya also denounces the logician's demonstrative syllogism as unnecessary and
16:04useless for acquiring certain knowledge.
16:07He does affirm that a categorical syllogism is formally productive.
16:12It yields certainty if its premises are certain.
16:15If the subject matter of the syllogistic form is known, with certainty, then there
16:19is no doubt that it yields certainty.
16:22If it is said that every A is B and every B is C, and the two premises are known, with
16:27certainty, then there is no doubt that this combination yields, certain, knowledge that
16:31every A is C. This is not disputed.
16:36Antiquian 293-339, C.F.
16:40Halleck 1993-141.
16:43However, Ibn Taymiyya belittles the Aristotelian and Avicennan elaboration of syllogistic figures
16:50and conditions as unduly complex and of little worth.
16:53The upshot of the multiplicity of these figures and conditions is prolixity of little use
16:58and much weariness.
17:00They are lean camel meat on a rugged mountain peak that is not easy to climb, and, the meat
17:05not ample enough to be worth carrying down.
17:08Antiquian 296-342-3, C.F.
17:13Halleck 1993-141.
17:18More substantively, Ibn Taymiyya argues that certain knowledge may be acquired without
17:22a categorical syllogism.
17:25Different people come to certainty in different ways.
17:28What is acquired knowledge for some may be immediate knowledge for others.
17:33Some need the middle term of a syllogism to acquire certain knowledge while others
17:36do not.
17:38A rational inference producing certainty also need not be composed of exactly two premises,
17:44counter to what logicians require for a demonstrative syllogism.
17:48The number of premises varies according to the ability of the one seeking knowledge,
17:52and some inferences require only one premise, that is, a single indicant, dalil, with its
17:58necessarily entailment, lazam.
18:01As an example, Ibn Taymiyya notes that every created thing known with certainty to exist
18:06entails the existence of the creator necessarily.
18:10The argument does not need to be reformulated into a categorical syllogism to provide certainty,
18:15and to require the syllogistic form is mere pedantry.
18:19Moreover, and following on from Ibn Taymiyya's empiricist outlook, the universal proposition
18:24in a demonstrative syllogism is in fact superfluous in matters pertaining to the extramental world
18:29because knowledge of that world is rooted in particulars.
18:33For example, to determine whether the universal, all flames burn, is true in the world outside
18:38the mind, one would need to examine all flames to see whether they all burn.
18:44In this attempt at complete induction, one would discover along the way that a particular
18:48flame burns.
18:50There would then be no need to construct a demonstrative syllogism with the universal
18:54premise, all flames burn, to attain certainty that that one flame burns.
18:59It has already been ascertained that it burns.
19:02Additionally, in view of the difficulty of achieving complete induction of particulars,
19:08acquired knowledge of the extramental world will be merely probable, not certain.
19:12Ibn Taymiyya also claims in his Refutation of the Logicians that the categorical syllogism
19:41is equivalent to analogy.
19:42Analogy, Qiyas al-Tamfil, and the categorical syllogism, Qiyas al-Shumal, are equivalent.
19:49Certainty, yaqeen, and probability, zan, differ only according to the subject matter, of the
19:56premises.
19:57If the specific subject matter is certain in one, it is certain in the other, and, if
20:02it is probable in one, it is probable in the other.
20:06Antiquian 116.157, cf. 6.48, 200-1.244.
20:16According to Aristotelian and Avicennan logic, an analogy can never impart certain knowledge
20:21because it only compares one particular with another.
20:24An analogy transfers a judgment or property found in one particular to the second particular
20:29by virtue of a characteristic shared between the two.
20:32The cause, illa, of this shared characteristic can never be ascertained with complete certainty,
20:38and so an analogy can never impart certain knowledge.
20:41Contrary to this, Ibn Taymiyya contends that the middle term of the categorical syllogism
20:46is identical to the cause in analogy and that an analogy can be reformulated as the first
20:50figure of a categorical syllogism.
20:53He illustrates with the famous juristic case of date wine, nabi.
20:58Date wine is forbidden by analogy to grape wine because both intoxicate.
21:04Intoxication is the cause of forbid dance in both the original and the assimilated cases.
21:09Likewise, date wine is forbidden by the following demonstration.
21:13Every date wine is an intoxicant.
21:16Every intoxicant is forbidden.
21:18Therefore, date wine is forbidden.
21:21Ibn Taymiyya acknowledges that the greatest question concerning analogy is how to ascertain
21:25that the characteristic shared by the original and assimilated cases, e.g., intoxication,
21:31causes or necessitates the ruling, e.g., forbid dance.
21:35I stop at this point today.
21:37Until next time, stay curious.
21:40Stay informed, and keep exploring the world's incredible stories.
21:45Soon we will publish.
21:47Part 9.
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