Hanbali Theology in the Oxford Handbook

7/26/2019 Hanbali Theology in the Oxford Handbook

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CHAPTER

3 5

HANBALI THEOLOGY

JON HOOVER

T H E

modern study of Han.bali theology was initially plagued by the problem of viewing

Hanbalism through the eyes of its Ashàrite opponents. I. Goldziher (d. 1921) and 0. B.

Macdonald (d. 1943) labelled the Hanbalis 'reactionary' and bemoaned the harm that

they had done to the cause of a conciliatory Ashàrite orthodoxy.1 he work of H. Laoust

(d. 1983) and G. Makdisi (d. 2002) turned the tide of scholarship t ,

ward closer exami-

nation of Hanbali texts on their own terms and deeper understai ding of Hanbalism

in its historical context. Makdisi in particular argued that Hanbali,in had a dispropor-

tionate impact on the development of Islamic theology because it iv; the only Sunni

school to maintain a consistently traditionalist theological voice. kn. Makdisi, the

iaribalis were the 'spearhead' of a wider traditionalist movemen:.

in,...dieval Islam

:rgainst the rationalism of Mu`tazili and Ashàrite

Kalam (Makdisi 1962-3; -)81). Aspects

of Makdisi's narrative require modification, especially as some leading Hanbalis of the

fifth/eleventh and sixth/twelfth centuries were more rationalist than earlier' thought, but

the main thrust of his argument still stands. It may be added that Hanbali theology has

also had a disproportionate impact on modern Islamic theology. "fhe WAhhabi move-

ment in Arabia and contemporary Salatism have appropriated and spic.id. the iwology

of the eighth/fourteenth-century scholar Ibn Taymiyya far beyon,' the conli9es of the

modern Hanbali school of law. This chapter begins with the formation

early devel-

opment of Hanbalism in order to clarify Makdisi's claim, and it cor

E .ty stirveyitlg

key F,Ianbalt figures from Ahmad b. .Hankal in the third/ninth cen wry

to lho Àbd

Wahhab in the twelfth/eighteenth and giving extended attention to the unique theology

of Ibn Taymiyya.

I THE FORMATION OF HANBALISM

The Hanbali law school originated in the 'Abbasid capital Baghtdici i, the late ninth

and early tenth centuries

CE as the most rigorous heir of the trade onalist movement


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626

'JON HOOVER

_

" ., L o

627

that had emerged nearly two centuries carlier. The triditionaiists 1i:inured the collec-

tion and study of

ljadith,

and they sought to ground Islamic Ectici Ind 1iri.ctice solely

in the Quran and

hadith

reports from the Prophet Mulaamin.ii his Ciimpanions, and

their Successors. Opposite the traditionalists were the more torninant proponents of

ray

(common sense' or 'rational discretion'). Advocates of ra r, iicd

degree on

Qur'an and tladith, but they also located religious authority in existing toslim prac-

tice, general notions of upright conduct from the past, and the corr,iA red opinion of

prominent scholars of the day. Traditionalists and proponents of ra 'y came into con-

flict by the late second/eighth century, and, in response to traditionalist pressure, the

advocates of

ray

began adjusting their jurisprudence toward traditionalist positions

and grounding it in the precedents of an eponymous founder and

hadith

reports from

the Prophet to a far greater extent. The Hanafi law school emerged through the course

of the third/ninth and fourth/tenth centuries by vesting authority in a body of jurispru-

dence ascribed to its eponym Abil Hanifa (d. 150/767) and in turn linking these rulings

to Prophetic

hadith.

The notion that law should be based on

hadith

from the Prophet,

but not

hadith

from the Prophet's Companions and Successors, was argued by al-Shafil

(d. 204/820), the eponym of the Shafil law school, and he worked to interpret the Qur'an

and

the ljadith

so that it correlated with received legal practice. Al-Shafil's position may

be called 'semi-rationalist' because he made more room for reasoning by analogy

(qiyas)

than did the pure traditionalists. Be also favoured a ruling derived by analogy from a

Prophetic

hadith

over a report from a Companion or Successor, and, in this, al-Shafi'l

Was

at odds with Abmad b. Hanbal (d. 241/855 ) (Melchert 1997; Fiallaq 2009: 36-71).

Ahnnad was the most prominent traditionalist of the third/ninth century and the

eponym of the Hanbali school. He gave priority to health from the Companions

and Successors over analogy, and he also sought to prevent people from recording

his opinions because, in his view, Islamic doctrine and law should be based in the

revealed sources, not a later scholar like himself. Such a rigorist methodology proved

untenable in the long run, and, in a shift away from pure traditionalism, Ab5 Bakr al-

Khallal (d. 311/923) gathered Ahmad's views into a vast collection to form the textual

foundation for the Hanbali school. A little later, Ab5 Qasim al-Khiraqi (d. 334/945-

6) produced the first handbook of Hanbali jurisprudence, and Ibn H3

(-. 4031

1013) worked to reconcile conflicting views within these preceding Hanbali sourcus

(Melchert

1997;

al-Sarhan 2011: 96-107). In the realm. of legal theory

(ustil al-fiqh),

Abn Ya`la (d. 458/1065) carried forward al-Shafi

r

i's project of correlating the law to

the Qur'an and the

Ijadith

with unprecedented thoroughness and consistency.

pressing the claim that the law corresponded to the literal

(zahir)

sense of revelation,

he

elided the historical and hermeneutical process by which the law came into exist-

ence. The point was to rationalize the equation of revelation with prescribed belief

and practice as inherently obvious (Vishanoff 2011). For most Hanbalis, affiliating

with the school meant following the rulings attributed to Ahmad b. Hanbal loyally,

much as Shafils followed the rulings of al-Shafil and Hanafis the rulings of Abu

klanifa. However, being Hanbali could also mean engaging in creative jurisprudence

(ijtihcid)

according to Ahmad's traditionalist method without necessarily following

t i

i

s

rulings. This is the sense in which ibn 'fayrniyya considered iiinsell Hanbali. As

a creative jurist

(mujtahid),

Ibn Taymiyya did not hesitate to cri:cize Ahmad's rul-

ings, but he nonetheless claimed loyalty to the Hanbali school 1 'id Ali)inad's juristic

inethod (al-Matroudi 2006).

The classical Sun ni law schoo ls were comm itted first and foremo .i to the study of their

ycspective jurisprudential systems, and by the fifth/eleventh ceim

Sunni orthodoxy

c...nsisted most fundamentally in belonging to a scho ol of law, Odic religi.iits groupings

such as Sufis and Mu

r

tazili

Kalam

theologians had to take their plak es w Rhin this struc-

ture in order to protect themselves from traditionalist persecution. The Mu`tazili theo-

logians found refuge in both the Hanafi and Shafil schools, but, with time, Mu`tazilism

died out among Sunnis and continued on only among Shns. Shah' ism appears to have

been semi-rationalist in both jurisprudence and theological doctrine in the late third/

ninth century before confining itself to jurisprudence in the course of the fourth/tenth.

hafils of semi-rationalist persuasion in theology eventually took up Ash`arite

Kalam.

)the/

Shafils were traditionalist in theology and took their theological lights from the

limbalis. This is apparent in biographical dictionary entries describing such scholars as

`Shafil in law, Hanbali in principles of religion'

(shcifirtyyat al-fiqh, hanbaltyyat

As M.akdisi observed, the El anbalis were the most consistently traditionalist in both law

and theology. Traditionalists within the Shaffi and Ha.nati law schools also opposed

Kalam.

However, they did not voice their criticism as openly in order to safeguard the

unity of their respective schools. As we will see, some Hanbali scholars drew on

.Kalam

and later the philosophy of Ibn Sina in their theologies, but, on the whole, the Hanbalis

were the most vociferous in propagating traditionalist theological doctrines (Melchert

1997; Mak disi 1962- 3; 1981).

II EARLY HANBALi THEOLOGICAL

DOCTRINE

A number of texts used to depict the doctrinal views of Alamad b. Hanbal in past

search are evidently not his. It has been shown recently that the six creeds attributed to

11 1.11 in the biographical dictionary

Tabaqat al-hanabila

of Ibn Abi

(d. 526/1133) (see

Joust

1 9 5 7

for locations; three are translated into English in Watt 1994: 29 -40) go back

to diverse traditionalist sources in the third/ninth and fourth/tenth ci.lituries rather than

thmad himself. The creeds were apparently linked to him at a later date, probably to

consolidate his position as the seminal authority for Hanbali doctrine. Another work,

al-

Radd

-

Jahmtyya

wa-I-Zanadiqa

('Refutation of the Jahinis and the Irreligious'), may

go back to Alamad in earlier forms. However, the final edition (trans. in Seale19,4:9,

-

u5) includes substantial rational argument against non-traditionalist doctrines, and it

was probably written in the fifth/eleventh century to rally Ahmad to the side of Hanbalis

coking to justify rational argument in theology (al-Sarhan

20 11:

29

54).


3/13

628

CVER

Iv Iiin

a.4s may

still be It

Prior to

be

:lil:1

'E

,

oiarfli of the

led t

pia

kiftd:: ?: .

/^r.^

Uthniu

liovs

.

evor, tipHti

i ich then

;

in ills: ...a:1y

..'iluf

,;. -irp;

:::111.iries, but It:,

eschide,

;:iMaiph

radier than the fourth (al-Sarhan

20i :

;-

Ii

:s also likely that Ahmad, like other traditionalists of his day, had no qualms about

speaking of God in creaturely or corporeal terms, so long as there were Qur'an or

iexts in support. He affirmed for example that the

'God created Adam in

his form (.514ra)' meant that God created Adam in God's form, which implied that God

himself had a form or shape like that of Adam. To

Kalarn

theologians this constituted

the grave error of assimilating God to creatures

(tashbih,

also called 'anthropomor-

phism' in much scholarship). Taking their cue from 'There is nothing like [God], and.

He is iil l-Hearing and all-Seeing' (Q 42;

later Hanbalis such as al-Barbahari (d. 329/

941) sought to avoid the charge of assimiliationism by denying any likeness between

God's attributes and those of creatures while yet affirming that God indeed had the

attributes mentioned in revelation. This 'noninterventionist' (Swartz 202) or `noncog-

nitive' (Shihadeh 2006) approach refused to inquire into the modality

(kayj) of God's

attributesa position known as

balkafa

or

kayf

('without how')or to inter-

pret the meaning of the attributes in any way. 'ale texts should be passed over with-

out comment (imrar). Some scholars have identified this kind of non-interventionism

:n Alamad b. H anbal as well (e.g. Abrahamov .1995: 366 -7). . lowever, there is no evi-

dence that Ahmad affirmed the

balkafa

doctrine explicitly (Williams

2002;

see also

Melchert 2o11).

Questions of

tashbih

and the status of

Kalam

theology were at the centre of the

Inquisition

(millria)

initiated by the 'Abbasid caliph al-Ma'ninn in 218/833 and famously

resisted by Ahmad

It has been often said that al-Ma'rnrin imposed the created

Qur'an on judges and leading religious scholars to support Mu`tazili

&dam.

However,

the Nilu'tazilis were not the only or even the main beneficiaries of the Inquisition.

doctrine of the created Qur'an was also known among followers of Alai, Hanifa

going back to the master himself, and the Inquisition sought primarily to support the

Hanafis, as well as other rationalist and semi-rationalist currents, against an increas-

ingly assertive traditionalism. In the face of al-Ma'mun's Inquisition, Ahmad b. Hanbal

would affirm only that the Qur'an was the word of God. No Queanic verse or

l'aadTtli

report stated explicitly that the Qur'an was created

(makhlaq),

and Alamad discounted

on principle the Kalam

reasoning supplied for the doctrine. Ahmad was subjected to

imprisonment and flogging under al-Ma'intan's successor al-Nlu`tasim, but the later

caliph al-Mutawakkil brought the Inquisition to a gradual halt from 233/847 to 237/852.

In a letter to al-Mutawa.kkil, Ahmad did go a bit beyond the witness of the texts to affirm

that the Qur'an was also 'uncreated

(ghayr makhlaq),

and he added that anyone who

efosed to affirm this was an unbeliever. 'The failure of the Inquisition marked a major

yi:sk

ion

.trid he c,iliphate'..; gamkt For ..

.ner;ted froin I he Inquisition

hero of the traditionalist ,.-

:herr

[4;H:.; 196o

6; Madelting 1974; 897).

ho aid . . . .as

:

.

or his con:plc:L. sli.;intett..

,,t

po :tis...ii

; (t' lived a quiet

md he Ulle,

,

icted

(siliog autho:ities

ilitie .i,;

ring .snd

14,iiih4lis were mii6: niore ,Lstiv

71,1

-r

cons: i, ined

powet

!A

eai2,11..j:::.;

;11t r ,

riii

.

. . .C;AUCY

,

't1

,,

11:1. I

I R :

.oust

famous figure in I lie first half of the ioirth/tenth v was

lien/

al-Barbahari, author of a comprehensive crec. al statement

Sharh, al-

,,uitna

(in ibn Abi Yala 1952: ii. 18-45). He was implicated in Han.bali attacks on Shafil

Jurists and purveyors of vice and innovation

(bid`a),

and he often went into hiding to

escape the authorities. Al- Barbahari may have been involved in riots that began in 317/

919 over interpretation of the divine address to the Prophet Muhammad 'Perhaps your

Lord will raise you up to a praiseworthy station' (Q 17: 79). Al-Barbahari understood this

that God would seat Muhammad on the 'Throne beside Himself whereas semi-

r ionalists of the timeincluding followers of the renowned Qur'an commentator al-

Tabari (d. o/923)preferred to interpret this metaphorically as Muhammad's right

to intcrcede for grave sinners (Melchert 2012). With the Bityid takeover of Baghdad in

334/945, 1:1:inbali animosities turned against the Shils as well, and Hanbalis engaged

in numerous attacks on Shi r

is, Ka/cirn

theologians, and others well into the seventh/

thirteenth century. M. Cook attributes this Hanball social power to their great num-

s and a weakened state. Additionally, with the rise of the Bilyids and then later the

Sal juq amquest of Baghdad in 447/1055, the H, anbalis and the 'Abbasid caliphs found

common cause in undermining those foreign rulers (Sabah 1981:

101-20;

Cook 2000:

115-28).

A key fourth/tenth-century author on H.anbali theological doctrine beyond al-

Barbahari was Ibn Batta (d. 387/997). lbn Balla composed

al-lbana al-kubra,

a large col-

lection of traditions on belief, the Qur'an, God's predetermination, and other doctrinal

matters. He also wrote

al-lbana al-ughra,

a shorter creedal text that is also amply sup-

plied with supporting traditions (ed. and trans. in Laoust 1958). A brief survey of this

treatise will serve to summarize the key points of early Hanbali doctrine.

I bn Balla begins

al-lbana al-sughra

with a long exhortation to adhere to the comrnu-

nizy

(jam4 'a)

and the Sunna of the Prophet and to avoid division and innovation. Then,

he mentions belief

(itncin),

which is affirming what God says, cor:imands, and prohibits

and putting this into practice. Unlike the Murji'is for whom beiIef depends on confes-

sion alone, belief can increase or decrease according to one's deet

.

s. 'It God wills' should

be added when affirming that one is a believer, not out of doubt t.ver one's religious sta-

tus as a believer, hut because the future is unknown, Ibn Batta affirms that the Qur'an is

the Word of God, and he deems it uncreated no matter where it is found, even written

on the chalkboards of children. Not one letter is created, and wh.ever deems otherwise

is an unbeliever worthy of death. God's attributes mentioned in

,

cycaled texts must be

affirmed. Among other things, God is living, speaking, powerful, wiseind knowing. He

LiO/cs Ste and death, and He speaks and laughs. Believers will also see Cod on the Day


4/13

630 ION HOOVER

of -at rrection. Ibn Batla does not mention

balkafa with this list

attributes, but he

it later when affirming God's descent each night to the loweA heaven. This,

s.

.acmcd wi,

hout .1:41(ii;g

Low (.'01;1)

tiitila). In opposition to

.11'd

1

,

,:tazi17. doctrine iliat lunuans

their own at is.

tta affirm,.

i)();11:401)j and

a c e - . . i i

.

dinig to thc

le pes

On

to affirm numerous cli...rnetits of

di

,

: toinb, the weighing o ftlectls

ales ai t he

i t . . C S 4 1 1 ' 1 ' , 2 1 : !

intercession for believers, and so on. The latter part of the treatise extols the virtues of

the prophets and the Prophet Mubainmad's Companionsespecially Abu Bakr, Ùmar,

Ùthman, and 'Ali, in that order to oppose the Shils--and treats several matters of prac-

tice. Overall,

al-lbana al-sughra

provides very little explanation or rational argument. It

is largely a series of affirmations supported with Qur'anic verses and

hadith

reports.

III HANBALi THEOLOGY FROM THE

ELEVENTH CENTURY TO THE THIRTEENTH

Research on Hanbali theology in the fifth/eleventh to seventh/thirteenth centu-

ries remains spotty, but it is readily apparent that this period marks a new departure

as some of the leading Hanbali scholars of the time adopted

Kalam

views and argu-

mentation. The earlier Hanbali Abu 1-I-Jusayn al-Munadi (d. 335/947) had advocated

metaphorical interpretation

(ta 'wil)

of God's attributes, and the lost

Sharh ow al-din

of Ibn Hamid may have been a Ka/am-style work (Swartz.

2002:

61, 94). But it is from

Ibn Harnid's student Abu Yala Ibn al-Parra' (d. 458/1066), the most prominent Hanbali

of his time, that we have our first extant Hanbali

Kalam

manual,

al-Mu`tamad uszal

al-din,

a summary of a larger lost work by the same title. Typical of

Kalam manuals,

al-Mu`tamad

first outlines the foundations of knowledge and explains that the initial

human obligation is reasoning

(nazar)

to knowledge of God. The book then outlines

the basics of

Kellam

atomism, proves the existence of God from the origination of the

world, arid treats, among other things, God's attributes, God's creation of the world and

human acts, prophecy, eschatology, belief, and the Imamate. Abu Yala adopts Ash'arile

positions on a number of issues in

al-Mu tamad.

For example, he bases the obligation

to nazar on revelation as do the Ash'arites, not reason as held by the MuTazilis, and he

employs the Ashàrite notion of acquisition

(kasb)

to give humans responsibility for the

acts that God creates in them (Gimaret

1977:161-5).

Abu Y)la also wrote two other theo-

logical works that are extant:

Ibtal

i-akhbar al-sifat

and

Kitcib al-Irnan,

The

Kitab al-Iman,

also known as

Masa 51 al-iman,

is a detailed treatment of belief and the

status of believers and bad sinners.

(bpi al-ta'wilat

is a lengthy work on the interpreta-

tion of God's corporeal qualities.

Abu Ya`la's approach to God's corporeal qualifications seeks to mediate between

Kalam

rationalism and Hanbali traditionalism. In

al-Nfu'iamad,

he joins the

Kolan:

theologians in arguing that God cannot have a body ("ism). I

hu/

,x&

corporeal qualifications such as eyes, hands, face, and

mean that

body ,

,

art:;. Yet, .Abil Yala also rejt..cts metaphorical interpihmi ion ("a 'le

F T ) i , 1

tjUaiiii: iOntiind

he in aintain.s that i hey are simply attributi .

some

(fihat.:1

Jud .4herm; added (zii 'itl) to God's essence (Abti

- ; - () ) . al:;;)

i

n AO

-fa .teilat.

For example, he affirms that

I

-Ik

and ula

lie seen, as stated in the kifailith. ins

per:,

-

::thir),

Abu Yala explains, but without interpreting it furtlicr ic imply

opens

Iiia mouth or that He has body parts such as molars or an uvula, and without interpret-

ing it metaphorically to mean God's grace and generosity. God's laughing is an attribute

(sifa),

but its meaning

(ma`na)

is not understood (Holtzman 2010: 186-7). Despite Abu

Yalia's attempt to avoid corporealism

(tajsim)

on the one hand and

ta'wil

on the other, he

and his teacher Ibn Haruki later came under sharp attack from fellow Hanbali scholar

Ibn al-Jawzi for crass literalism and corporealism.

Aba YaTa's foremost student was Ibn 'Aqil. (d. 513/1119), a precocious reader of

Kalam

alongside his Hanbali legal studies. With the death of his patron in

460/1067-8, Ibn 'Aqil suffered under the intrigues of rival Hanbali jurist Sharif

TaTar (d. 470/1077) and was eventually forced to retract his Mu'tazili writings in 1072,

as well as his sympathies for the Sufi martyr al-Hallaj (d. 309/922). G. Makdisi ties Ibn

'Aqil's retraction to the 'Abbasid Caliph al-Qadir's (d. 422/1031) earlier promulgation of

a traditionalist Hanbali creed as official doctrine of the caliphate and interprets it as the

culmination of traditionalist ascendancy in Baghdad: [The retraction] represents the

triumph of the Traditionalist movement supported by the caliph lie, against Rationalist

MuTazilism, on the decline, and a militant Rationalist Ash'arism, on the ascendant'

thanks to support from the Saljuqs (Makdisi 1997: 14; also Mikdisi 1963). As Makdisi

indicates, the traditionalist battle with

Kalam

was not done, ant Ashàrism continued

to rival Hanbalism for centuries to come. Ibn 'Aqil's major work ill theology

al-Irshadfi

arid al-din

is not extant. Otherwise, i t appears that Ibn À.q11 , post- retraction, was mod-

erately rationalist within a traditional Hanbali doctrinal .fratrework and advocated a

limited use of ta 'wil (Makdisi1997),

Mention of Ib.n 'Aqil's interest in al-I

-

Jallaj raises the question of Hanbali-Sufi rela-

tions, especially as Hanbalis have often been seen to be opponents of Sufism. This

reputation derives from the later Hanbali polemic of Ibn al--Jawzi and Ibn Taymiyya

against innovated practices and doctrines linked to Sufism, although not against

its ideal of a spiritual path to God. Han.balis and Sufis share common origins in tra-

ditionalist currents of renunciant piety, and, like other traditionalists, early Sufis stud-

ied

1 1

adith

and rejected Kalam.

As the legal schools formed from the late third/ninth

century onward, Sufis affiliated largely with semi-rationalist schools such as the Shafil

,Ind the Maliki. However, Sufi relations with the traditionalist IJanbalis, were generally

good. Traditionalist Sufi writers such as Abil Nu'aym al-Isfahani (d. 430/1038) included

klarnad b. Hanbal among the pious saints

(aw/iyal

of past generations, and some

itotable Sufis were Hanbalis including 1bn 'Ata' (d. 309/921-2 or 31.1/923-4), who was

for defending al-Hallaj, 'Abd Allah al-Ansari (d. 481/1o/t9

ind the eponym of


5/13

632 JON HOOVER

the

Sufi or. k.hd

,,,

1 al-

'

al are borli

, i i . .iii:jeance for Y

' halt

Al Ati-zi'iri bati led

As1J'arit .

il , e0logans 1:1 ...horas-tii, Ind out o:

A

m,: hi

s io

al

les a ti.i1J aild well cr,,J,ani,

, ( 1 . . , : ' . 1 W ; 1 1 : . : 1 1 E o f tr a -

fli1:0 1,11

. !

rine ii

trios

J. 1 -

I,

'

Tii, most

,

;ophisticat-il Jorih.Jli

.1.1i:r

(d.

527/1[12), author of

al-laah ji

,

inanual similar in length and stritclure to Abil

Mu'tamad,

and it reats God's

corpt weal qualifications in much the same way, To take God's eyes, for exailiple, Ibn al-

Zaghtini denies that God's eye consists of a fleshly eyeballGod's eye is not an origi-

nated body. Yet, he also disallows interpreting God's eye metaphorically along

Kalatii

lines as God's 'protection'. Rather, God's eye is an attribute to be taken literally without

assimi.lationism or modality (tbn al-Zaghimi 2003: 291-4). With his, tbn al-Zaghimi

sought to find his way between corporealism and

ta'wil,

but it failed to please his fore-

most student Ibn al-Jaw.zi.

Ibn al-Jawzi W. 597/1201) was the leading Hanbali scholar and preacher of h.is day. He

initially opposed the Ashàrites and Mu tazilis, partly because they were aligned with the

Saljuq sultans, but, as Saljuq power waned and the 'Abbasid caliphate revived, he took

a more relaxed attitude toward

Kalam

and eventually drew on Kalcim argumentation

to produce his fullest theological work,

Kitab

Akhbdr

al-sijat,

in the late 1.18os or early

1190s. This book contains a stinging condemnation of assimilationism and corporealisto

within the Hanbali school, and it probably

contributed to his banishment to Wasit

590/1194 (Swartz 2002:

33

45).

Ibn

al,

wrote a similar but shorter work called

the

Daf shubah al-tashbih

(trans. 'Ali 2oo6), oh) known as

al-Baz

achl,,,b.

The targets of ibn al-Jaw/1'3

Akithar

re three of the mos prominent

Hanbalis of the preceding two oracles-1bn Hamid, Abu Ya

lla, and Ibn

whom he accuses of interpretirg (1od's corporeal qualifications literally and disallow-

ing metaphorical interpretation. In a strongly rationalist tone, Ibn al-Jawzi explains that

reason apart from revelation knows God's existence, God's unity, God's necessary attrib-

utes, the originated quality of the world, and prophecy. Reason also knows that God is

not a body; otherwise He would be subject to temporality. Thus God cannot be said tu

have corporeal attributes in any literal sense.

Then, in

Kitab Akhbar

bn al-Jawzi sets forth two approaches to God's corpo-

real qualifications: non-interventionism for the masses and metaphorical interpretation

(ta'wil) for the scholars. The error of the

Kalam theologians is to subject the public to

their dialectic because it only sows doubt and spreads heresy, Rather, God has spoken

to the masses in language that they can undiTstand and readily accept, and, in public.

God's corporeal qualifications such as His hands and eyes should be read in the texts and

passed over as they are without comment (am:4r). Taking aim at Alla Ya`la,

Jawzf

declares that nothing further should be said about what kind of attributes these qualifi

cations might be fri.g. essential (dhati)

or additional (za'id)

to the essence) or about their

literal meaning. However, among the scholars, Ibn al-jawzi explains, God's corporeal

clualifications should he i-einierp,-,ocd inetaphorically

.k

^.'

ri.as(

.n, that is, to deny that

h,a; a body. The bulk if

.;i0t i s 1 1 1 , . . 1

-

1

ond reinterprinion orJ

and I

tex is po ,

-ems.1pu

elitimr that

ta 'w1; i.s only for be schola,

- -; ,

e

iy

Ibn al 1^,,

,-J.Ji i.lispla):; cot

ism la hi:. book, and ins objective

. , _P Lt ati i l of t il c

! , C 1 , 1:01 it1

i.yes

scholars. tbn al-Jawzi claims ijie highly regarded .'d:Iroad b. 1,-1Jal:

/cil for the

ontionism that he advocates for the masses, and he rejects layr T

.

1

'i,ihall attenipii. at

literality as deviant corporealisrn (Swartz

2002: 46-64,

27-138).

lbn al-Jawzi's polemic did not escape Hanbali criticism, Abu i-ijadl al-Ahhi (d. 634/

1236) wrote a diatribe that may have helped get the senior Haaliali scholar exiled to

Wasit. Al-Althi takes Ibn al-Jawzi to task for his elitist advocacy

'w.

/

and calls him to

repentance. There is, however, no evidence that Ibn al-Jawzi ever recanted (Swartz

2002:

282-97).

Later on, sometime after 6o3/12.06, the Syrian Hanbali jurist .1bn Q.uclama (d.

620/1223) wrote his

Tahrtrn al-nazar ji kutub ahl al-kalarn

in which he discusses the

retraction of Ibn Àqil at length. No mention is made here of Ibn al-Jawzi, but it seems

likely that Ibn Quelama had him and his admirers in mind (Swartz 2002: 42,62),

Ibn Qudarna's Tahrirn al-nazar

provides a lengthy refutation

t

nd 11 repeat-

edly sets out the traditionalist

H

anbali position on God's attrilaa tes. ..iting the aut hor-

ny of Ahmad b. Hanbal, Ibn Qudama explains that corporeal pici ions of God in the

Qur'an and the

Hadith

must be accepted as true without saying anything more or less.

God is described as He has described Himself, and the texts are passed over as they

are without comment (imrar)

and without inquiring into modality (./..,.irj) or meaning

(ma `na

). Ib.n Qudama also claims that whatever God's attribute

.;

miglit mean is of no

practical import, and believing in them in ignorance is the correct path. If one wants to

inquire into something, Ibn Qudama argues, one should inquire into jurisprudence, not

the attributes of God (Makdisi 1962).

Hanbalism weakened in Baghdad after Ibn al-Jawzi, and the Mongol destruction of

the city in 1258 dealt the

H

anbalis a further setback. Damascus took over as the intellec-

tual centre of Hanbalism with Ibn Qudama being one of its great early figures. Damascus

was'dominated by S.hafi'is, and

H

anbalis could not exercise the same so(

ial and political

power that they had enjoyed in Baghdad. Nonetheless, the Damas,:enc anbalis thrived

and eventually produced the most creative theologian in the Hari

mil tradition and one

of the greatest minds in medieval Islam: Ibn Taymiyya.

IV IBN TAYMIYYA

11 ,

n Taymiyya (d. 728/1.328) is at times portrayed as anti-rationolisi due to

polemic

against the main claimants to reason in his day: Ashàrite and Mil ta,li

th.a6-

-

igy,

Aristotelian logic, and the Aristotelian-Neoplatonist

jalsiiiir

ho . '11na.

iwever,


6/13

W 3 4

JON HOOVER

(

635

it has keen .:),ide clear that rbni Tay)nivya did

not reic,

r reason as

hut argued for its

:

,

),

i,,

...co:r.i....oparcat that his

% A ! 3 S 1 1

, 1.

of 1).101.1/.11

.

d piJet:

It was

. cad voo kal in .t intid

;le rcot ,:nstrual ot God

piAatly i:na!

ve and

Ira

nil In

( lo,)vcr

:4: :to tr)a 1g ott both

f:lisaftr and giv

;:tinc0 old

01.1(:11),

';';; Oka,

:). y ) it); rt;iiiiccd

co, o o itt)prei_c.detticd in iltc

school

ar). not found et

,where in

(el Omani zoio; Hoover zo..., Ozervarli

201o).

The theological world in which Ibn Taymiyya worked was permeated with philos-

ophized Ash`arite

.Kalcim,

especially that of Fa.khr al-Din al-Rad (d. 606/1209). Ibn

Taymiyya read al-Razi with his students, and he wrote extensively against al-Razi's

ideas. His major works

Dayan talbis al-jahrniyya

and Dar' ta

amid al-rag/ w^-/-nag/

both respond directly to al-Razi's thought. The former work refutes al-Razi's book

Asas

al-tacidis

on the metaphorical interpretation of God's corporeal attributes. The latter

work

Dar' ta`cirud

confutes the 'Rule of Metaphorical Interpretation'

*Man al-ta'wd)

espoused by al-Ghazali and al-Razi, which gives reason precedence over the literal

meaning of revelation when the two contradict. Although Mu`tazili

Kalam

had died out

in Sunni Islam by the eighth/fburteenth century, it lived on in Imami Shil theology, and

ibn Taymiyya's large refutation of Shfism

Minhaj al-sunna al-nabawiyya

directly rebuts

Mu'tazili notions of divine justice.

In addition to the tomes just mentioned, ibn Taymiyya wrote several other large

works, including major refutations of Christianity and Aristotelian logic, and important

treatises on S ufism, political theory, and prophecy. W hile a few of Ibn Ta ymiyya's works

may be dated with precision, many cannot, and change or development in his thinking

is often difficult to establish. However, his thought is remarkably consistent and coher-

ent, and it is thus with some confidence that we may speak of a characteristic Taymiyyan

theology that retained its essential contours throughout the course of his scholarly life.

Except where indicated otherwise, the following overview of Ibn Taymiyya's theology is

based on my own writings (Hoover zoo4; 2007; zoioa; see also Laoust 1939; Bell 1979).

As Ibn Taymiyya saw it, the fundamental problem of his time was that God was no

longer worshipped and spoken of correctly. A great many Muslims had strayed from

true theological doctrine and proper religious practice and fallen into the errors of

philosophers and

Ka/um

theologians, as well as Shils, Sufis, Christians, and others.

The solution was to return Islam to its sources, the Qur'an, the

8adith,

and the doc-

trine and practice of the Salaf, the first two or three generations following the Prophet

Mubammad, before the religion was corrupted by error and sectarian division. In Ibn

Taymiyya's view, the accumulated judgements and the consensus of later scholars were

subject to error, and they had to be measured against the doctrine of the Salaf.

At the core of Ibn Taymiyya's polemic against

.Kalam

and f alsafa

is the subordina-

tion of metaphysics to ethics and the theoretical to the practical.

Kalam

and falsafi

reverse the order. Both disciplines reason from the nature of reality to thc existence of

God. God's unity, and God's attributes and eventually to prophecy and the practical

,: i i ,h,gations that follow on from that. For ibn Taym iyya, th apf)::

o

rLice wor-

:)ip

a

God at the fore Tal:ing his cue from the rioter of

hons

'ton

w v c -

.

,-,

rship; You alone we

1 1 K

':or help' (Q 1: 5), Ibn Tayrniyytt

:hat

k

of worship. praist , And love is prior :) (Iotrs exclitstv:: creation of tIte wot

;:id provision of htlp fi

H is servants. (,: t

k the sole

:he

tor

L . ) ) ) ,,ro ya this

inetapItyslcal

fi .Ifows on from :it ,:

ft):::idational

iod's ore-eminent worthiness ')1 of)ciiience and pro:Ne. to tr,..:os

P:

woryhip God alone because of who Cod is in Himself and ;iot simply because /(x

alone creates and sustains. Here is how Ibn Taymiyya distinguishes

Kahim

from his own

method, which he takes to be that of the Qur'an;

The distinction between the Quednic and the

kalam

theological methods is that God

commands worship of Him, a worship which is the perfection of the soul, i ts pros-

perity, and its ultimate goa l. He did not limit it to mere affirmation of H im, as is the

purpose of the kalam

method. The Q ur'an relates knowledge of H im and service to

Him. It thus combines the two human faculties of knowledge and practice; or sensa-

tion and motion; or perceptive v olition and operation; or verb:El and practical. As

God says, 'W orship your Lord: Worship necessarily entails knowledge of H im, hav-

ing penitence and humility before Him, and need of H im. This is the goal. T he

ktficirn

method secures only the benefit of affirmatio.n and admission"(

xists:nce.

(Quoted in Ozervarli zoio: 89)

ti:inTaymiyya also s peaks of the priority of worship and ethics over met aphysics in theo-

:rigical terms that later became widespread among Wa.hhabis and modern Salafis. He

istinguishes two rawhids, or two ways of confessing God's unity. Ibn faymiyya's first

hriv/ifd is that of God's divinity

(ulribiyya). Al-tawhid al-ulahiyya

signifies God's sole

.

,orthiness to be a god, that is, God's sole right to be an object of worship

(Ybada). Al-

:awhid al - uhThlyya

is exclusive worship of God that refuses to give devotion and love to

1nything or anyone else. Then flowing out from this is the second

tawhid,

the

tawhid

of

lordship

(rubUbiyya).

God's lordship refers to His creative 'ower, and

al-tawhid

(d-rubUbiyya

means confessing that God is the only source of .1teL aeings. For Ibn

,

-

'aymiyya

al-tawhid al-ulithiyya

is logically prior to

al-tawhid -1-rububiyya:

God in

limself in His pre-eminent worthiness of love and worship comes first.

Ibn Taym iyya's practical turn effectively transforms theology into an aspect of M uslim

jurisprudence. He rejects the commonplace medieval distinction between the princi-

ples

(ustii)

of religion and the branches

(furin,

in which the principles treat theologi-

cal doctrines like God's existence and attributes from a theoretical perspective and the

branches discuss religious obligations such as prayer and fasting from a practica), legal

vantage point. Rather, for Ibn Taymiyya, the principles treat those matters of greatest

importance in both theological doctrine and religious practice, and the branches deal

with lesser matters of detail. Moreover, theological beliefs and r.ligious Trochees are

both practical matters concerned with correct worship of God, iind theology is prirnar-

ily about getting the language of praise and worship right, not establishing the existence

of God.


7/13

636

, va .6 hoick

i:e for riiason and its

.:3[,:v:Ity ,

I;

and IL view

raason , 10 i.i

y opt:Ini511

,

. I .e

.:/m, .

rrc)

e

hat .:virii

it mit as it

re.tks

. 1 1 1

';,j-b. La

::10t.

that it !

hat

nendit

l

ove et

,'i Sp, lug; in i' .: : istoteiati terms,

l ,:

iiyya

frames the natur,d constitution as an innate potency toward the religion of

t Lim at birth that is actualized as the human being develops; the role ot prophecy and

revelation is then to perfect the natural constitutfit; and help it overcome corruption.

For Ibn Tayrniyya, reason and the natural constitution on the one hand and revelation

on the other do not contradict. They both come from the same source, and they provide

much the same information and argument. Rational minds and natural constitutions

can know the existence of God and the proper human end apart from roelation, but

when they encounter revelation they immediately recognize it as true and congruent

with what they already know. .t .bn Taymiyya observes that

Ka/am

theologians and phi-

losophers confine revelation to information that cannot be attained by reason, and he

...ounters that revelation includes not merely information but also rational argument.

1-1f.velation contains the correct proofs of reaso n, and reason recognizes the truth of rev-

elation. In making the claim that revelation and reason agree, fbn Taymiyya is trying to

take the rational high ground away fromfiilsafa and

Kalam,

which he believes are based

on faulty foundations and lead to misguided conclusions.

case in point is the

Kalam

proof for God's existence. 'The

Ka lam

proof in simplified

form assumes that the world is made up of indivisible atoms and the accidents that sub-

sist in them. Accidents are temporally originating (hadith), andthis is keyanything

in which something temporally originating subsiststhe atommust also be tempo

rally originating. Seeing that all atoms are temporally originating, and in view of the

Kalam

conviction that an infinite regress of temporally originating events is impossible,

the world as a whole must have been originated in time. Having proved that the world

had a beginning, the

Ka/4m

argument concludes that it required a Maker who was not

originated but eternal.

fbn Taymiyya often dismisses this proof and its talk of atoms and accidents as unnes -

essarily complex. Yet, apart from a bit of complexity, it can be difficult to see why he

would find it so problematic. However, the proof is based on two postulates that are

incompatible with Ibn Taymiyya's theological vision: the impossibility of an infinite

:egress and the notion that something in which temporally originating events subsist

is itself tinnporally originating. As will become apparent, Ibn Taymiyya has no objec-

tion to an infinite regress. His iiwn view of God as perpetually creative from eternity

entails an infinite regress of created things. Additionally, his temporally dynamic view

of

t

iod implies that originating events subsist in God's very essence. Ibn Tayrni) ya can-

not accept the

Kalam

postulate that originating events render their host

substrate tem-

porally originating because he himself posits temporality in the essence of God. In his

ve

pOt1: tti S

Ind

ead to

,

0 : 1 1

:us

own

leCortlW ith both revelatio

n :

nil r,:ason,

'

ii,lis attributes and

which lie a isciis,e,

f it(

i

, d God's attribu:ii:s),

n ic: t1,61. or :Ion-, .?t

nttiviNtn, but

;; f.

ma

i ..,:cr 6n. lint TAy

rtityya's

i.eqn

:he i:

anies and :ntri6u:es

ft .

ravoa.

without, on

use hand, inquiring into t heir 'nodality

c.,sinulating

fraslittili) or likening

tamtial)

them to the attributes and names of creiullyzs, or, on the

other hand, stripping them away

tartf/)

from God with metaphorical interpretation.

iad is affirmed as all-Hearing, all-Seeing, but there is nevertheless nothing like Him (Q

az:

'This applies equally to all qualifications given in the Qur'an. and the

Ijadith,

from

iod's 'willing' to God's 'laughter' and God's `sitting' on the Throne. Ibn Taymiyya rejects

h:a Kahim practice of reinterpretation (ta 'w11 ) and dismisses the distinct ion between the

7,ihir)

and the metaphorical

majaz)

upon which it is bas:,:d, "ro tJ

c ine of ibn

t'ilyntiyya's examples, Ash`arite

Kalam

theologians reinterpret t ind's

metaphori-

: ally as God's 'will' on the grounds that speaking of God's love literally would assimi-

late Him to creaturely qualities; God cannot be ascribed with crtiatu rely passions like

lave. Ibn Taymiyya retorts that this reinterpretation in fact involves both likening and

tripping

away. First , the

Kalcim

theologians imagine the love ascribed to God to be like

iuman love in a literal sense and thereby conclude that 'love

In ry

be ascribed to

tTh id. Then, to free God of the untoward passions of human love, :hey

strip God

of His

' :i.: by

calling

it instead `will: The only reaso nable course, acco rding

to liin

Taymiyya, is

::1:iffirin all of God's names and attributes equally and without modality. The only simi-

arity between the names and attributes of God and the names :ind

ributes of crea-

tures are the very names.

The non-interventionism of a If anbali like Ibn Qudama stopped at

point and for-

: iade full ier inquiry into the nieimings of God's attributes because they were of no prac-

ical consequence. God's names and attributes must be passed of er without inquiring

i

, ito their meaning

imrar).

Ibn Taymiyya, on the contrary, believes that the meanings

matter, and this propels him on to a wide-ranging project of theological hermeneu-

:ic:i. He discards the

Kalam

device of Will/ and places in its stead a project of linguistic

' ,,i;tiiry

(*sir)

that seeks to interpret God's attributes and names

in

ways that he deems

nraiseworthy. While humans may know nothing about God's names and attributes

'xcept the names, these names still evoke meaning in the human mind, and this mean-

ing impacts human response to God for good or ill, depending on the character of the

portrayal. For Ibn Taym iyya it is thus imperative to give sense to G od's names and attrib-

,tes that will evoke love and praise for God and ward off scepticism and disdain. This is

(lie aim of Ibn Taymiyya's whole theological endeavour, and his foremost difficulty with

cival theological visions is that they fail to give G od sufficient praise.

An instructive example

of how this works is Ihn. Taymiyya's contrast of . ill's own notion

t God's justice

(WI)

with that of the Ash.'arites and the Mn'tazilis. In

i he

.

voluntarisin

fthe Ash`arites, God's justice consists in whatever God wills, with :out i:onsideration of


8/13

638 JON HOOVER

cause or wise purpose, God is just to punish hurrhios for the b-

thaa He creates in

them, and he would even

lo pu

wu6c. ,. 1 1 F ' ,.ymiyya rejects

a

as c,';): icio

,

ts and uipa,o i-tily ,a.

.

trt, argue

oi fact be uujest iod p.:11sti bad

tilt

;1

,,au.aa

. i

nki

C..1; ;

)1M); ,1t:

rnardfor

:iced:, and pimisitinent

ha

d

Taymiyya

ta:/iii

tirv,

;ot.a.:t1:d

.

: ins, ice

.1 plurality of creators

universe--both G. id .uid humansand because it makes

God look .1;)olish. God ill . his foreknowledge knows that humans will commit evil deeds

with the creative pow er that He gives them, and yet H e stupidly gives it to them anyway.

'this, Ibn

. faymiy-

ya remarks, is like one person giving another a sword to fight unbeliev-

ers when he already knows that the other person will use it to kill a prophet. In sum,

Ibn Taymiyya castigates both the Mu`tazilis and the Ashàrites for depicting God in an

unworthy manner. While God cannot be subjected to human moral standards because

He is wholly unlike creatures, He must nonetheless be spoken of with the highest praise.

For Ibn T aymiyya, this means that God's justice consists in `putting things in their places'

in accord with His wise purpose

(hikma),

and, in one o f his late texts, he affirms with Ibn

Sina and al-Ghazali that God has created the best possible world.

Ibn Taymiyya also sets forth a mechanism for deriving God's names and attributes

rationally. W hile he disallows use o f the juristic analogy

(qiyas) and the categorical syllo-

gism in theology because they bring God and creatures into direct comparison, he does

permit their use in an afirtiori argument

(qiyas af-aw/a).

In accord with the Queanic

assertion that God is ascribed with the 'highest similitude'

(al-mathal

a ) (Q 16: 6o ) ,

Ibn Taym iyya claims that God is all the worthier (awla) of perfections found in creatures

than are the creatures themselves because He is their cause and source. Thus, using a

fortiori

reasoning, God is all the worthier of being ascribed with perfections found in

creatures such as power, l ife, sight, and speech. Similarly, G od is all the wo rthier of being

disassociated from anything considered imperfect in creatures, and the pinnacle of per-

fection in God is for His attributes to be unlike those of creatures entirely. Ibn Taymiyya

sums it up thus: [God] is qualified by every attribute of perfection such that no one

bears any likeness to Him in it ' (quoted in H oov er 2007: 65). On this basis Ibn Taym iyya

ascribes to God a wide range of attributes that he deems perfections in humans includ-

ing laughter, joy, and mo vement. T hese attributes are of co urse attested in revealed texts,

but Ibn Taymiyya maintains that they are apparent from reason as well. Moreover, God

must be ascribed with such attributes of perfection. Otherwise, He will be regarded as

imperfect and unworthy of worship.

Ibn Tayrniyya's view of what constitutes God's essential perfectionperpetual, tem-

poral, and purposeful activitysets him apart from practically the entire preceding

Islamic tradition. Elements of his formulation are found in Karrami theology, Fakhr

al-Din al-Razi, and the philosopher Aba 1-Barak8t al-Baghdadi (d. 56o/1165), but tbn

'Fayniiyya surpasses all of these in developing a consistently dynamic understanding of

God. According to Ibn Taymiyya, God has been acting, creating, and speaking by His

will and power for wise purposes from eternity (min al-azal).

God's acts subsist in His

very essence, and

in tc mporal succession. He -..r.:tvs

;

be quai

l -

y )

acts subs:sting in Him on.e after another' (t:10'

,

'

'd

Y;). ihn

a rarely uscs lie term iemporaily

qualify ;od's acts, 'T.-eteri io:; to t r . '

i ,

ISIC.td of God's

, ! .

language Joser to tic

does i;:dicat(.

,

..lnporality, and he takes it upon

t'; elute the

'Its

`-itbmstiag i it (

In maintaining that Cod bas been creating from eternity, Ib ri Tay

I V

;;

Alt a

middle position between

thefaisafa

of Ibn Sind on the one hand ..nd

on the other.

Ibn Taymiyya agrees with

the Jalsafa

tradition that God's perfection entails eternal pro-

ductivity. To posit a starting point in God's creative action, as does

Kaiam,

implies that

God was imperfect prior to beginning to create and subject to change when He switched

from not creating to creating. Moreover, an efficient cause or preponderator

(murallih)

was needed to tip the balance in favour of G od beginning His creative :L.' ivity, Resisting

this argument, Ashàrite

Kalam

held that it was in the very nature 4 (;l cfs eternal will

to preponderate or cause creation to begin at a certain point; no additional cause need

be posited. tbn Tayrniyya rejects this. Nothing can arise without a prior cause. Ibn Sina

concluded from these considerations that God's eternal productivity entailed the ema-

nation of an eternal world. Ibn Taymiyya affirms similarly that God's perpetual creativ-

ity entails that there have always been created things of one sort or another, However,

he has no patience for Ibn Sina's emanation scheme and its hierarchy of eternal celestial

spheres. In agreement now with the

Ka/am

tradition, he denies that any created thing

can be eternal. Rather, created things by definition come into -..xistence in time after

they were not. To make sense of his position, Ibn Taymiyya (list itici

,

ishes between the

genus

(jins)

of created things on the one hand and individual

tlings on the other.

The genus is eternalthere have always been created things of nie sort or another

but each individual created thing originates in time. Additionally, God does not create

new things out of nothing but out of prior created things, and this present world that

God created in six days (Q

7) was preceded by and created out of prior worlds. Ibn

Taym iyya's view of creation is remarkably close to that of the phi le sop i Ibn Rushd, but

it is not clear whether there was direct influence.

Regarding God's speech, .lbn Taymiyya rejects the Ashàrite ooct ri 1

-

f of the eternal

Qur'an, but he does not follow the Mu`tazilis in calling the Qur'in

ei

timed. Instead, he

holds that God has been speaking from eternity by His will and po

,

ver arid that God's acts

of speaking subsist in God's essence.

As with created things, the

of God's speak-

ing is eternal while His individual speech acts are not. However, it is not said that God's

speech acts are created. This is because they subsist in God's essen

,

.c, not outside of God.

Thus, God's individual speech acts are neither created nor eternal, and, likewise, God's

speech in the Qur'an is 'uncreated'

(ghayr makhlaq)

but not etei pal. ..%3 IS

apparent, the

erm 'uncreated' does not mean timeless eternity for Ibn Taymiyya. ilather, it distill-

ishes God's acts from created things in the world. On the verbal eve , lbn Td:,- .11 iiyy i

l i

s

ful to the traditional Hanbali doctrine of the Qur'an's uncrealednessind he .1;tints

:hat his position is that of Ahmad b. blanbal. But his introduction

tcmiloi al seiii:enee


9/13

...tethtit

..;tfocc.; t

.

ya

r 'tt

11'.

1,11Q:.,1

640

JON HOOVER

into the s

:6-tc Ai God

:na

nr ,,

F

1r,l

c...

- 11 ( in a debai

vitt

..s..sn a cite,

ttcs.iiit

.d ,tok

e

:~^. e

1 ,

1d

i';

-4ithotat illy

itf ity

a Ti' the to,ot

- i k f t t :

Asinari

inch as al Rai and Sayi al-Din al ,A

(ii. n11/1233) dtny :hat ( lod creates

for iiirposes or causes in :ler to render Ge, 's 66iti

if the world i cely i vatuitous.

In this Ash`arite voluntarism, God has no tic

,al olike wiirld, and the i.voi lel is st rictly the

product of God's sheer will. Ibn Taymiyya does not interpret Ciid's independence or

iaitticiency apart from the world in this voluntarist sense. Instead, he explains that God's

suilkiency consists in needing no help in creating the world, and he follows Ibn Sind in

giving priority to God's self-intellection and selt-love and making that the ground for

the rest of existence. We see this for example in Ibn 'Eaymiyya's statement: 'What God

loves of worship of Him and obedience to Him follows from love for Himself, and love

of that is the cause of [His] love for His believing servants. His love for believers follows

from love for Himself' (quoted in Hoover 2007: 99). Here, God's self-love is the ground

for all other love. God does not need human love, and, likewise, God does not need the

creation. Nevertheless, human love and the whole of creation follow necessarily from

God's love ion Himself and from His perfection.

The nec..i-oity with which God's acts flow from God's perfection would appear to obvi-

ate

rpality -

of God's choice. Ibn Taymiyya responds, however, that it is possible for

* u

p cedetermined to occur through God's will and power. God's will and power

arc

means by which the concomitants of God's perfection are brought into existence.

1bn irayiniyya writes, 'It is not impossible that something, which is necessary of occur-

rence because the decree that it must inevitably be has preceded it, occur by... His power

and His will, even if it is among the necessary concomitants of His essence like His life

and His knowledge' (adapted from Hoover zoioa: 66).

A similar question arises at the level of human acts. If God predetermines and creates

all human acts, how are humans to be held accountable for their deeds? Following in

the steps of Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, Ibn Taymiyya affirms that the human act is real and

that humans undertake their acts by means of their own will and power. Nonetheless,

it is God who creates the human will and power, and it is by means of these that He

necessitates human acts. Nothing occurs independently of God's will and creation. lbn

-

l'ayiniyya denies any contradiction in this formulation, and when pressed on the point,

he sometimes switches from the perspective of God's creation to the human perspec -

live of responsibility to evade the inference that humans cannot be held accountable

for deeds that God creates. Faced with a similar paradox between God's ccfnmand to

do good deeds and God's creation of bad deeds, Ibn Taymiryia appeals to :..;od's wise

purpose

:he creation of all things and suggests ways of rri itigatinr, the difficulty. He

than a khig

-rind his

timt

.

Yt2t.

tha.: Icing mit

.

;',It dko refrain from

i

ort:cri Ind L'4. hit subt


10/13

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iC CCM-

(TY::

healing

alinicots

c . ' 0 r : + 1 1 1 .

1

Ind :Imlay of

u^ or tileologic.1 -sues

if. ,1 ;ve intel ice-

*);:ta.:.les to ,:t.it1Ci.1

1:.

ng

,k i10011

,

111111:31t 1r

C

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1

, ;11 ill:: Asia

C111,1 j1alge (10''.11:11.SCUS

ea71

,

explains, among other things, God's wi.a. purposes in tbe creation of lie diverse phe-

nomena of this world (Holtzman 2009: /09-10, 216-17; Boni and I lollztnan 2010: 25-6).

TwO of ffin al-Qay

yim's later books, written after 1345, are among the fullest treatments

of their respective theological topics in the Islamic tradition. Shifcil al-àld

fleshes out

the contours of Ibn Taymiyya's theodicy at great length. The first half elaborates God's

determination and creation of all things, and it explains that, while God creates human

acts, humans are the agents of their acts and therefore responsible for their deeds. The

second half of the book argues that God creates all things for wise purposes in a causal

sense. Evils are in fact good in view of God's wise purposes in creating them, and pure

evil does not exist. Ibn al-Qayyim then outlines, in detail far exceeding anything found

in Ilan Tayrniyya, the wise purposes that God has in creating everything from poisons to

disobedience, and even Iblis (Perho 2001; Hoover 2010b).

The second work, Ibn. al-Qayyim's

al-,Sawariq al-mursala,

is a massive refutation of

the presuppositions underlying

Kaldm

metaphorical reinterpretation. Only the first

half of the work is extant, and resort must be made to the abridgement

Mukhtasar al-

sawaìq al-mursala

of Shams al-Din b. al-Mawsili (d. 774/1372) to gain a sense of the

whole. Writing along Taymiyya.n lines, Ibn al-Qayyim denies that reason and revelation

ever contradict in the interpretation of God's attributes. I le attacks the

Kalam

notion

of metaphor

(majaz)

at great length and defends the reliability of traditions providing

information about God's attributes (Qaclhi 2010).

IHanbali theology in the centuries following Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya has not been

studied carefully (for surveys, see Laoust 1939: 493-540; Laoust 196o-2004), but it

appears that Ibn Taymiyya's thought was not highly influential within the school, at

least not until the Taymiyyan-inspired revivalism of the nineteenth century in Iraq,

Syria, and Egypt. Even in his own day, Ibn Taymiyya's circle of students was small (Bori

2010), and Lianbalis have never embraced his theology as school doctrine. However,

Ibn Taytniyya's ideas did find their best-known pre-modern advocate in Ibn 'Abd al-

Wahhab (d. 1206/1792), a Hanball scholar in central Arabia.

'Taking his cue from Ibn 'Paymiyya, Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab drew a distinction between

taw*/ al-ruhubiyya,

the affirmation that God is the sole creator of the world, and

tawhid al-ulithlyya

or

tawhid alitbada,

the exclusive devotion of worship and service

''..d according to the divine law. Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab likewise gave priority to the

ethical/legal tawhid al- ulithiyya

over the mere confession of God as Creator in

taw,i)id

al-rububiyya, and he narrowed the scope of

tawhid al-tillthiyya to exclude a wide

range of popular practices such as saint veneration, tomb visitation, and magic. lbo

Niad

was .:darr.a;u

pi :

ictices had to be

(:iti:

) Ind k:radi

,

:at?1, ,uld lie

,.Iligneci

with the ce-ziral

lbian em;

.

,)

h*

1

ctiLJgical i-zion into practi,

throtio'n :619.

:fl ry. T}

:4

-

, 1:di ...t:110, the modern :tate

the

os been Ills rLm icnt 41 in spreadino

%:',)1117;i1) far beyond. :is lior,Tars, especially in lie

,

u:s 1999).

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THE OXFORD HAND KOOK OF

ISL M IC

THEOLOGY

Edtedby

SABINE SCHMIDTKE

2_ ?

OXFORD

UNIVERSITY PRESS

Hanbali Theology in the Oxford Handbook

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