2007/11/21 by Yahya Michot · 1 citation
Social Sciences · Arts and Humanities · #Islamic Studies and History #Medieval and Classical Philosophy #Islamic Thought and Society Studies #Creed #Sufism #Philosophy #Monism #Relation (database) #Islam #Religious studies #Epistemology #Literature #Theology #Art
paper · doi:10.3366/edinburgh/9780748626052.003.0008
openalex publication_date 2007/11/21 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
Ibn Taymiyya, was a Damascene theologian portrayed as an extremist, with many radical positions attached to his name. In the domain of politics, he was unjustly regarded as the spiritual ancestor of the kind of extremism associated with Usama Bin Ladin, the source of a long tradition of extreme intolerance within one stream of Islam. In regard to philosophy, being the author of the Refutation of the Logicians, he was generally seen as the enemy of the falasita. This chapter focuses on Ibn Taymiyya's commentary on the Creed of the famous Sufi executed in Baghdad in 309/922. It is aimed in this chapter that this will show a more complex image of the theologician's relation to Sufism. As, in his reading of al-Hallaj's Aqida, he brings in Ibn 'Arabi's ideas, the chapter provides a good illustration of the interaction between kalam and tasawwuf. In order to appreciate what Ibn Taymiyya says of al-Hallaj in his commentary on his Creed, this chapter presents a double introduction. The first assesses how he views the controversial shaykh in his three fatwas on him. The second addresses, on the basis of the same fatwas, the question of the presence of an incarnationist monism in al-Hallaj's Sufism.