Theology as Translation: Ibn Taymiyya's Fatwa permitting Theology and its Reception into his Averting the Conflict between Reason and Revealed Tradition (Darʾ Taʿāruḍ al-ʿAql wa l-Naql): Ibn Taymiyya's Fatwa permitting Theology

Hoover, Jon; Mahajneh, Marwan Abu Ghazaleh

Abstract

The Ḥanbalī jurist Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328) wrote his famous tome Darʾ Taʿāruḍ al-ʿAql waʾl-Naql (Averting the Conflict between Reason and Revealed Tradition) in Damascus sometime after 713/1313 to critique the “universal rule” (qānūn kullī) of the Ashʿarī kalām theologian Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 606/1210).2 According to al-Rāzī’s rule, precedence must be given to reason when reason and revelation conflict, and, when reason contradicts the plain sense of a revealed text, that sense must be either reinterpreted to accord with reason or delegated to God and given no further reflection.3 Ibn Taymiyya rejects al-Rāzī’s rule with 44 considerations or arguments (wujūh) of widely varying length to make the claim that there is in fact no conflict between reason and revealed tradition. Reason properly understood and the texts of revelation are in complete accord.

Citation

Hoover, J., & Mahajneh, M. A. G. (2018). Theology as Translation: Ibn Taymiyya's Fatwa permitting Theology and its Reception into his Averting the Conflict between Reason and Revealed Tradition (Darʾ Taʿāruḍ al-ʿAql wa l-Naql): Ibn Taymiyya's Fatwa permitting Theology. Muslim World, 108(1), 40-86. https://doi.org/10.1111/muwo.12229

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Nov 24, 2016
• Online Publication Date: Feb 6, 2018
• Publication Date: 2018-01
• Deposit Date: Nov 25, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 31, 2018
• Journal: The Muslim World
• Print ISSN: 0027-4909
• Electronic ISSN: 1478-1913
• Publisher: Wiley
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 108
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 40-86
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/muwo.12229
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/909805
• Publisher URL: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/muwo.12229/abstract
• Contract Date: Nov 25, 2016