Sheikh Al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah, his positions with the ruling regime, what he offered to Islam, and his wisdom, Part 10
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00:00Biography of Sheikh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyya.
00:05Was he suffering from the ruling political system?
00:08His qualities and morals since the emergence of the Islamic message and its spread in the
00:13world.
00:14Part.
00:1510.
00:16We continue to narrate a stage in the life of Sheikh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyya.
00:21BN Taymiyya responds that such speech is no longer God's own because it does not subsist
00:26within him.
00:28For Ibn Taymiyya, the correct view, the view of the Salaf, is that God has been speaking
00:33by his will and power for maternity with individual acts of speech subsisting in his essence.
00:39These divine speech acts are not themselves eternal, but neither are they created because
00:43created things do not subsist in the essence of God.
00:47Ibn Taymiyya breaks the kalam identity of the temporal with the created and the timelessly
00:52eternal with the uncreated.
00:54God's internal dynamism is temporal in character but not created.
00:59God's uncreated speech acts are temporal and can address temporal events in the world.
01:05Creation in Ibn Taymiyya's theology is a voluntary attribute like speech.
01:10God's perfection entails that God perpetually create created things by his will and power
01:14from eternity without beginning.
01:16Min al-Azl.
01:18While each created thing in the world had a beginning and no created thing is eternal
01:22alongside God, there has always been one created thing or another.
01:28This present world that God created in six days was created out of prior materials that
01:32God had created previously out of prior created things and so on ad infinitum into the past.
01:38Ibn Taymiyya speaks of the genus or species of created things being eternal since there
01:43have always been created things, but he denies that this genus as such has an extramental
01:48existence.
01:50In a history of creation that has no beginning and no end, only created things with beginnings
01:55exist in extramental reality.
01:58Ibn Taymiyya's view of creation is closer to the philosophers Ibn Sina and Ibn Rushd
02:03than to the Kalam theologians.
02:06He follows both philosophers in affirming that God's perfection entails the production
02:10of the world, but like Ibn Rushd, he rejects Ibn Sina's emanation scheme in favor of
02:15God's continuous creation of the world.
02:18Ibn Taymiyya may well have been inspired by Ibn Rushd since we know that he read the
02:22philosophers' texts.
02:25Ibn Taymiyya also adopts Ibn Sina's and Ibn Rushd's criticism of the Kalam theologians'
02:30account of creation ex nihilo.
02:33If the world had had a beginning, as the Kalam theologians argue, God would have been imperfect
02:38before creating it and subject to change when he began the creation process.
02:43A preponderator, miragi, or efficient cause would need to have arisen to cause God to
02:48start originating.
02:50The Kalam theologians counter that it is was in the very nature of God's will to begin
02:55originating the world, and no additional preponderator was needed to cause God to begin creating.
03:01Ibn Taymiyya rejects this as positing something impossible, namely, preponderance without
03:06a preponderator.
03:08Ibn Taymiyya affirms that God's activity is rational.
03:12God creates on account of a cause, illa, or wise purpose, hikmah, and, given that God
03:18has been creating from eternity, the wise purposes of God's creative acts regress infinitely
03:23into the past within God's essence.
03:30Moreover, God's rationality is not purely altruistic.
03:41God acts for benefits that redound not only to creatures but also to God himself.
03:47For Ibn Taymiyya it is neither rational nor praiseworthy for agents to commit acts that
03:51are of no benefit to themselves.
03:54Ash'ari theologians object that a God who acts for wise purposes must be needy and dependent
03:59on those acts to attain perfection.
04:02Ibn Taymiyya counters that it is rational for agents to be perfected by their acts and
04:06that it is a greater perfection to create things for wise purposes at the right times
04:10than to create without purpose.
04:13God is self-sufficient, not in the sense of being free to act or not act without reason,
04:18the Ash'ari view, but in needing no help in the act of creation.
04:23Furthermore, God's love for the love and obedience of his servants does not derive from God's
04:28need for love.
04:29Rather, it follows on from God's love of God's self.
04:34God's self-love is primary, and from God's self-love flows God's love for human beings
04:40and the creation of everything that they do, including their love for God and obedience
04:44to him.
04:46God does not act to acquire perfection.
04:48Instead, God's creative acts, and with them the created world, are necessary concomitants
04:54of the perfection of God's essence.
04:57Ibn Taymiyya's resolution to the problem of God's self-sufficiency is Neoplatonic, and
05:02the notion of God's self-love giving rise to the world as a necessary concomitant is
05:06found in the Neoplatonism of.
05:09Ibn Taymiyya uses the language of secondary causes, s.g. sabab, in instrumental and material
05:16senses to describe the process of God's creation of things in the world.
05:21For example, God creates the human act by means of the human will and power, God makes
05:26plants grow by means of clouds and rain, and God causes illness and death by means of poison.
05:32In general, God creates everything out of and by means of previously existing materials
05:37and powers.
05:40Secondary causality looks natural from the human perspective, even though God has the
05:44power to interrupt it, but from the divine perspective, it is purely instrumental.
05:50God's creation of all human acts raises the question of human responsibility.
05:55The Matazlili-Kalam theologians maintain that humans are responsible for their acts because
06:00humans themselves create them.
06:03Ibn Taymiyya rejects the Mutazili formulation as compromising God's exclusive creative
06:08power.
06:09Instead, in what may be earlier texts, he affirms that humans are the agents of their
06:14acts and therefore liable to reward and punishment because God creates their acts in them and
06:18not in himself.
06:21In what may be later texts, Ibn Taymiyya also roots the origin of human moral failure in
06:26nonexistence to absolve God completely of creating it.
06:30Humans are liable to punishment for omitting to do the deeds that they were created to
06:34perform.
06:35This omission is a privation.
06:37It does not exist, and so it cannot be attributed to God.
06:42As with Ibn Taymiyya's approach to God's self-sufficiency, Avicenna and Neoplatonic inclinations color
06:47his theodicy as well.
06:50God creates all things, including evils, for wise purposes that are ultimately good.
06:56Pure or absolute evil does not exist.
06:59Evil is only evil relative to those afflicted by it.
07:03Ibn Taymiyya sometimes says that God's wise purposes in evil cannot be known.
07:08At other times, however, he indicates that God's wise purposes have to do with nurturing
07:13religious virtues such as repentance, humility, and patience.
07:18Ibn Taymiyya ultimately affirms that everything God creates is good and that this world is
07:23the best of all possible worlds.
07:26To avoid the charge that this limits God's power, Ibn Taymiyya asserts that God could
07:30create other than this world.
07:33However, God creates the world that he does out of his perfection and wise purpose.
07:38Ibn Taymiyya's theory of religion, Din, is decidedly naturalistic and sociological, at
07:44least in its foundations, and, as will be noted further below, it draws on Ibn Sina's
07:49analysis of final causality to point to God as religion's proper object of worship.
07:55For Ibn Taymiyya, humans are dynamic and goal-oriented beings who necessarily will,
08:01love, worship, and obey something.
08:04So, they cannot help but be religious.
08:07Moreover, human beings are social, and every human group requires a religion to unite it
08:12and guide it in attaining benefit and warding off harm.
08:17Religion consists of inner and outer acts of obedience, worship, and ethical character,
08:22and it is what people love in common to attain mutual benefit.
08:26Religion then has two fundamental aspects, 1.
08:29the object of love and worship and 2.
08:32the means by which that object is loved and worshipped.
08:35The divinely revealed and most beneficial religion is worship and love of God alone
08:40by means of the prescriptions of Islam.
08:43Ibn Taymiyya elaborates as follows.
08:46Every living being must have an object of love, which is the goal of its love and its
08:50will and towards which its inner and outer movements are directed.
08:54That is its God.
08:55That, love, will, and movement, is of no benefit unless it is for God alone, without giving
09:02Him an associate.
09:04Everything other than Islam is worthless.
09:06Every religion, obedience, and love must have two things.
09:11The first is the object of religion, love, and obedience.
09:16This is the object of intention and the object of will.
09:19The second is the form of the deeds by which that object is obeyed and worshipped.
09:24This is the way, the path, the law, the method, and the means of access.
09:30Religion encompasses two things, the object of worship and the worship.
09:34The object of worship is the one God.
09:38Worship is obeying Him and obeying His Messenger.
09:41This is the religion of God with which He is well pleased.
09:45As he said, I am well pleased with Islam as a religion for you.
09:49Quran 5-3.
09:50Ibn Taymiyyah frequently signifies God's unique worthiness of worship with the terms
09:55ulahya and ilahya.
09:58Both mean, divinity, in the sense of that which is worshipped, and he compounds them
10:03with the term tahd, confessing the oneness or exclusivity of God, to denote the act of
10:08taking God as the sole object of worship and obedience.
10:12tahd al-ulahya and tahd al-ilahya Ibn Taymiyyah also uses the terms rububayya
10:18and rabbinaya, lordship, to denote God's role as creator, sustainer, and source.
10:25The confession that God is the one and only Lord of the universe, tahd al-rububayya or
10:29tahd al-rabbinaya, means that God is creator of everything that exists, all human acts
10:35included.
10:36Ibn Taymiyyah often complains that the Ash'ari Kalam theologians give primacy to confessing
10:41the exclusiveness of God's lordship, tahd al-rububayya, and lose sight of God's sole
10:46right to worship.
10:48Instead, he argues, the Quran gives priority to devoting worship to God alone, tahd al-ulahya,
10:56as in the invocation in the first chapter of the Quran, you alone we worship, you alone
11:01we ask for help, Quran 1-5.
11:04You alone we worship, comes first as an expression of tahd al-ulahya and is then followed by,
11:10you alone we ask for help, as a confession that God is the sole source of sustenance,
11:15an expression of tahd al-rububayya.
11:18Ibn Taymiyyah further elucidates the priority of God's worthiness of worship with the Aristotelian
11:23causal analysis of Ibn Sina.
11:26For Ibn Sina, the final cause is the end for which something comes into existence and the
11:31efficient cause is that which brings the thing into existence.
11:34Additionally, the final cause is the efficient cause of the efficient cause insofar as it
11:40motivates the action of the efficient cause.
11:43In the following discussion of Quran 1-5, Ibn Taymiyyah links final causality to divinity
11:49and efficient causality to lordship and underlines the primacy of divinity by identifying it
11:53as the efficient cause of the efficient cause lordship.
11:57The God, al-ilah, is the one worshipped and asking for help is linked to his lordship.
12:03The Lord of the servants is he who lords over them.
12:06This entails that he is creator of everything that is in them and from them.
12:11The divinity is the final cause and lordship is the efficient cause.
12:16The final cause is that which is aimed at and it is the efficient cause of the efficient
12:20cause.
12:21Therefore, he made, you alone we worship, proceed, you alone we ask for help.
12:29Confessing the exclusiveness of the divinity, tahd al-ilahaya, includes confessing the exclusiveness
12:34of the lordship, tahd al-rububaya.
12:38Included in worshipping only God is not confessing the lordship of any other.
12:43This law encompasses everything that God loves for human beings to believe and do, and it
12:47includes religious ritual, theological doctrines, contractual and moral obligations toward others,
12:53and religious virtues like patience and gratitude.
12:57Ibn Taymiyyah maintains as well that the law of Islam is coextensive with justice and maximum
13:02human benefit, maslaha, in much the same way that he claims that reason and revelation
13:07coincide in matters of theology.
13:10Ibn Taymiyyah is as much an apologist for the rationality of the divine law as he is
13:14for the rationality of his theological doctrines.
13:18The two terms, law, and justice, are for him interchangeable, and he goes so far as to
13:24say that God will give victory to a just state that is not Muslim over a Muslim state that
13:28is not just.
13:30Furthermore, there is nothing outside the revealed law whose benefit outweighs its detriment.
13:36In Ibn Taymiyyah's view, the means of worship most pleasing to God and most beneficial to
13:41humankind is the law, sharia, revealed to the Prophet Muhammad.
13:46The religious law never neglects a benefit, and Muslim jurists who imagine that some acts
13:51not mentioned in the law are beneficial are mistaken.
13:54Al-Ghazali had developed a process for authorizing unstated benefits, al-masalah al-mursalah,
14:01by identifying five fundamental purposes of the law—the preservation of religion, intellect,
14:06life, progeny, and property.
14:10Benefits not found directly in the revealed law may be legitimized as part of that law
14:14by aligning them with the main purposes of the law.
14:17Ibn Taymiyyah criticizes this strategy for adding rulings to the law that God did not
14:22legislate.
14:23Additionally, according to Ibn Taymiyyah, al-Ghazali's five purposes are too narrowly
14:28focused on worldly affairs, and they do not take sufficient account of benefits found
14:33in legislated worship rituals like the ritual prayer, salah.
14:38For Ibn Taymiyyah, innovated religious rituals, like commemorating the Prophet's birthday,
14:43and other acts not found within the law may yield some benefit for those who perform them,
14:47but the detriments always outweigh the benefits.
14:50Ibn Taymiyyah therefore condemns such acts and urges abandoning them if possible.
14:56Religion for Ibn Taymiyyah cannot do without temporal power, and he criticizes two errors
15:01in this regard.
15:03One is avoiding power and wealth so as not to sully religion with the compromises of
15:07temporal affairs, and the other is deploying power and wealth for personal gain instead
15:12of advancing religion.
15:14To avert these errors, Ibn Taymiyyah seeks to infuse public authority with the ethical
15:19impulses of the revealed law in his book Law-Guided Public Policy, al-Siyasah al-Shari'ah.
15:25The purpose of the public authorities, whether they be political, military, judicial or scholarly,
15:31is, to reform the religion of the people, in order, that religion is entirely for God
15:36and that the word of God is most high, Siyasah 30, 3-3.
15:41Rulers are to further the cause of religion and enable worship of God alone within whatever
15:45political structures happen to be in place.
15:48While Ibn Taymiyyah speaks to the appointment of public officials, the distribution of public
15:53wealth, the conduct of war, the provision of public services, and criminal and personal
15:58status law among other things, he does not outline a blueprint for a perfect Islamic
16:02state.
16:04He instead exhorts public officials to work toward religious reform to the best of their
16:08abilities within the circumstances, using force as deemed prudent.
16:13It has been observed that Ibn Taymiyyah's ethics of God's creative and commanding activity
16:17follows the utilitarian maxim of the greatest happiness for the greatest number.
16:22This is readily apparent in Ibn Taymiyyah's theodicy.
16:26God continuously produces the greatest possible benefit for the greatest number by creating
16:30the best of all possible worlds.
16:33Ibn Taymiyyah's metaethical theory on the human plane mirrors this divine utilitarianism.
16:39He rejects the moral rationalism of the Mutazili Kalam theologians who argue that acts are
16:44objectively good or bad in themselves such that God commands an act because it is good
16:49or forbids an act because it is bad.
16:52He also rebuffs classical Ash'ari divine command theory in which the moral values of acts are
16:57determined solely by God's will such that an act is good only because God commands it.
17:02Ibn Taymiyyah instead follows the consequentialist inclinations of post-classical Asharis like
17:08Far al-Din al-Razi.
17:11The moral values of acts depend on the outcomes of those acts, whether they produce pleasure
17:15or pain, benefit or detriment, profit or harm.
17:20The goodness of an act depends on the degree to which it is advantageous to the actor or
17:24wider society, and rational human communities should seek to maximize their overall benefit.
17:30The role of God's law then is to point humankind to what is of ultimate benefit in both this
17:35life and the hereafter, namely, worshipping God alone according to God's law.
17:40For example, Islamic law forbids eating carrion, but Ibn Taymiyyah permits eating it if necessary
17:46to avoid starvation.
17:49More generally, Ibn Taymiyyah maintains the revealed law as his guiding ideal, but he
17:54insists that the benefits and detriments of actions must be weighed up carefully when
17:58human weakness or sin make following the law difficult or impossible or when the law is
18:02not fully known.
18:04His reflection on the caliphate is a poignant example of such utilitarian calculation.
18:10Like other post-classical Muslim jurists, Ibn Taymiyyah sometimes overrides explicit
18:15legal prohibitions on the grounds of benefit and necessity.
18:19Ibn Taymiyyah maintains that the caliphate of prophecy, the normative caliphate of the
18:23first four Sunni caliphs following the death of the Prophet Muhammad, is an obligation
18:28for the Muslim community.
18:31Morally inferior kingship, which predominated in Muslim lands after the first four Sunni
18:35caliphs, is only permissible in case of need.
18:39Nonetheless, Ibn Taymiyyah maintains, kingship is only a minor sin, and Muslims should weigh
18:45up the benefits and detriments in the circumstances to attain the greatest possible benefit for
18:49religion.
18:51It might be beneficial, for example, to indulge a king's wine drinking if calling upon him
18:56to stop would lead to the greater detriment of his apostasy from Islam.
19:00Moreover, Ibn Taymiyyah explains, such weighing up of benefits and detriments is the way of
19:05the Prophet.
19:08I stop at this point today.
19:10Until next time, stay curious.
19:13Stay informed, and keep exploring the world's incredible stories.
19:19For watching.