Ibn Taymiyya on Reason and Revelation A Study of Dar taru al-aql wa-l-naql (Islamic Philosophy, Theology and Science. Texts and Studies)

In Ibn Taymiyya on Reason and Revelation, Carl Sharif El-Tobgui offers a comprehensive analysis of Ibn Taymiyya’s ten-volume magnum opus, Darʾ taʿāruḍ al-ʿaql wa-l-naql, elucidating its author’s foundational reconstitution of rationality through the multifaceted ontological, epistemological, and linguistic reforms he carries out. Readership: Students and scholars of Ibn Taymiyya or Islamic theology, philosophy, or rationalism; students and scholars of medieval Christian and Jewish scholasticism; general readers interested in questions of reason and revelation. ‎Contents ‎Acknowledgements ‎List of Figures and Tables ‎Figures ‎Tables ‎Mise en Scène ‎Introduction ‎1. Contours of a Conflict ‎2. Why the Darʾ taʿāruḍ? ‎3. About This Work ‎3.1. Aims, Method, and Scope ‎3.2. Structure and Major Themes ‎Part 1. Reason vs. Revelation? ‎Chapter 1. Reason and Revelation in Islam before Ibn Taymiyya ‎1. Reason and Revelation, Reason in Revelation ‎2. The Early Emergence of Rationalist and Textualist Tendencies: The Case of the Law ‎3. Early Theological Reflection and Contention ‎3.1. The Translation Movement and the Impact of Greek Philosophy ‎4. The Muʿtazila ‎5. Non-speculative Theology and the Legacy of Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal ‎6. The Miḥna and Its Aftermath ‎7. Nascent Ashʿarī Thought and the Early Kalām ‎7.1. al-Ashʿarī ‎7.2. al-Bāqillānī ‎8. Philosophy ‎8.1. al-Kindī ‎8.2. al-Fārābī ‎8.3. Ibn Sīnā ‎9. The New Kalām and Subsequent Developments ‎9.1. al-Juwaynī ‎9.2. al-Ghazālī ‎10. Kalām and Falsafa in the Wake of al-Ghazālī ‎10.1. Ashʿarī Theology and the Struggle to Orthodoxy ‎10.2. Philosophical Theology and the Fate of Falsafa Proper ‎10.3. Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī ‎Chapter 2. Ibn Taymiyya: Life, Times, and Intellectual Profile ‎1. The Life and Times of Ibn Taymiyya (661–728/1263–1328) ‎2. Intellectual Profile ‎3. Character and Contemporary Reception ‎4. Ibn Taymiyya’s Works ‎5. The Historiography of the Darʾ taʿāruḍ: Ibn Taymiyya’s Assessment of the Intellectual Legacy He Inherited ‎6. The Darʾ taʿāruḍ in Context: Ibn Taymiyya’s View of Previous Attempts to Solve the Conundrum of Reason and Revelation ‎Chapter 3. On the Incoherence of the Universal Rule and the Theoretical Impossibility of a Contradiction between Reason and Revelation ‎1. Ibn Taymiyya on the Universal Rule and the Variety of Responses It Has Elicited ‎2. The End Result of Figurative Interpretation (taʾwīl) ‎3. Specious Rationality and Its Discontents: Reason in a Cul-de-Sac ‎4. Ibn Taymiyya’s Project: Refuting the Universal Rule ‎5. On Reason Grounding Our Knowledge of Revelation ‎6. Knowledge vs. Conjecture: Conclusiveness Is What Counts ‎7. Not “Scriptural vs. Rational” but “Scripturally Validated vs. Innovated” ‎8. Further Arguments Regarding the Rational Contradictoriness of the Universal Rule ‎9. On the Incompatibility of the Universal Rule with the Status and Authority of Revelation ‎Part 2. Ibn Taymiyya’s Reform of Language, Ontology, and Epistemology ‎Chapter 4. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Manqūl, or What Is Revelation? ‎1. Taʾwīl and the Meaning of Qurʾān 3:7 ‎1.1. The Meaning of “Taʾwīl” ‎2. The Centrality of Context and Ibn Taymiyya’s “Contextual Taʾwīl” ‎2.1. Ibn Taymiyya’s Contextual Taʾwīl in Practice ‎2.2. Taʾwīl on the Basis of Intertextuality ‎2.3. Taʾwīl on the Basis of the Positions of the Salaf ‎3. The Salaf and the Authority of Their Linguistic Convention (ʿurf) ‎3.1. The Salaf’s Authority in Knowledge and the Understanding of Revelation ‎4. Analysis of Terms to Detect and Correct for Semantic Shift ‎5. A Case Study: The Terms wāḥid, tawḥīd, and tarkīb ‎Chapter 5. Ṣarīḥ al-Maʿqūl, or What Is Reason? ‎1. What Exists? Ibn Taymiyya’s Account of Reality ‎1.1. Self-Standing Entities (Aʿyān): The Realms of the Seen and the Unseen ‎2. How Do We Know What Exists? The Primary Sources of Knowledge ‎2.1. The First Source of Knowledge: Sensation (ḥiss) ‎2.2. The Second Source of Knowledge: Transmitted Reports (khabar) ‎3. The Realm of the Mind: What Exists fī al-adhhān? ‎3.1. Universals ‎3.2. Essence and Existence, Essence and Attributes ‎4. The Structure of Reason ‎4.1. Self-Evident and A Priori Knowledge ‎4.2. Fiṭra: The Original Normative Disposition ‎4.3. Ḍarūra (Necessity) ‎4.4. Tawātur as the Final Epistemic Guarantor ‎Chapter 6. Reason Reconstituted: The Divine Attributes and the Question of Contradiction between Reason and Revelation ‎1. Rational Inference and the Question of Qiyās al-ghāʾib ʿalā al-shāhid ‎2. Ibn Taymiyya’s Reforms Applied: The Question of the Divine Attributes ‎3. Concluding Reflections ‎Appendix A. Summary Outline of the Darʾ taʿāruḍ ‎Appendix B. Detailed Outline of the Darʾ taʿāruḍ ‎Volume 1 ‎Volume 2 ‎Volume 3 ‎Volume 4 ‎Volume 5 ‎Volume 6 ‎Volume 7 ‎Volume 8 ‎Volume 9 ‎Volume 10 ‎Glossary of Arabic Terms ‎Glossary of Proper Names ‎Bibliography ‎Index of Arabic Passages ‎Index of Ḥadīth ‎Index of People and Places ‎Index of Qurʾānic Verses ‎Index of Subjects "In Ibn Taymiyya on Reason and Revelation, Carl Sharif El-Tobgui offers the first comprehensive study of Ibn Taymiyya's ten-volume magnum opus, Dar' ta'arud al-'aql wa-l-naql. In his colossal riposte to the Muslim philosophers and rationalist theologians, the towering Ḥanbalǐ polymath rejects the call to prioritize reason over revelation in cases of alleged conflict, interrogating instead the very conception of rationality that classical Muslims had inherited from the Greeks. In its place, he endeavors to articulate a reconstituted "pure reason" both truly universal and in full harmony with authentic revelation. Based on a line-by-line reading of the entire Dar' ta'arud, El-Tobgui's study carefully elucidates the "philosophy of Ibn Taymiyya" as it emerges from the multifaceted ontological, epistemological, and linguistic reforms Ibn Taymiyya carries out"-- Provided by publisher In Ibn Taymiyya on Reason and Revelation, Carl Sharif El-Tobgui offers the first comprehensive study of Ibn Taymiyyas ten-volume magnum opus, Dar taru al-aql wa-l-naql. In his colossal riposte to the Muslim philosophers and rationalist theologians, the towering anbal polymath rejects the call to prioritize reason over revelation in cases of alleged conflict, interrogating instead the very conception of rationality that classical Muslims had inherited from the Greeks. In its place, he endeavors to articulate a reconstituted pure reason that is both truly universal and in full harmony with authentic revelation. Based on a line-by-line reading of the entire Dar taru, El-Tobguis study carefully elucidates the philosophy of Ibn Taymiyya as it emerges from the multifaceted ontological, epistemological, and linguistic reforms that Ibn Taymiyya carries out in this pivotal work. In Ibn Taymiyya on Reason and Revelation, Carl Sharif El-Tobgui offers a comprehensive analysis of Ibn Taymiyya's ten-volume magnum opus, Darʾ taʻāruḍ al-ʻaql wa-l-naql, elucidating its author's foundational reconstitution of rationality through the multifaceted ontological, epistemological, and linguistic reforms he carries out. Readership: Students and scholars of Ibn Taymiyya or Islamic theology, philosophy, or rationalism; students and scholars of medieval Christian and Jewish scholasticism; general readers interested in questions of reason and revelation