Ibn Taymiyya's Theodicy of Perpetual Optimism

Front matter

Ibn Taymiyyas Theodicy of Perpetual Optimism

Islamic Philosophy, Theology and Science

Texts and Studies

Contents

Chapter One: Worship, Religious Epistemology and Theological Jürisprüdence T ——À Ibn Taymiyya as à Theological Jurist. inesset menit t The Centrality of Worshipping God Alone...

On Knowing that God Exists and that He Alone should

be Worshipped udine HEU DA RE RE The Apologetic Quality of Ibn Taymiyyas Theological

Chapter Two: God's Wise Purpose, Perpetual Activity and

Sele Suf ciney MM I E RARE ERES The Problematic of God's Goodness and God's

eitis [or MN NU Joseph Bell on God's Wise Purpose and Self-Sufficiency

in Ibn. Taymiyyas Theology Me Ibn Taymiyya’s Classification of Views on Wise Purpose/

Causality in the Will of Göd: assist dentiste timed The Ash'ari Case against Causality in the Will of God:

It Entails Imperfection and Origination in God, as well

as am Infinite Repress a«adunagaóxaaundiabaxe d quB Dad D cnt Ibn Taymiyyas Case for a God Who Acts Perpetually for

Wise Purposes and Creates from Eternity zusenden Ibn Taymiyya on God’s Voluntary Acts Subsisting in

God's Essence kesu aa METONea iim eus Ibn Taymiyya on God's Sufficiency apart from the

Worlds in the Exercise of Wise Purpose sississsnsisevcepsavearcaraavercetnnece Conclusion: Re —————— xi viii CONTENTS

Ibn Taymiyyas Classification of Errors in Creation and

Command ME Ibn Taymiyya: Analogy Is the Cause of Error in Creation

and Comimand ertet i e rette PH duet ie rH Pe tiat eere eee Modes of Expressing Creation and Command in Ibn

(tinc MIT am —— ( Ibn Taymiyya Defending the Coherence of Creation

Ibn Taymiyyas View of the Human Act in Prior

Téscaseli. o a Neneh ts enl den deter ncn The Theological and Philosophical Context enano ases Ibn Taymiyya on the Compatibility of Divine Creation

and Human Acon cic cienairacitanaiiraadieadidravaratu ede Ibn Taymiyyas View of Divine Creation by Means of

Secondary Causes antesumaatusetinudi pln COD DAE Ibn Taymiyya on Controversial Kalam Terms Relating

to Human ABM ey” ssesssssssscncessasesssssssasoesasecssssnsssessedessssonsessstesssscsnseeavees Ibn Taymiyya’s Compatibilism as the Golden

Ibn Taymiyya and the Explanation of Evil in Islamic

EG GICIES -cusntitantnnnn Stt tatcm uhr eT ade Ibn Taymiyyas Evil Attribution Typology: eet Ibn Taymiyya on God's Wise Purposes in the Creation

o Eol senpera —————————— Ibn Taymiyyas Location of the Origin of Evil in

CONTENTS

Chapter Six: The Justice of God and the Best of All Possible Worlds C ——————ÁÁ— Ibn Taymiyya’s Three-fold Typology on God's Justice

(CAD ineunt AT e mda eR Ibn Taymiyya on God's Power and al-Ghazali's Best of

Bibliography M — ————————

Ibn Taymiyya s WEIHBER sensan at Enti entume

Collected Works with Abbreviations |... sete

Ibn laymiyyas Treatises with Short Titles iios Works of Others Found in the Collected Works of

Ib Taymiyya. seeni E A n oda mu Ra dide a EN

Other Arabic and Western Language Sources: iu asciesacnin

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book is a substantial reworking of my 2002 University of Birmingham Ph.D. entitled, *An Islamic Theodicy: Ibn Taymiyya on the Wise Purpose of God, Human Agency, and Problems of Evil and Justice.” David Thomas gently guided and nurtured my doctoral research through many a blind alley. Yahya Michot gave the doctoral thesis text a careful critique and drew my attention to aspects of Ibn Sina in Ibn Taymiyya. Both shared generously of their time, and their incisive questions, observations, corrections and suggestions spurred me on to what I trust is now a more accurate reading of Ibn Taymiyya’s theodicy.

Many others have engaged me in conversations that provided encouragement, taught me much of relevance to Ibn Taymiyya, challenged me to think deeper about what I was doing, and saved me from errors and oversights. In this regard, I wish to thank especially Muammer İskenderoğlu, Maha Elkaisy-Friemuth, Giuseppe Scattolin, Frank Griffel, David Vishanoff, Shahab Ahmed, Livnat Holtzman, Caterina Bori, Mairaj Syed, Tariq el-Jamil, David Grafton, Gino Schallenbergh, Aron Zysow, Luciano Verdoscia, Khaled el-Rouayheb, Mark Swanson and Christian van Nispen. The Center for Arabic and Middle Fastern Studies at the American University of Beirut and its director John Meloy kindly provided access to the research and library resources needed to bring this book to completion. Michael Shelley and Marc Schoeni read through the entire text at different stages of preparation and offered their valuable perspectives as educated readers from outside the sub-discipline of Islamic philosophy and theology. Trudy Kamperveen at Brill guided the process of publication with eminent care and professionalism.

It has been my privilege to be part of supportive institutions throughout this endeavor. Professors, staff and fellow students at the Centre for the Study of Islam and Christian Muslim Relations in the University of Birmingham offered friendship and rich dialogue. Colleagues, staff and students at Dar Comboni for Arabic Studies in Cairo and now the Near East School of Theology in Beirut have graciously abided my ongoing interest in Ibn Taymiyya and provided much stimulating conversation.

My gratitude extends as well to my parents to whom this book is dedicated and to the numerous people of vision in the Mennonite churches of the United States and Canada for making this undertaking possible in so many different ways. I also owe a great debt to my wife and children for bearing xii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS with me through the grueling process of study and granting me the daily joy and warmth of life in family. Last, but certainly not least, I give thanks to God who in love and mercy has seen me through this project. While this study would not have been possible without so much help graciously given, I remain fully responsible for its deficiencies.

Portions of Chapter Two and much of Chapter Six were published previously in the Theological Review of the Near East School of Theology as “Ibn Taymiyya as an Avicennan Theologian: A Muslim Approach to God’s Self- Sufficiency,’ 27.1 (April 2006): 34-46, and “The Justice of God and the Best of All Possible Worlds: The Theodicy of Ibn Taymiyya? 27.2 (November 2006): 53-75, respectively. I am grateful to the editor for permission to republish here with revisions and additions.

Introduction

Theodicy and Ibn Taymiyya

The eminent Muslim jurist Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328) is well known for polemic against all manner of rational thought, whether the Neoplatonic philosophy of Ibn Sina (Avicenna), the mystical speculation of Ibn ‘Arabi, or the Kalam theology of the Ash‘aris and the Mu‘tazilis. Furthermore, Ibn Taymiyyas resolute adherence to the Qur'an, the Sunna and the Salaf (i.e. the pious early Muslims) is nearly legendary. Yet, scattered about in specialized studies are hints that there is more to the shaykh than polemics and unyielding literalism. While polemics and literalism are indeed prominent features of Ibn Taymiyyas writing, it is growing ever more apparent that their import is not fully grasped without reference to a broader method and theological vision at work in his thought. Perhaps even more surprising is that Ibn Taymiyya shares with Ibn Sina and Ibn ‘Arabi, as well as with al-Ghazali in his [bya *ulüm al-din, a similar stance on one of the most fundamental questions of monotheistic theology, that of theodicy.

The term theodicy as used in modern western philosophy of religion indicates the attempt to explain why a good, just and all-powerful God created a less than perfect world. The term is not indigenous to the Islamic tradition, and a major current within the tradition— the voluntarism of Ash‘ari Kalam theology—rejects the question of theodicy as meaningless. God's unfettered will, sufficiency apart from the world, and exclusive power preclude asking why God does this or that. God is not limited by any necessity of reason, and His acts require no deliberation, rational motive or external cause. Thus, God’s creation of injustice, unbelief and other evils is not susceptible to any explanation except that God wills it.

Despite this, theodicy and its division into two basic kinds—the best-of-all-possible-worlds theodicy, also known as optimism, and the free-will theodicy— prove useful as analytical shorthand for sorting through other theological currents in the Islamic tradition.! Mu'tazili Kalàm theology provides the primary instance of an Islamic free-will theodicy. While the

! Lowe this conceptual distinction to Marilyn McCord Adams, Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999), 179, and passim.

© Jon Hoover, 2007 This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/.

Mu*tazilis uphold God's sufficiency apart from the world along with the Ash‘aris, they also introduce purpose into God's creation. They explain that God creates human beings not out of His own need but for the benefit of humans themselves, which is to work for reward in the retributive order of obligations that God has imposed. Within this order God must do what is best (as/ab) for all creatures in respect of religion, and, according to some Mu'tazilis, in mundane matters as well. Humans for their part have free will and create their own good and bad deeds apart from God’s control. God is therefore just to reward and punish. If God were the sole creator of all human acts, He would obviously be unjust to punish the unbelief and disobedience that He creates.

Optimism or the best-of-all-possible-worlds theodicy appears in more than one strand of the Islamic tradition. An early instance occurs in the Kalam theology of al-Maturidi (d. 333/944) for whom evil serves the peculiar function of proving the existence of God. God creates all things, including evil, in conformity to His wisdom, and, by virtue of evil’s opposition to good, evil shows the contingency of the creation and its need for the Creator. Evil is thus a tool of God's wisdom to lead human beings to knowledge of God.’

While al-Maturidi serves as the eponym for the important Maturidi school of Kalàm theology, Ibn Sina (d. 428/1037) and his doctrine of providence (/záya) provide the key conceptual resources for the development of optimism in the other major strands of the Islamic tradition. For Ibn Sina, providence means that the First (i.e. God) is the source of the best possible order: the First is ^a cause in Itself of good and perfection inasmuch as that is possible (bi-basab al-imkan)-? Similarly, the knowledge of the First necessarily entails that the existence of everything is "according to the best order (‘ala absan al-nizam)^ Evil in Ibn Sinas view does not truly exist. It is rather a privation of being or existence, and it is a necessary consequence of and a means to the greater good that God providentially wills in creation.’

> J. Meric Pessagno, “The uses of Evil in Maturidian Thought,’ Studia Islamica 60 (1984): 59-82.

> [bn Sina, AL-Shif@: Al-Ilabiyyat (2), ed. Muhammad Yusuf Missa, et al. (Cairo: Al-Hay'a al-amma li-shu'ün al-marabi‘ al-amiriyya, 1380/1960), 415.

* [bn Sina, Al-Isharat wa al-tanbihat (Ed. Sulayman Dunya. 3 vols. Cairo: Dar ihy@ al-kutub al-arabiyya, 1366-67/1947-48), 3:206. Ibn Sina explains the providentially good ordering of the heavens and the earth in A-Mabda wa al-ma ad, ed. ‘Abd Allah Nüràni (Tehran: Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University— Tehran University, 1984), 88-90.

5 Ibn Sina, Al-Shifa: Al-Ilabiyyat (2), 414-422. Mana Ahmad Muhammad Abū Zayd offers a wide ranging overview of Ibn Sina’s thought on evil in Mafhim al-khayr wa al-sharr fi al-falsafa al-Islamiyya: Dirasa mugarana fi fikr Ibn Sina (Beirut: Al-Mu'assasa al-jami‘iyya li-l-dirasat wa al-nashr wa al-tawzr, 1411/1991). See also Shams C. Inati, The Problem of

Optimism is also widespread in Sufism. Sufis do not always speculate whether this world is the best possible, but they do typically affirm that God creates evil as an instrument of discipline on the spiritual path. Annemarie Schimmel sums up this perspective as follows: “The mystic can understand that God's wrath is mercy in disguise, and that the pain and punishment that He inflicts upon those who love Him are necessary for their spiritual growth—just as bitter medicine is necessary for the sick." In the more philosophical vein of Sufism, which draws on Avicennan conceptual resources, al-Ghazali (d. 505/1111) sparked a debate lasting eight centuries with the claim, "There is nothing in possibility more wonderful than what is (/aysa fi al-imkan abda mimma kan); and Ibn ‘Arabi (d. 638/1240) integrated optimism fully into his prodigious and influential mystical writings."

Also ranking with Muslim optimists is Ibn Taymiyya, as well as his most illustrious student Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (d. 751/1350). This has gone almost completely unnoticed in basic works on Islamic philosophy and theology in western languages.* Yet, observation of Ibn Taymiyyas optimism is not new. Joseph Bell broke important ground on several aspects of the shaykh’s theodicy in his 1979 Love Theory in Later Hanbalite Islam, which I will review in Chapter Two below,’ and, 40 years earlier, Henri Laoust in

Evil: Ibn Sina’ Theodicy (Binghamton, NY: Global Publications, Institute of Global Cultural Studies, Binghamton University, 2000); Jean R. Michot, La destinée de l'homme selon Avicenne (Louvain: Peeters, 1986), 61-66; and Marwan Rashed, “Théodicée et approximation: Avicenne; Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 10 (2000): 223-257.

6 Annemarie Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 1975), 198. Louis Massignon provides evidence for the instrumental role of suffering in Sufism in The Passion of al-Hallaj: Mystic and Martyr of Islam, trans. Herbert Mason (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982), 3:111-121.

7 On al-Ghazili and the subsequent controversy, see Eric L. Ormsby, Theodicy in Islamic Thought: The Dispute over al-Ghazali' “Best of all Possible Worlds” (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984). I survey Ormsby’s work at the end of Chapter Six. For a reminder that al-Ghazali’s theological views are not easily harmonized into a coherent position, see Norman Calder’s review of Ormsby’s book in Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 49 (1986): 211-2. For Ibn ‘Arabi see Ormsby, Theodicy, 103-7, and more comprehensively, William C. Chittick, The Sufi Path of Knowledge: Ibn al- Arabis Metaphysics of Imagination (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1989), especially 289-301.

* The sole mention of Ibn Taymiyya’s optimism that I have found in introductory works occurs in Fazlur Rahman, Islam, 2d ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), 113-4, who notes approvingly, although inaccurately in the case of the Maturidis, that “Ibn Taymiya reinstates into Muslim theology the doctrine of the purposiveness of the Divine behaviour, a doctrine so strenuously denied by Ash‘arism, Maturidism and Zahirism as compromising the omnipotence of God’s will and His dissimilarity to His creation.” Unfortunately, Rahman does not explore the implications of this in Ibn Taymiyya’s theology further.

? Joseph Normant Bell, Love Theory in Later Hanbalite Islam (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1979), 46-91.

his still unsurpassed 1939 Essai sur les doctrines sociales et politiques de Takid-Din Ahmad b. Taimiya concisely described the shaykh's theodicy thus:

God is essentially providence. Evil is without real existence in the world. All that God has willed can only conform to a sovereign justice and an infinite goodness, provided, however, that it is envisaged from the point of view of the totality and not from that of the fragmentary and imperfect knowledge that His creatures have of reality.... Ibn Taymiyya’s theodicy marks the advent in Sunni dogmatics of an optimism of Platonic inspiration which will be more amply and more literarily developed in the oeuvre of Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya.!?

Unfortunately, Laoust says little more than this about Ibn Taymiyya’s theodicy, and, buried away in Laoust’s encyclopedic tome, its significance has not been recognized. The present study seeks to rectify this by drawing together Ibn Taymiyya’s thought on the sundry questions that come under the rubric of theodicy and expositing, analyzing and occasionally translating his theodicean writings. I also examine the shaykh’s intellectual context in order to shed light on his theodicy' location in the wider Islamic tradition and trace precedents for his thought. A great deal more remains to be done in this regard, but the contextualizing work done here should be sufficient to show that Ibn Taymiyya articulates a best-of-all-possible-worlds theodicy over against traditional Ash‘arism and Mu‘tazilism that follows in the train of Ibn Sina, Ibn ‘Arabi and al-Ghazali, whatever his differences with these renowned figures on other counts. Attention is given as well to the theological method at work in Ibn Taymiyyas theodicy, and more will be said about this at the end of this Introduction.

It becomes apparent in the course of this study that Laoust's brief analysis of Ibn Taymiyyas place in the Islamic tradition quoted above requires modification and elaboration. As for the inspiration of Ibn Taymiyyas theodicy, Ibn Sinà is more proximate than Plato, although Plato certainly lies in the distant background. Additionally, inasmuch as al-Maturidi and al-Ghazali come earlier, Ibn Taymiyya does not mark the beginnings of optimism in Sunni theology. Nonetheless, his theodicy might be original in another significant respect. The shaykh combines a best-of-all-possible-worlds theodicy with a dynamic vision of God’s essence. Ibn Taymiyya’s God, who is perpetually active and creative from eternity, contrasts sharply with the ultimately timeless and motionless God of not only Ibn Sina and his successors but also the

Henri Laoust, Essai sur les doctrines sociales et politiques de Taki-d-Din Ahmad b. Taimiya, canoniste hanbalite né a Harran en 66 1/1262, mort a Damas en 728/1328 (Cairo: Imprimerie de l'institut frangais d'archéologie orientale, 1939), 169, cf. 515.

Kalàm theologians. It is because of the unique character of Ibn Taymiyyas God as ever active in a temporal sense that I call his optimism “perpetual.” This will become readily apparent in Chapter Two below.

Ibn Taymiyyas theodicy has not been without interest to later generations of Muslims. As Laoust correctly observes, Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya provides a more fully developed optimism than does Ibn Taymiyya himself, although the disciples theodicy and its debt to his master have yet to be studied carefully." Perhaps more significantly, Ibn Taymiyya is well known today as a major inspiration for contemporary Islamic resurgence, and it is common knowledge among students of modern Islam that the writings of the shaykh are important sources for the eighteenth and nineteenth century Wahhabi movement in Arabia and modernist reformers such as Rashid Rida (d. 1935).? While modern Muslim interest in Ibn Taymiyya is often thought to be social and political, there is anecdotal evidence that it extends to theodicy as well. The direct influence of Ibn Taymiyyas optimism is found in such diverse places as the work of the prominent Pakistani modernist

Fazlur Rahman (d. 1988) and a detailed volume on good and evil published

"A major source for Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya’s theodicy is Shif? al- alil ft mas@il al-qada? wa al-qadar wa al-hikma wa al-t lil, ed. al-Sayyid Muhammad al-Sayyid and Sa'id Mahmüd (Cairo: Dar al-Hadith, 1414/1994). Irmeli Perho, “Man Chooses his Destiny: Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya’s view on predestination,’ Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 12 (2001): 61-70, provides access to the basic ideas found in the first part of this work, but the scope of her article does not extend to the questions of wise purpose and causality in God’s will that are treated later in the book. Of the thirty chapters in Shif@ al-‘alil, A. de Vlieger, Kitab al qadr: Matériaux pour servir a l'étude de la doctrine de la prédestination dans la théologie musulmane (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1903), 116-169, translates parts of Chapters 7-12 and 17, which deal primarily with divine determination. Also of interest on Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya are Bell, Love Theory, 92-181; and Moshe Perlmann, "Ibn Qayyim and the Devil? in Studi Orientalistici in onore di Giorgio Levi della Vida, vol. 2 (Rome: Istituto per l'oriente, 1956), 330-7.

? For Ibn Taymiyya’s influence from his death through to early twentieth century Egyptian reform movements, see Laoust, Essai, 477—575; and Laoust, “L'influence @’Ibn-Taymiyya,” in Islam: Past Influence and Present Challenge, ed. Alford T. Welch and Pierre Cachia (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1979), 15-33. Ibn Taymiyya is seen widely today as the key inspiration for contemporary Islamic militancy, primarily because militants quote him as a key authority. However, accepting this linkage uncritically, as does Natana J. Delong-Bas, Wahhabi Islam: From Revival and Reform to Global Jihad (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2004), 247ff, is anachronistic and distorts Ibn Taymiyya into a more militant figure than he was. For antidotes to this problem, see Emmanuel Sivan, “Ibn Taymiyya: Father of the Islamic Revolution: Medieval Theology & Modern Politics; Encounter 60.5 (May 1983): 41-50; Johannes J.G. Jansen, “Ibn Taymiyyah and the Thirteenth Century: A Formative Period of Modern Muslim Radicalism,’ Quaderni di Studi Arabi 5-6 (1987-8): 391-6; Paul L. Heck, “Jihad Revisited} Journal of Religious Ethics 32 (2004): 95-128; and Yahya Michot, trans., Ibn Taymiyya: Mardin: Hégire, fuite du péché et «demeure de l'Islam» (Beirut: Dar Al-Bouraq, 1425/2004).

in Egypt by Muhammad al-Sayyid al-Julaynad.P? It may well be that Ibn Taymiyya writings, as well as those of Ibn al-Qayyim, are nurturing a broad movement of optimism in modern Islamic discourse. However, it is beyond the scope of the present book to examine the degree to which this is so, especially as this merits a major inquiry in its own right. An important aim of the present study is to provide a far firmer foundation than has previously been available for research of that kind.

Ibn Taymiyyas Theodicean Writings

Ibn Taymiyya wrote voluminously and often polemically on a wide range of issues in an effort to purge Islam of various innovations that he perceived it to have suffered and to illumine the pure religion of the Qur'an, the Sunna and the Salaf.'* His output as a scholar was complemented and shaped by

P For Fazlur Rahman see Note 8 above and his Revival and Reform in Islam: A Study of Islamic Fundamentalism (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2000), 148-156. Muhammad al-Sayyid al-Julaynad, Qadiyyat al-khayr wa al-sharr fi al-fikr al-islami: Ustiluha al-nagariyyajawanibuha al-tatbigiyya, Dirasa ‘ilmiyya li-mas illiyyat al-insan fi al-Islam, 2d Printing (Cairo: Matba‘at al-Halabi, 1981), provides a study of the Mu'tazili and Ash‘ari Kalam traditions on good and evil, evaluating both with the help of numerous references and borrowings from Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (e.g. 108-114, 134, 177-181, 205-213, 234-242, 261-2, 278-9, 298-303, and 320-1). ‘Umar Sulayman al-Ashqar, ‘Alam al-jinn wa al-shayyatin (Cairo: Bayt al-Hikma, 1413/1992), 155-167, borrows directly from Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya’s Shif@ al-‘alil to explain God's wise purpose in the creation of Satan. This is translated as Umar Sulaiman al-Ashqar, The World of the Jinn and Devils, trans. Jamaal al- Din M. Zarabozo, (Boulder, CO: Al-Basheer, 1998). Laoust, Essai, 515-6, observes that the modern Najdi scholar Sulayman b. Sahman (d. 1349/1930) adopts Ibn Taymiyya’s optimism but that Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab is much more Ash‘ari. For the influence of Ibn Taymiyya’s notion of divine determination (qadar) on Muhammad Rashid Rida, see Christian van Nispen Tot Sevenaer, Activité Humaine et Agir de Dieu: Le Concept de Sunan de Diew dans le commentaire coranique du Manar (Beyouth: Dar el-Machreq, 1996), 264-5, 483-4.

14 A manuscript giving an extensive list of Ibn Taymiyyas works has been attributed to Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya and printed as Asma mut allafat Ibn Taymiyya, ed. Salah al-Din al-Munajjid (Damascus: Matba‘at al-majma' al-'ilmi al-‘arabi, 1953). Using an additional manuscript source, Muhammad ‘Uzayr Shams and ‘Ali b. Muhammad ‘Imran have reedited this in A/-Jami‘ [i-sirat Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyya (661—728) khilal sal at qurün, with an introduction by Bakr b. ‘Abd Allah Abū Zayd (Mecca: Dar “alam al-fawa'id, 1420/1999-2000), 220-249. Shams and ‘Imran, Al-Jami‘, 8-13, also reject Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya’s authorship and attribute it to another of Ibn Taymiyya’s close followers Ibn Rushayyiq (d. 749/1348-9) on the basis of two arguments. First, Ibn Taymiyyas main biographer Muhammad b. Ahmad b. ‘Abd al-Hadi (d. 744/1343), Al“ Uqud al-durriyya min managib Shaykh al-Islam Ahmad b. Taymiyya (Beirut: Dar al-kutub al-'ilmiyya, n.d.), 26-7, copied a page from the list's preface, attributed it to Ibn Rushayyiq, and credited him with compiling a list. (Ibn ‘Abd al-Hadi, 4l Ugzd al-durriyya, 27-67, also provides a list of works, which has its own purposes and does not correspond exactly to that attributed to Ibn Rushayyiq.) Second, although Ibn Qayyim his vocation as the most prominent religious activist in the Bahri Mamlük sultanate of Egypt and Syria. The shaykh called for jihad against Mongol incursions from the east that threatened Mamlük sovereignty in Syria, and, while he may have been a Sufi himself, he actively opposed Sufi and popular religious practices that he believed were in violation of the sacred Law. Refusal to compromise on his allegedly anthropomorphic doctrine of God's attributes brought him public trials, imprisonment and a seven-year stay in Egypt (705-7 12/1306-1313). Ibn Taymiyya spent his last two years of life (726—8/1326—8) incarcerated in the citadel of Damascus for his criticism of tomb visitation and the cult of saints."

al-Jawziyya and Ibn Rushayyiq share the same kunya Abū ‘Abd Allah, references to Abū "Abd Allah undertaking a compilation of Ibn Taymiyya’s works found in an account by his disciple Ibn Murri (included in Shams and ‘Imran, A/-Jzzzi', 97-104) fit much better with what is otherwise known about Ibn Rushayyiq than with our information on Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya. These arguments allow very likely, although perhaps not definitive, attribution of this list to Ibn Rushayyiq. Significant lists of Ibn Taymiyyas writings are also found in the biographies by Salah al-Din Khalil b. Aybak al-Safadi (d. 764/1362), Kitab al-wafi bi- I-wafayat, vol. 7, ed. Ihsàn ‘Abbas (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1969), 23-30; Muhammad b. Shakir al-Kutubi (d. 764/1362), Fawat al-wafayyat wa al-dbayl 'alayba, ed. Yhsàn “Abbas (Beirut: Dar Sadir, 1973), 1:75-80; and Ibn Rajab (d. 795/1393), Kitab al-dhayl ‘ala tabagat al-hanabila, (Cairo: Matba'at al-sunna al-muhammadiyya, 1372/1953), 2:403—4. Ibn Rajab notes that it is impossible to account for everything Ibn Taymiyya wrote.

5 Shams and ‘Imran, Al-Jami‘, bring together the pre-modern biographies of Ibn Taymiyya, including those mentioned in the previous note. Available separately is a biography by Shams al-Din al-Dhahabi (d. 748/1347-8) in Caterina Bori, “A new source for the biography of Ibn Taymiyya; Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 67.3 (2004): 321-348, which contains both the Arabic and an English translation. For analysis of the Arabic biographies and chronicle reports concerning Ibn Taymiyya, see Donald P. Little, "Ihe Historical and Historiographical Significance of the Detention of Ibn Taymiyya; International Journal of Middle East Studies 4 (1973): 311-327; and An Introduction to Mamlik Historiography: An Analysis of Arabic Annalistic and Biographical Sources for the Reign of al-Malik an-Nasir Muhammad ibn Qala tin, (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1970). Modern discussions of Ibn Taymiyyas life include Caterina Bori, Ibn Taymiyya: una vita esemplare Analisi delle fonti classiche della sua biografia, Supplemento N. 1., Rivista Degli Studi Orientali, Vol. 76 (Pisa/ Roma: Istituti Editoriali e Poligrafici Internazionali, 2003); and various works of Henri Laoust: Essai, 7-150; “La biographie d'Ibn Taimiya d'aprés Ibn Katiz" Bulletin détudes orientales 9 (1942-3): 115-162; "Le Hanbalisme sous les Mamlouks Bahrides (658—784/1260—-1382)7 Revue des études islamiques 28 (1960): 1-71; and "Ibn Taymiyya The Encyclopedia of Islam, New edition [hereafter EI2] (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1954-2004), 3:951-5. Hasan Qasim Murad, "Ibn Taymiya on Trial: A Narrative Account of his Mihan;" Islamic Studies 18 (1979): 1-32, focuses on the shaykh's various trials. On the trials over anthropomorphism, see especially Sherman A. Jackson, “Ibn Taymiyyah on Trial in Damascus; Journal of Semitic Studies 39 (Spring 1994): 41-85. George Makdisi locates Ibn Taymiyya's si/sila in "Ibn Taimiya: A Sufi of the Qadiriya Order? American Journal of Arabic Studies 1 (1973): 118-129, and of related interest is George Makdisi, “The Hanbali School and Sufism, Boletin de la Asociacion Espanola de Orientalistas 15 (1979): 115-126, reprint as Part V in George Makdisi, Religion, Law and Learning in Classical Islam (Hampshire, UK: Variorum, 1991). There is also substantial biographical material on Ibn Taymiyya in the introduction to Jean R.

Certain difficulties attend research in Ibn Taymiyya’s theodicean writings. He often presumes in the reader a substantial knowledge of the Islamic religious tradition, and, in comparison to the full didactic style of his disciple Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Irmeli Perho aptly observes, “Ibn Taymiyya wrote very sparse prose and expressed his doctrinal views with a minimum of elaboration.”'¢ Thus, it is not always apparent what the shaykh intends to say. Moreover, he does not devote a single full and definitive work to theodicy. Instead, he deals with theodicean questions in fatwas, commentaries and refutations of widely varying length and completeness that, furthermore, approach the relevant issues from a number of different angles. In view of the spare and diffuse nature of Ibn Taymiyya’s reflection on theodicy, I have ranged widely in the shaykh’s corpus in search of applicable texts in order to provide a reasonably full picture of his thought on the subject.

In order to facilitate further discussion and reference, the remainder of this section describes Ibn Taymiyya’s major theodicean texts located for this study. The texts are dated where possible. Numerous shorter writings and passages in larger works beyond those listed here will be introduced briefly as they are employed in later chapters or cited only in the notes. The following section of this Introduction attends to the methodological issues involved in reconstructing the shaykh’s theodicy from these respective texts."

Michot, Ibn Taymiyya: Lettre a un roi croisé (Al-Risdlat al-Qubrusiyya) (Louvain-la-Neuve: Bruylant-Academia, 1995); and in Abdul Hakim I. al-Matroudi, The Hanbali School of Law and Ibn Taymiyyah: Conflict or Conciliation (London: Routledge, 2006), 13-30. Donald P. Little explores the possibility of analyzing Ibn Taymiyya’s psychology in “Did Ibn Taymiyya have a Screw Loose?” Studia Islamica 41 (1975): 93-111; and Yahya Michot seeks to explain Ibn Taymiyyas life-long celibacy in “Un célibataire endurci et sa maman: Ibn Taymiyya (m. 728/1328) et les femmes,’ Acta Orientalia Belgica 15 (2001): 165-190. Caterina Bori, "Ibn Taymiyya wa-jama‘atu-hu: Authority, Conflict and Consensus in Ibn Taymiyya’s Milieu,” forthcoming in Ibn Taymiyya and His Times, ed. Shahab Ahmed and Yossef Rapoport (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2007), provides valuable insight into the shaykh’s relations with his contemporary colleagues and followers. Bori also quotes statements by Ibn Taymiyya’s contemporaries that corroborate aspects of my characterization of the shaykh’s theological method described below in Chapter One. I am grateful to the author for sharing this article with me prior to publication.

15 Perho, “Man Chooses his Destiny,’ 63. A.S. Tritton in Muslim Theology (London: Luzac, 1947), 203, speaks of Ibn Taymiyyas style less sympathetically, stating, “He was not a clear thinker.”

17 Shahab Ahmed faces a similar set of methodological issues when examining Ibn Taymiyya' scattered statements on the Satanic verses in “Ibn Taymiyyah and the Satanic verses,” Studia Islamica 87 (1998): 67-124 (especially the comments on 74). Ahmed’s combination of translation, exposition and analysis provides a model of how these methodological difficulties may be overcome in order to make Ibn Taymiyya’s views accessible.