Ibn Taymiyya on Reason and Revelation

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).

• AcknowledgementsList of Figures and TablesMise en ScèneIntroduction1 Contours of a Conflict2 Why the Darʾ taʿāruḍ?3 About This WorkPart 1 Reason vs. Revelation?1 Reason and Revelation in Islam before Ibn Taymiyya1 Reason and Revelation, Reason in Revelation2 The Early Emergence of Rationalist and Textualist Tendencies: The Case of the Law3 Early Theological Reflection and Contention4 The Muʿtazila5 Non-speculative Theology and the Legacy of Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal6 The Miḥna and Its Aftermath7 Nascent Ashʿarī Thought and the Early Kalām8 Philosophy9 The New Kalām and Subsequent Developments10 Kalām and Falsafa in the Wake of al-Ghazālī2 Ibn Taymiyya: Life, Times, and Intellectual Profile1 The Life and Times of Ibn Taymiyya (661–728/1263–1328)2 Intellectual Profile3 Character and Contemporary Reception4 Ibn Taymiyya’s Works5 The Historiography of the Darʾ taʿāruḍ: Ibn Taymiyya’s Assessment of the Intellectual Legacy He Inherited6 The Darʾ taʿāruḍ in Context: Ibn Taymiyya’s View of Previous Attempts to Solve the Conundrum of Reason and Revelation3 On the Incoherence of the Universal Rule and the Theoretical Impossibility of a Contradiction between Reason and Revelation1 Ibn Taymiyya on the Universal Rule and the Variety of Responses It Has Elicited2 The Result of Figurative Interpretation (taʾwīl)3 Specious Rationality and Its Discontents: Reason in a Cul-de-Sac4 Ibn Taymiyya’s Project: Refuting the Universal Rule5 On Reason Grounding Our Knowledge of Revelation6 Knowledge vs. Conjecture: Conclusiveness Is What Counts7 Not “Scriptural vs. Rational” but “Scripturally Validated vs. Innovated”8 Further Arguments Regarding the Rational Contradictoriness of the Universal Rule9 On the Universal Rule’s Incompatibility with the Status and Authority of ScripturePart 2 Ibn Taymiyya’s Reform of Language, Ontology, and Epistemology4 Ṣaḥīḥ al-Manqūl, or What Is Revelation1 Taʾwīl and the Meaning of Qurʾān 3:72 The Centrality of Context and Ibn Taymiyya’s “Contextual Taʾwīl”3 The Salaf and the Authority of Their Linguistic Convention (ʿurf)4 Analysis of Terms to Detect and Correct for Semantic Shift5 A Case Study: The Terms wāḥid, tawḥīd, and tarkīb5 Ṣarīḥ al-Maʿqūl, or What Is Reason?1 What Exists? Ibn Taymiyya’s Account of Reality2 How Do We Know What Exists? The Primary Sources of Knowledge3 The Realm of the Mind: What Exists fī al-adhhān?4 The Structure of Reason6 Reason Reconstituted: The Divine Attributes and the Question of Contradiction between Reason and Revelation1 Rational Inference and the Question of Qiyās al-ghāʾib ʿalā al-shāhid2 Ibn Taymiyya’s Reforms Applied: The Question of the Divine Attributes3 Concluding ReflectionsAppendix A: Summary Outline of the Darʾ taʿāruḍAppendix B: Detailed Outline of the Darʾ taʿāruḍGlossary of Arabic TermsGlossary of Proper NamesBibliographyIndex of Arabic PassagesIndex of ḤadīthIndex of People and PlacesIndex of Qurʾānic VersesIndex of Subjects

“A documented and careful work, that whatever the reader’s point of view, is destined to become a term of reference for future studies on the subject.” - Giovanni Bonacina, Bibliotheca Orientalis, (2022). "Die Studie von El-Tobgui ist eine Fundgrube von Beobachtungen und Erkenntnisse, die auch in Zukunft die Forschung zu Ibn Taimīya befruchten wird.“ - Rüdiger Lohlker, Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes , (2022).