Ibn Taymiyya on Reason and Revelation

A Study of Darʾ Taʿāruḍ Al-ʿaql Wa-L-Naql
Erscheinungsjahr 2022
ISBN: 978-90-04-51101-9
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, 444 Seiten, Format (B × H): 157 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 635 g

In Ibn Taymiyya on Reason and Revelation, Carl Sharif El-Tobgui offers the first comprehensive study of Ibn Taymiyya’s ten-volume magnum opus, Dar' ta'arud al-'aql wa-l-naql (Refutation of the conflict of reason and revelation). In his colossal riposte to the Muslim philosophers and rationalist theologians, the towering Hanbali polymath rejects the call to prioritize reason over revelation in cases of alleged conflict, interrogating instead the very conception of rationality that classical Muslims had inherited from the Greeks. In its place, he endeavors to articulate a reconstituted “pure reason” that is both truly universal and in full harmony with authentic revelation.

Based on a line-by-line reading of the entire Dar' ta'arud, El-Tobgui’s study carefully elucidates the “philosophy of Ibn Taymiyya” as it emerges from the multifaceted ontological, epistemological, and linguistic reforms that Ibn Taymiyya carries out in this pivotal work.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Sharif El-Tobgui, Carl

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Islam & Islamische Studien Islam: Philosophie & Wissenschaften
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Nicht-Westliche Philosophie Islamische & Arabische Philosophie
• Geisteswissenschaften Islam & Islamische Studien Islam & Islamische Studien
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Naher & Mittlerer Osten

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgements

List of Figures and Tables

Mise en Scène

Introduction

1 Contours of a Conflict

2 Why the Dar? ta?aru??

3 About This Work

Part 1 Reason vs. Revelation?

1 Reason and Revelation in Islam before Ibn Taymiyya

1 Reason and Revelation, Reason in Revelation

2 The Early Emergence of Rationalist and Textualist Tendencies: The Case of the Law

3 Early Theological Reflection and Contention

4 The Mu?tazila

5 Non-speculative Theology and the Legacy of A?mad b. ?anbal

6 The Mi?na and Its Aftermath

7 Nascent Ash?ari Thought and the Early Kalam

8 Philosophy

9 The New Kalam and Subsequent Developments

10 Kalam and Falsafa in the Wake of al-Ghazali

2 Ibn Taymiyya: Life, Times, and Intellectual Profile

1 The Life and Times of Ibn Taymiyya (661–728/1263–1328)

2 Intellectual Profile

3 Character and Contemporary Reception

4 Ibn Taymiyya’s Works

5 The Historiography of the Dar? ta?aru?: Ibn Taymiyya’s Assessment of the Intellectual Legacy He Inherited

6 The Dar? ta?aru? in Context: Ibn Taymiyya’s View of Previous Attempts to Solve the Conundrum of Reason and Revelation

3 On the Incoherence of the Universal Rule and the Theoretical Impossibility of a Contradiction between Reason and Revelation

1 Ibn Taymiyya on the Universal Rule and the Variety of Responses It Has Elicited

2 The Result of Figurative Interpretation (ta?wil)

3 Specious Rationality and Its Discontents: Reason in a Cul-de-Sac

4 Ibn Taymiyya’s Project: Refuting the Universal Rule

5 On Reason Grounding Our Knowledge of Revelation

6 Knowledge vs. Conjecture: Conclusiveness Is What Counts

7 Not “Scriptural vs. Rational” but “Scripturally Validated vs. Innovated”

8 Further Arguments Regarding the Rational Contradictoriness of the Universal Rule

9 On the Universal Rule’s Incompatibility with the Status and Authority of Scripture

Part 2 Ibn Taymiyya’s Reform of Language, Ontology, and Epistemology

4 ?a?i? al-Manqul, or What Is Revelation

1 Ta?wil and the Meaning of Qur?an 3:7

2 The Centrality of Context and Ibn Taymiyya’s “Contextual Ta'wil”

3 The Salaf and the Authority of Their Linguistic Convention (?urf)

4 Analysis of Terms to Detect and Correct for Semantic Shift

5 A Case Study: The Terms wa?id, taw?id, and tarkib

5 ?ari? al-Ma?qul, or What Is Reason?

1 What Exists? Ibn Taymiyya’s Account of Reality

2 How Do We Know What Exists? The Primary Sources of Knowledge

3 The Realm of the Mind: What Exists fi al-adhhan?

4 The Structure of Reason

6 Reason Reconstituted: The Divine Attributes and the Question of Contradiction between Reason and Revelation

1 Rational Inference and the Question of Qiyas al-gha?ib ?ala al-shahid

2 Ibn Taymiyya’s Reforms Applied: The Question of the Divine Attributes

3 Concluding Reflections

Appendix A: Summary Outline of the Dar? ta?aru?

Appendix B: Detailed Outline of the Dar? ta?aru?

Glossary of Arabic Terms

Glossary of Proper Names

Bibliography

Index of Arabic Passages

Index of Hadith

Index of People and Places

Index of Qur'anic Verses

Index of Subjects

Über Autor(innen)

Carl Sharif El-Tobgui, PhD (McGill University, 2013), is Associate Professor of Arabic & Islamic Studies at Brandeis University. He has published on reason and revelation in Islamic theology and legal theory, including "From Legal Theory to Erkenntnistheorie" (Oriens, 2018).