Ibn Taimiya

Ibn Taimiya , whose full name is Taqī ad-Dīn Ahmad ibn Taimīya ( Arabic تقي الدين أحمد بن تيمية, DMG Taqī ad-Dīn Aḥmad bin Taimīya ; born on January 22, 1263 in Harran ; died September 26, 1328 in Damascus ) was a Muslim scholar ( Alim ). He was a follower of the Hanbali school of law ( Madhhab ), so that his views in theology and Fiqh are commonly regarded as Hanbali. He is considered to be the inspirer of modern Islamism . His teaching forms the decisive basis of today's Salafism of conservative interpretation.

The Ibn Taimiya Mosque in the Israeli city ​​of Umm al-Fachm

Life

Ibn Taimiya had to leave his hometown of Harran in 1269 because of the Mongol storm and took refuge in Damascus with his father and three brothers. His father became the director of the Sukkarīya Madrasa there , and Ibn Taimiya also attended classes at the same institution. In March 1284 he became a teacher at this school himself. On April 17, 1285 he began to teach Koran exegesis in the Umayyad Mosque of Damascus . At the end of November 1292 he made the pilgrimage to Mecca , in February 1293 he returned to Damascus.

He first caused a major stir in the affair of the Christian denAssāf an-Nasrānī from al-Suwaida , who was accused of offending the Prophet. Ibn Taimiya's intransigence in this affair earned him his first prison term. On this occasion he wrote his first comprehensive book, The Sharp Sword against the One Who Blasphemes the Messenger of God ( aṣ-Ṣārim al-maslūl ʿalā šātim ar-rasūl ).

On June 20, 1296 Ibn Taimiya began teaching at the Hanbalīya, the oldest Hanbalitic madrasa in Damascus. During the reign of al-Malik al-Mansur Lādschīn (1297-1299) he was given the task of preaching jihad against the kingdom of Lesser Armenia . Around 1299, at the request of the residents of Hamah, he wrote his most important confession with the title al-Hamawīya al-kubrā , which was strongly directed against the Ashʿarīya and the Kalām .

During the Mongol invasion of 1300, led by the Ilkhan Ghazan , Ibn Taimiya was part of the group that organized the resistance. In June 1300 he also took part in an expedition of the Mamluk authorities against the Shiites of Kasrawān in Lebanon, who were accused of supporting the Franks and Mongols. In January 1301 he traveled to Cairo to ask the Mamluk Sultan al-Malik an-Nasir Muhammad for an intervention in Syria.

The following years were marked by polemical disputes. In 1304 he took action against the followers of Muhyī d-Dīn Ibn ʿArabī and sent a letter to one of their most prominent representatives, the Sheikh Nasr ad-Dīn al-Manbijī, spiritual leader of the Mamluk emir Baibars II kindly but clearly condemned the monistic teaching of Ibn ʿArabi. His opponents defended themselves by accusing Ibn Taimiya of heretical teachings with the Mamluk authorities in Egypt. In doing so, they referred to an earlier confession of Ibn Taimiyas, which was known under the name al-Wāsitīya . The Mamluk sultan then sent a letter to his governor in Syria, instructing him to hold a tribunal in the presence of the qadis of the four Sunni schools of law at which Ibn Taimiya should be asked about his confession. This tribunal took place on the 8th Rajab 705h (January 24th 1315) in the al-Afram palace of the governor in Damascus. At the end of the process, it was found that the Wāsitīya complies with the Koran and Sunna .

to teach

Theology and Exegesis of the Koran

Ibn Taimiya rejected the metaphorical interpretation of divine attributes. His opponents denounced him as an anthropomorphist because, in their opinion, he claimed that the Islamic god was human. Ibn Taimiya was of the opinion that metaphors should not be used in explaining the attributes of Allah. He confirmed what this god (Arabic Allah) is supposed to have said about himself in the Koran or the Islamic prophet Mohammed about Allah, without changing, denying, questioning or comparing it with creation. Ibn Taimiya emphasized the importance of the Sunnah for the Koran exegesis and therefore defended the literal interpretation of the throne of God, the seven heavens, the thunder angel and similar things, which are to be assigned to the "Sunnah cosmology". Unlike Muslim scholars before him such as al-Asch Aarī or al-Bāqillānī , Ibn Taimiya took the view that individual verses of the Koran can surpass others in importance.

Ibn Taimiya did not create his own commentary on the Koran, but he wrote an “Introduction to the Basics of Koran Exegesis” ( Al-Muqaddima fī uṣūl at-tafsīr ). Of this he himself says in the foreword that he wrote it down “according to the dictates of the heart” ( min imlāʾ al-fuʾād ). When asked which commentary on the Koran is closest to the book and the Sunna, Ibn Taimiya is said to have referred to the two Tafsīr works by Ibn ʿAtīya (st. 1149) and at-Tabarī .

Law

Legal theory

Ibn Taimiya emphasized that all legal decisions have to be based directly on evidence from the Koran or the prophetic tradition ( Sunna ). The consensus of the scholars ( Idschmāʿ ) is only valid if it is covered by such evidence. The Qiyas he was very critical.

In the legal interpretation of religious texts, he rejected the otherwise customary distinction between "actual meaning" ( haqīqa ) and "transferred meaning" ( madschāz ) of linguistic expressions. He advocated the theory that the meaning of linguistic utterances is only constituted in the respective context and that such a differentiation between levels of meaning in words is not per se possible. Accordingly, he also rejected the theory of a universally valid definition of meaning ( wadʿ ) for words, which was widespread at the time . According to him, what the correct meaning of a linguistic utterance is only depends on the speaker's intention. Therefore, when interpreting passages from the Koran and Sunna through Fiqh (“understanding”), it is important to understand God's intentions.

Ibn Taimiya refused to use Taqlid . He believed that the first three generations of Islam ( Salaf ) - Mohammed, his companions and the followers of his companions from the first generations of Muslims - are the best models for an Islamic life. He therefore opposed a “new introduction” of acts of worship as an unauthorized renewal ( Bidʿa ).

Legal practice

Ibn Taimiya held the talaq al-bid'a , the rejection of the wife by uttering the rejection formula three times in a row, to be invalid. He considered the three pronouncements only valid for the first and thus revocable separation. Islamic law ( Sharia ) differentiates between revocable and irrevocable repudiation. It is revocable after the repudiation formula has been repeated once or twice, and irrevocable after the third.

In the economic field, he demanded, among other things, that the state should largely stay out of price formation .

Understanding of the state

Ibn Taimiya regarded it as the highest task of the state to guarantee the existence of Islamic law, since compliance with it was to be seen as a prerequisite for being Muslim. In his fatwa, known in the Islamic world, for the Muslims of Mardin , who lived under the rule of the Mongolian Ilkhan who had formally converted to Islam , he ruled that whoever practiced a law other than Islamic could not be considered a Muslim. Therefore these rulers, who still applied the Mongolian Jassa , should be regarded as apostates .

opponent

Sufis and veneration of saints

He rejected the worship of graves and saints by the Sufis (Islamic mystics ) and the excessive worship of the prophets, since only God is worthy of worship. He rejected her doctrine of the unity of being ( wahdat al-wudschūd ) because it called into question the validity of the Sharia. He often gave "replies" and "refutations" of statements made by Ibn ¡Arab∆ . He sharply rejected the invocation of saints as mediators between God and man, as it ran counter to the principle of the absolute uniqueness and sublimity of God ( tawheed / monotheism) and was a cult not directed towards God but towards people. Appreciation in the form of jewelry on saints' graves and popular practices such as writing wish lists and hanging them on trees were considered unbelief and paganism ( kufr ) for him .

Christians and Jews

He was strictly against the inclusion of "elements" from other religions, especially Christianity . In his work Kitab iqtida al-sirat al-mustaqim he wrote that at the beginning of Islam a point had been reached, "a perfect dissimilarity between Muslims and non-Muslims ...". For this reason, among other things, he turned against the celebration of Mawlid an-Nabi and the building of mosques around the graves of Sufi saints. Another statement in this regard from Kitab iqtida : "Many of them [the Muslims] do not even know that the practices they have introduced have a Christian origin."

Shiites

He justified his rejection of the Shia with the excessive veneration of saints, especially the Ahl al-bait . He also accused them of ascribing the attributes of infallibility to their imams . Hence he believed the Shiite teaching of the Fourteen Infallible to be wrong. In his multi-volume work Minhāǧ as-Sunna an-Nabawīya fī naqḍ kalām aš-šīʿa wa-l-Qadarīya ("Method of the prophetic sunna in refuting the Shia and Qadarīya") he refuted the teachings of the Twelve Shiite scholar al-ʿAllāma al -Ḥillī which Öljaitü , the ruler of the rival with the Mamluks Ilchanidenreiches had converted to Shiism.

Alawites

Ibn Taimiya considered the Alawites in the Syrian coastal mountains to be apostates ( Murtadd ) who would have to be punished with the death penalty according to Islamic law.

Philosophers

Ibn Taimiya rejected Islamic philosophy , but had dealt with it thoroughly. He stated that knowledge could not be expanded with logic alone . He regards logic itself as neutral and the cosmological proof of God that can be justified with it was later integrated into Islamic teaching. He passes a comparatively mild judgment on the theological direction of the Maturidiyyah : “The Maturidiyyah belong to a group that for the most part holds correct, but also wrong views. They are closer to the path of the rightly guided than to that of the misguided (...). Most of their belief is right (...). They fought against false views of the ( Muʿtazila ), but overstepped the curve with innovations ( Bidʿa ) on their part in such a way that they slowed down a larger and more serious renewal with a smaller and smaller renewal. They refuted a big lie with a small one, as is the case with most of the philosophers ( Mutakallimūn ) who claim to belong to the Ahl al-Sunnah wal Jama'a (rightly guided) ”(Ibn Taymiyah, al-Fataawa, 1 / 348).

student

• Ibn Qaiyim al-Jawzīya
• Ibn Kathīr

Impact history

According to Caterina Bori, Ibn Taimiya's position during his lifetime could by no means be compared with his current importance. On the one hand, he was admired by his contemporaries for his erudition, on the other hand, he was met with great skepticism because of his controversial personality and his positions, which often deviated from the consensus of the Hanbali legal school. Little is known about its effect after his death until his “rediscovery” in the course of the success of the Wahhābiyya . Khaled El-Rouayheb analyzes the influence of different positions of Ibn Taimiyas and comes to the conclusion that he not only had no influence on the course of Islamic history, but also took positions that were widely regarded as hardly acceptable.

The Ottoman scholar Imam Birgivi , on whose ideas the Kadizadeli movement was essentially based, is considered to be his “rediscoverer” .

The increasing popularity of Ibn Taimiyas from the 18th century is generally attributed in research to Muḥammad bin ʿAbd al-Wahhāb , whose teachers were admirers of the scholar and his works were also included in their curricula. In addition, ʿAbd al-Wahhāb's teachings are very similar to those of Ibn Taimiya in some essential respects. Natana J. Delong-Bas takes the opposite view, according to which Ibn Taimiya is a negligible source.

Ibn Taimiya received further impetus from an influential statement by Nuʿmān al-Alūsīs, which he published in 1881 under the title "Ǧalāʾ al-ʿainain fī muḥākamat al-Aḥmadain". In this he defends Ibn Taimiya against the most famous of his critics, Ibn Hajar al-Haitamī . Nuʿmān al-Alūsī tries to refute his allegations and quotes other highly respected ʿulamāʾ who share Ibn Taimiya's assessment. In this way he succeeded in locating the scholar within the mainstream of the Sunni tradition and at the same time emphasizing his uniqueness.

Through the two channels of influence mentioned, Ibn Taimiya's ideas also reached the circle of the influential reformers around Muḥammad ʿAbduh and Rašīd Riḍā , who published extensive excerpts of his works in the journal al-Manār and also their programmatic demands, in part with reference to Ibn Taimiya tried to justify.

Islamists like Sayyid Qutb , following Ibn Taimiya, emphasized that the primary task of the Islamic state was to ensure that Sharia law was enforced. The murderers of Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat , including Abd al-Salam Farag , legitimized their act with reference to the fatwa for the Muslims of Mardin: Since Islamic law is not practiced in Egypt, the government is incredulous. In their dispute with the Ba'ath regime supported by the Alawites, the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood resorted to Ibn Taimiya's condemnation of this religious community.

Teaching in the present

In the legal system of Saudi Arabia , Ibn Taimiyas' view of law and belief plays an important role in finding the law. Alongside Ibn Hazm , he is one of the most important Elder Ulema for the Ahl-i Hadîth . He is also an authority on other Salafi currents such as the Muhammadiyah and the Tariqa-yi muhammadiya . Likewise, among the Hanafis of the Dar ul-Ulum Deoband , especially his opinions on the veneration of saints and renewal receive greater attention.

Research history

Research into the life and work of the great scholar is a relatively recent phenomenon in Western research. The Islamic scholar George A. Makdisi explains this fact with the great influence of Ignaz Goldziher , who derived his position regarding Ibn Taimiya from reading anti-Hanbali works and so could not do justice to Ibn Taimiya's importance. Even if Makdisi in the 1970s - and Laoust before him - gave important impetus to rethink the Western image of Ibn Taimiya, interest in him only increased because of its instrumentalization by extremist groups, such as the assassins of the Egyptian Prime Minister Anwar as-Sādāts who cited the so-called Mardin Fatwa Ibn Taimiyas to justify their actions. The Berlin Islamic scholar Birgit Krawietz also points out that Taimiya's reception in Islamic studies has been thematically narrowed. It is noticeable that the preoccupation with the scholar often revolved around the controversial aspects of his life, an approach that encourages the image of a "quarrel (s) of any kind". Ibn Taimiya's positions in the field of Islamic jurisprudence , however, have been completely insufficiently researched.

Quotes

« ما يصنع أعدائي بي فجنتي في صدري اينما رحت فهي معي لا تفارقني فحبسي خلوة و قتلي شهادة و اخراجي سمن بلي دي سي سم »

“What can my enemies do to me? My paradise is in my chest wherever I go; it is always with me and does not leave me. So my imprisonment is only seclusion, my killing a confession and my expulsion from my homeland a journey. "

- Ibn Taymiyya : Fatawa 35/36

literature

Translations

• Against the Greek logicians: Translated with an introduction and notes by Wael B. Hallaq Clarendon Press, Oxford 1993, ISBN 0-19-824043-0 .
• Henri Laoust, translator: Le Traité de droit public d'Ibn Taimiya. 1. Traduction annotée de la Siyasa al-Shar'iyya. (French) Institut Français de Damas, Beyrouth 1948
• Henri Laoust, translator: La profession de foi d'Ibn Taymiyya . (La Wasityya) Series: Bibliothèque d'études islamiques. Librairie orientaliste Paul Geuthner , Paris 1997, ISBN 2-7053-0345-6 .
• Chaalid Jürgen Nitardy (translator): The Wasitiya of Ibn Taimiya / al-´Aqida al-wasitiya. Cordoba Book, 2013, ISBN 978-3-9814443-7-7 .

Secondary literature

• Caterina Bori: Ibn Taymiyya: una vita esemplare. Analisi delle fonti classiche della sua biografia , Pisa / Roma 2003 (Rivista degli studi orientali; 76.2002, Suppl. 1).
• Henri Laoust: Essai sur les doctrines sociales et politiques de Taki-d-din Ahmad b. Taimiya. Cairo 1939.
• Henri Laoust: Art. "Ibn Taimiyya" in The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition Vol. III, pp. 951a-955a.
• Niels Henrik Olesen: Etude comparée des idées d'Ibn Taimiya (1283–1328) et de Martin Luther (1483–1546) sur la culte des saints. In: REI. 50/1982, pp. 175-206.
• T. Raff: Remarks on an anti-Mongol fatwa by Ibn Taimiyya , Leiden 1973.

Web links

• Literature by and about Ibn Taimiya in the catalog of the German National Library
• Fatwa of Mardin by Ibn Taymiyya
• Jon Hoover: Taymiyyan Studies , u. a. with selected bibliography

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Irshad Manji : The Departure. dtv, 2005, p. 153.
2. ↑ Cf. Laoust in EI² Vol. III, p. 951a.
3. ↑ See Laoust in EI² Vol. III, p. 951b.
4. ↑ Cf. Laoust in EI² Vol. III, p. 952a.
5. ↑ Cf. Ibn Taimiya: Maǧmūʿ al-fatāwā. Edited by ʿAmmār al-Ǧazzār and Anwar al-Bāz. 3. Edition. Dār al-Wafāʾ, al-Mansura 2005, Volume 3, p. 106. Digitized .
6. ↑ Cf. Laoust in EI² Vol. III, p. 952a.
7. ↑ MS Seale: Qur'an and Bible. Studies in Interpretation and Dialogue. Croom Helm, London 1978, ISBN 0-85664-818-3 , pp. 106-107.
8. ↑ An English translation of this work was created by Muhammad Abdul Haq Ansari under the title: An Introduction to the Principles of Tafseer (Birmingham 1993, ISBN 1-898649-00-6 ).
9. ^ So al-Muqaddima fī uṣūl at-tafsīr Ed. Maḥmūd M. Maḥmūd an-Naṣṣār. Cairo: Dār al-Ǧīl li-ṭ-ṭibāʿa or DS 44.
10. ↑ Cf. the text annex to al-Muqaddima in the edition of an-Naṣṣār. P. 110.
11. ↑ Ruth Mas: Qiyas: A Study in Islamic Logic . In: Folia Orientalia . 34, 1998, ISSN  0015-5675 , pp. 113-128. Here pp. 122–125.
12. ↑ See Mohamed Mohamed Yunis Ali: Medieval Islamic Pragmatics. Sunni Legal Theorists' Models of Textual Communication. Richmond, Surrey 2000. pp. 1f, 87-140, 237-240.
13. ^ [GF Haddad (March 20, 1996). IBN TAYMIYYA ON FUTOOH AL-GHAYB AND SUFISM . Retrieved March 24, 2011, http://www.abc.se/~m9783/n/itaysf_e.html ].
14. ↑ http://www.fatwa-online.com:ibn/ Taimiyya Biography ( Memento from March 5, 2010 in the Internet Archive ).
15. ↑ Taqi al-Deen Ahmad Ibn Taymiyya. Pwhce.org, accessed June 9, 2010 . 
16. ^ Kepel, Gilles, The Prophet and the Pharaoh , (2003), p. 194.
17. ↑ Muhammad `Umar Memon, Ibn Taymiyya's Struggle against Popular Religion, with an annotated translation of Kitab Iqitada , The Hague, (1976) p. 78, 21
18. ↑ Cf. George Makdisi: Ethics in Islamic Traditionalist Doctrine . In: Richard G. Hovannisian (Ed.): Ethics in Islam . Pp. 47-65. Here pp. 51–55.
19. ^ Gotthard Strohmaier : Avicenna. Beck, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-406-41946-1 , s. 133.
20. ↑ islam-qa.com:Are Deobandis part of Ahlus Sunnah? Are they within the folds of Islam? .
21. ↑ Bori, Caterina: Ibn Taymiyya wa-Jam'atu-hu: Authority, Conflict and Consensus in Ibn Taymiyya's Circle, in: Rapoport Yossef; u. a. [Ed.]: Ibn Taymiyya and his Times, Oxford [u. a.]: Oxford University Press, 2010, p. 33.
22. ↑ El-Rouayheb, Khaled: From Ibn Hajar al-Haytami (d. 1566) to Khayr al-Din al-Alusi (d. 1899), in: Rapoport Yossef; u. a. [Ed.]: Ibn Taymiyya and his Times, Oxford [u. a.]: Oxford University Press, 2010, p. 272.
23. ↑ Natana J. Delong-Bas: Wahhabi Islam From Revival and Reform to Global Jihad. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, p. 53.
24. ↑ Nafi, Basheer M .: Salafism Revived: Nuʿmān al-Alūsī and the Trial of Two Aḥmads, published in: Die Welt des Islams 49 (2009), pp. 71f.
25. ↑ Ibid., P. 86.
26. ^ Adams, Charles C .: Islam and Modernism in Egypt A Study of the Modern Reform Movement Inaugurated by Muhammad ʿAbduh, London [u. a.]: Oxford University Press, 1933, p. 204.
27. ↑ El-Rouayheb, Khaled: From Ibn Hajar al-Haytami (d. 1566) to Khayr al-Din al-Alusi (d. 1899) in: Rapoport Yossef; u. a. [Ed.]: Ibn Taymiyya and his Times, Oxford [u. a.]: Oxford University Press, 2010, p. 295.
28. ^ Hassan, Mona: Modern Interpretations and Misinterpretations of a Medieval Scholar: Apprehending the Political Thought of Ibn Taymiyya, in: Rapoport Yossef; u. a. [Ed.]: Ibn Taymiyya and his Times, Oxford [u. a.]: Oxford University Press, 2010, p. 356.
29. ^ Krawietz, Birgit: Ibn Taymiyya, Father of Islamic Fundamentalism ?: On the Western Reception of a Medieval Sharia Scholar, in: Atienza, Manuel; u. a. [Hrsg]: Theory of Law in Society, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2003, 52.