Ibn Taymiyya, Radical Polymath, Part I: Scholarly Perceptions

Abstract

AbstractIbn Taymiyya has aroused a spectrum of both positive and negative perceptions in the pre‐modern and modern worlds. His heterodox legal, political, and theological views routinely upset religious and state authorities, and throughout his life (661/1263–728/1328), his unpopular opinions led him to prison on a number of occasions, including the final months before he died. Despite his enemies, his admirers were also many, and according to some accounts, hundreds of thousands attended his funeral. By all accounts, such conflicted perceptions remained across the centuries. Contemporary scholarship, moreover, continues to cast Ibn Taymiyya in polarizing manners. Some see him as a social and intellectual deviant while others draw on him as a key source of inspiration in both political and religious realms. ‘Salafi’ and ‘Wahhabi’ movements have selectively adopted his views, ranging from jihād to anti‐Sufi tendencies and the promotion of state‐sponsored Islamic law (sharī‘a). The complex polymath, however, wrote prodigiously on numerous topics including theology, political theory, qur'anic exegesis, jurisprudence, and mysticism. This article surveys Ibn Taymiyya's life with particular attention to biographical perceptions in the pre‐modern and modern worlds. The second part of this article explores Ibn Taymiyya's intellectual contributions to a number of debates in his lifetime and following, with particular attention to how secondary scholarship has framed his work.