Ibn Taymiyya and the Attributes of God

Farid Suleiman, PhD (2018), is Lecturer in Islamic Theology at Greifswald University. His current research takes the insights on language gained from Ludwig Wittgenstein as a departure point for shedding new lights on the character and development of Islamic intellectual history.

• Acknowledgements (to the English translation)Acknowledgements (of the original German version)List of Figures and Tables1 Introduction1 State of the Field2 Objectives and Approach3 Overview of the Works of Ibn Taymiyya Most Frequently Used in This StudyPart 1 Ibn Taymiyya’s Biography and the History of the Divine Attributes in Islamic Thought before His Time2 Ibn Taymiyya’s Biography3 The Divine Attributes in Islamic Intellectual History up to the Time of Ibn Taymiyya1 The Emergence of the Debate over the Divine Attributes in Early Islam2 The Muʿtazila3 The Falāsifa4 Ahl al-Ḥadīth5 The AshʿarīsPart 2 The Methodological Foundations of Ibn Taymiyya’s Doctrine of the Divine Attributes4 Ontological Foundations1 The Term wujūd: Meaning and Gradations2 Likeness (mithl, tamāthul) and Similarity (shibh, tashābuh, ishtibāh) among Existent Things3 Ibn Taymiyya’s Ontological Conceptualism4 Ibn Taymiyya’s Critique of the Doctrine of the Unity of Being (waḥdat al-wujūd) in Speculative Sufism5 Linguistic Foundations1 The ḥaqīqa–majāz Dichotomy2 On the Semantic Relationship of Homonymous Expressions: Ibn Taymiyya’s Linguistic Counterproposal to the ḥaqīqa–majāz Dichotomy3 What Are the Theological Consequences of Ibn Taymiyya’s Alternative to the ḥaqīqa–majāz Dichotomy?6 Hermeneutical Foundations1 Verse Q. 3:7—Ibn Taymiyya’s Understanding of the Terms muḥkam, mutashābih, and taʾwīl2 Ibn Taymiyya’s Challenge to the Validity of Taʾwīl Majāzī: Attempting to Limit the Scope of Application of the Universal Rule (al-qānūn al-kullī)3 The Two Principles and the Seven Basic Rules for Interpreting the Divine Attributes7 Epistemological Foundations1 On the Applicability of Qiyās in Theology2 The Epistemic Value of Textual Indicants: Ibn Taymiyya in Debate with al-Rāzī8 SummaryPart 3 The Divine Essence and Attributes in Focus9 Temporally Originating States and Acts (ḥawādith) in the Divine Essence10 Case Studies of Selected Divine Attributes1 al-ʿAdl: God’s Justice2 al-Kalām: God’s Speech3 al-Istiwāʾ: God’s Rising over His Throne4 al-Maʿiyya: God’s “Withness”11 Summary12 Evaluation and ConclusionBibliographyIndex of People and SubjectsIndex of Quranic Verses