Ibn Taymiyyah
Ibn Taymiyyah is one of the Islams most powerful Theologians. Born in 1263 in Mesopotamia, Ibn died in September 1328 in Cairo. As an associate of the Pietist School, he fought for the re-establish of Islamic religion to its basis the Quran and the Sunnah. Ibn went to school in Damascus where he stayed as a refugee from Mongol Invasion in 1268. He also obtained a general awareness of the modern Islamic disciplines and sources including the Ḥadīth, Quran, philosophy and Islamic mystical theology. The other sources were the jurisprudence and dogmatic theology. He later ventured into teachings of the Pietist school (David, 43)
Taymiyya’s life had many persecutions, enmity, and hostility, which he faced from diverse sectarian directions. In 1293, he had a disagreement with the local authorities for disapproving a sentence they had given to a Christian for insulting the prophet. In 1298, the accusations were for attributing to God human characteristics, condemning and disdaining the legitimacy of dogmatic theology. These led to public trials, incarceration and a seven-year stay in Egypt (Hoover, 7). Ibn led the resistance party during the famous Mongol crisis and then deplored the suspecting faith of the intruders and their collaborators. He reattached the Ummah to the creed and the methodology of Salaf during the period of the enormous exit from the prophetic Sunnah. In the process, he refuted factions from different philosophers including Raaafidah, Qaraamitah, Mu’tazilites and Ash’arites. The others are Baatiniyyah, Jahmites and Christians among others.
He was the most outstanding religious campaigner in the Bahri Mamluk sultanate of Syria and Egypt. He had incredible virtues of commanding the right, inhibiting evil doings and performing jihad. Apart from his teaching role, he issued lawful verdicts and wrote with a high magnitude. He executed jihad against the Mongol invasion from the east, which intimidated the dominion of the Mamluk in Syria. (Hoover,7). Although he was a Sufi, he was against the Sufi and the popular religious exercises since he believed their practices were against the sacred law. He criticized the tomb visitation and cult of saints, and this led him to spend the last two years of his life imprisoned in the citadel of Damascus.
His Tadmuriyya tenet is one of his most methodical presentations of the doctrine. The first part talks about the attributes of God. The second part is about the relationship of God with the world and partly examines the creation of God, secondary causality, his command and points out the typologies of mistakes in both parts. The two medium lengths talk about the obvious incompatibility of human responsibility and divine coercion, which he calls Jabr. In both issues, he tries to uphold the compatibility of God’s willpower and human agency. The jabr also entails a typology of inspections about the definitions of God’s justice. Two main treatises broadly deal with God’s justice. The early part talks about the conflict between God’s freedom, which is voluntary, and the necessary obligation on God’s freedom, which rational justice inflicts (Hoover, 13).
Ibn Taymiyyah held a higher status amid the scholars of his time. This was due to various reasons such as his competence to simplify issues the other scholars regarded as indistinct. Example is the issues include the fighting the Tartans and the acquisition of wealth from some of the Rafidah’s sects. He clarified these issues to the people (David, 46). In 701H, a Jew from Khaybar came, claiming that he had a message from Allah but Ibn exposed his lies. He died with anger from the sultan and at a time when many of the jurists and Suffiyah were mentioning many things about him.
Work cited
Aaron, David. In Their Own Words: Voices of Jihad : Compilation and Commentary. Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2008. Print.
Hoover, Jon. Ibn Taymiyya’s Theodicy of Perpetual Optimism. Leiden: Brill, 20
