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Ibn Taymiyya (; 22 January 1263 – 26 September 1328)Ibn Taymiyya, Taqi al-Din Ahmad, The Oxford Dictionary of Islam. http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780195125580.001.0001/acref-9780195125580-e-959 was a Sunni Muslim ulama, jurist, muhaddith, Qadiri, proto-Salafi aqidah and iconoclast.Nettler, R. and Kéchichian, J.A., 2009. Ibn Taymīyah, Taqī al-Dīn Aḥmad. The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World, 2, pp.502–4. He is known for his diplomatic involvement with the Ilkhanid ruler Ghazan Khan at the Battle of Marj al-Saffar, which ended the Mongol invasions of the Levant. A legal jurist of the Hanbali school, Ibn Taymiyya's condemnation of numerous Sufism practices associated with wali and ziyarat made him a controversial figure with many rulers and scholars of the time, which caused him to be imprisoned several times as a result.
A polarizing figure in his own times and the centuries that followed,Tim Winter The Cambridge Companion to Classical Islamic Theology Cambridge University Press, May 22, 2008 p. 84 Ibn Taymiyya has emerged as one of the most influential medieval scholars in late modern Sunni Islam. He is also noteworthy for engaging in fierce religious polemics that attacked various schools of kalam, primarily Ash'arism and Maturidism, while defending the doctrines of Atharism. This prompted rival clerics and state authorities to accuse Ibn Taymiyya and his disciples of anthropomorphism, which eventually led to the censoring of his works and subsequent incarceration. (2025). 9780367417826, Routledge: Taylor & Francis Group. ISBN 9780367417826
Nevertheless, Ibn Taymiyya's numerous treatises that advocate for al-salafiyya al-iʿtiqādiyya, based on his ijtihad of the Quran and sunnah, constitute the most popular classical reference for later Salafi movements. (2025). 9780367417826, Routledge: Taylor & Francis Group. ISBN 9780367417826 Throughout his treatises, Ibn Taymiyya asserted there is no contradiction between reason and revelation, and denounced the usage of philosophy as a pre-requisite in seeking religious truth. As a cleric who viewed Shia Islam as a source of corruption in Muslim societies, Ibn Taymiyya was also known for his anti-Shia polemics throughout treatises such as Minhaj al-Sunna, wherein he denounced the Imami Shia creed as zandaqa. He issued a fatwa to wage jihad against the Shias of Kisrawan and personally fought in the Kisrawan campaigns himself, accusing Shias of acting as the fifth column of the Frank Crusaders and Mongol Ilkhanids. (2025). 9780199402069, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199402069
Within recent history, Ibn Taymiyya has been widely regarded as a major scholarly influence in jihadism movements, such as Salafi jihadism. Major aspects of his teachings, such as upholding the pristine monotheism of the salaf and campaigns to uproot what he regarded as polytheism, had a profound influence on Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, the founder of the Wahhabism reform movement formed in the Arabian Peninsula, as well as other later Sunni scholars. (2025). 9780367417826, Routledge: Taylor & Francis Group. ISBN 9780367417826 Syrian Salafi theologian Rashid Rida, one of the major modern proponents of Ibn Taymiyya's works, designated him as the Mujaddid of the 7th Islamic calendar.The Legal Thought of Jalāl Al-Din Al-Suyūṭī: Authority and Legacy, Page 133 Rebecca Skreslet Hernandez (2025). 9780367417826, Routledge: Taylor & Francis Group. ISBN 9780367417826 Ibn Taymiyya's doctrinal positions, such as his takfir of the Mongol Ilkhanids and allowing jihad against other Muslims, were referenced by later Islamist political movements, including the Muslim Brotherhood, Hizb ut-Tahrir, al-Qaeda, and Islamic State, to justify social uprisings against the contemporary governments of the Muslim world.
Ibn Taymiyya has been accused of being anti-Sufi,« The wahhābiyya and Sufism in the eighteenth century », Frederick De Jong and Bernd Radtke (Eds.), Islamic Mysticism Contested: Thirteen Centuries of Controversies and Polemics, Leiden, Brill, 1999, p. 145–161. based on selective and out-of-context use of some of his writings by fundamentalist movements. While he sometimes held radical positions and Ibn Taymiyya criticized certain practices or ideas he considered deviations, he acknowledged that Sufism is an integral part of IslamHenri, Essay on the social and political doctrines of Taḳī-d-Dīn Aḥmad b. Taimīyah: ḥanbalite canonist born in Ḥarran in 661/1262, died in Damascus in 728/1328 (Cairo: IFAO, 1939), p. 89–93. and praised many Sufi masters. It was said that he himself was affiliated with the Qadiriyya order.“Al-Hadi” manuscript in the Princeton Library, Yahuda Collection, fol. 154a, 169b, 171b-172a
In Damascus, his father served as the director of the Sukkariyya Madrasa, a place where Ibn Taymiyya also received his early education. He acquainted himself with the religious and secular sciences of his time. His religious studies began in his early teens when he committed the entire Quran to memory, and later came to learn the tajwid. From his father, he learnt the religious science of fiqh and usul al-Fiqh. Ibn Taymiyya studied the works of Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Abu Bakr al-Khallal, and Ibn Qudama, as well as the works of his own grandfather, Majd al-Din. His study of jurisprudence was not limited to the Hanbali tradition, as he also studied the other schools of jurisprudence.
The number of scholars under which he studied hadith is said to number more than two-hundred, four of whom were women. Those who are known by name amount to forty hadith teachers, as recorded by Ibn Taymiyya in his work titled Arba'un Haditha. Serajul Haque says, based on this, Ibn Taymiyya started to hear hadith from the age of five. One of Ibn Taymiyya's teachers was the first Hanbali Chief Justice of Syria, Shams al-Din al-Maqdisi, who held the newly created position instituted by Baibars as part of a reform of the judiciary. Al-Maqdisi later came to give Ibn Taymiyya permission to issue legal verdicts, making him a mufti at the age of seventeen.
Ibn Taymiyya's secular studies led him to devote attention to the Arabic language and literature by studying Arabic grammar and lexicography under Ali ibn Abd al-Qawi al-Tufi. He went on to master the famous book of Arabic grammar al-Kitab, written by the grammarian Sibawayhi. He also studied mathematics, algebra, calligraphy, speculative theology, philosophy, history, and heresiography.see aqidatul-waasitiyyah daarussalaam publications With the knowledge he gained from history and philosophy, he set to refute the prevalent philosophical discourses of his time, one of which was Aristotelianism. Ibn Taymiyya also learnt about Sufism and stated he had reflected on the works of Sahl al-Tustari, al-Junayd al-Baghdadi, Abu Talib al-Makki, Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani, Shihab al-Din Umar al-Suhrawardi, and Ibn Arabi. In 1282, Ibn Taymiyya completed his education at the age of 20.
Ibn Taymiyya had a simple life, most of which he dedicated to learning, writing, and teaching. He never married nor did he have a female companion throughout his years. Professor Al-Matroudi stated that this may be why he was able to engage fully with the political affairs of his time without holding any official position such as that of a qadi. An offer of an official position was made to him but he never accepted.
A strong influence on Ibn Taymiyya was the founder of the Hanbali school itself, Ahmad ibn Hanbal. Ibn Taymiyya was trained in his school by studying Ahmad's Musnad in great detail, having studied it multiple times. Though he spent much of his life following this school, he renounced taqlid near the end of his life.
His work was most influenced by the sayings and actions of the Salaf ( salaf), which is displayed in his works where he would give preference to their opinions over those of his contemporaries. The modern Salafi movement derives its name from these generations.
Ibn Taymiyya was a Ulema as well as an Islamic political activist. In his efforts he was persecuted and imprisoned on six occasions with the total time spent inside prison coming to over six years. Other sources say that he spent over twelve years in prison. His detentions were due to the pushback from the clerical establishment of the Mamluk Sultanate, who opposed certain elements of his creed and his views on some jurisprudential issues. However, according to Yahya Michot, "the real reasons were more trivial". Michot stated five reasons as to why Ibn Taymiyya was imprisoned by the Mamluk government, they being: not complying with the "doctrines and practices prevalent among powerful religious and Sufi establishments, an overly outspoken personality, the jealousy of his peers, the risk to public order due to this popular appeal and political intrigues." Baber Johansen stated that the reasons for Ibn Taymiyya's incarcerations were, "as a result of his conflicts with Muslim mystics, jurists, and theologians, who were able to persuade the political authorities of the necessity to limit Ibn Taymiyya's range of action through political censorship and incarceration."
Ibn Taymiyya's emergence in the public and political spheres began in 1293 when he was 30 years old, when the authorities asked him to issue a fatwa (legal verdict) on Assaf al-Nasrani, a Christian cleric who was accused of insulting Muhammad. He accepted the invitation and delivered his fatwa, calling for the man to receive the death penalty. Despite the fact that public opinion was very much on Ibn Taymiyya's side, the Governor of Syria attempted to resolve the situation by asking Assaf to accept Islam in return for his life, to which he agreed. This resolution was not acceptable to Ibn Taymiyya who then, together with his followers, protested against it outside the governor's palace, demanding that Assaf be put to death, on the grounds that any person—Muslim or non-Muslim—who insults Muhammad must be killed. His unwillingness to compromise, coupled with his attempt to protest against the governor's actions, resulted in him being punished with a prison sentence, the first of many such imprisonments which were to come. The French orientalist Henri Laoust says that during his incarceration, Ibn Taymiyya "wrote his first great work, al-Ṣārim al-maslūl ʿalā shātim al-Rasūl (The Drawn Sword against those who insult the Messenger)." Ibn Taymiyya, together with the help of his disciples, continued with his efforts against what, "he perceived to be un-Islamic practices" and to implement what he saw as his religious duty of commanding good and forbidding wrong. Yahya Michot says that some of these incidences included: "shaving children's heads", leading "an anti-debauchery campaign in brothels and taverns", hitting an atheist before his public execution, destroying what was thought to be a sacred rock in a mosque, attacking astrologers and obliging "deviant Sufi Shaykhs to make public acts of contrition and adhere to the Sunnah." Ibn Taymiyya and his disciples used to condemn wine sellers and they would attack wine shops in Damascus by breaking wine bottles and pouring them onto the floor.
A few years later in 1296, he took over the position of one of his teachers (Zayn al-Din Ibn al-Munadjdjaal), taking the post of professor of Hanbali jurisprudence at the Hanbaliyya madrasa, the oldest such institution of this tradition in Damascus. This is seen by some to be the peak of his scholarly career. The year when he began his post at the Hanbaliyya madrasa, was a time of political turmoil. The Mamluk sultan Al-Adil Kitbugha was deposed by his vice-sultan Lajin who then ruled from 1297 to 1299. Lajin desired to commission an expedition against the Christians of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia who formed an alliance with the Mongol Empire and participated in the military campaign which lead to the destruction of Baghdad, the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate, and the destruction of Harran, the birthplace of Ibn Taymiyya, for that purpose, he urged Ibn Taymiyya to call the Muslims to Jihad.
In 1298, Ibn Taymiyya wrote his explanation for the ayat al-mutashabihat (the unclear verses of the Qur'an) titled Al-`Aqidat al-Hamawiyat al-Kubra (The creed of the great people of Hama). The book is about divine attributes and it served as an answer to a question from the city of Hama, Syria. At that particular time Ash'arites held prominent positions within the Islamic scholarly community in both Syria and Egypt, and they held a certain position on the divine attributes of God. Ibn Taymiyya in his book strongly disagreed with their views and this heavy opposition to the common Ash'ari position, caused considerable controversy.
Once more, Ibn Taymiyya collaborated with the Mamluks in 1300, when he joined the punitive expedition against the Alawites and Shiites, in the Kasrawan region of the Mount Lebanon. Ibn Taymiyya believed that the Alawites were "more heretical than Jews and Christians", Ibn Taymiyya Majmoo` al-Fatawa 35/145 and according to Carole Hillenbrand, the confrontation with the Alawites occurred because they "were accused of collaborating with Christians and Mongols." Ibn Taymiyya had further active involvements in campaigns against the Mongols and their alleged Alawite allies.
In 1305, Ibn Taymiyya took part in a second military offensive against the Alawites and the Isma`ilis in the Kasrawan region of the Lebanese mountains where they were defeated. The majority of the Alawis and Ismailis eventually converted to Twelver Shiism and settled in south Lebanon and the Bekaa valley, with a few Shia pockets that survived in the Lebanese mountains. (2025). 9780739739136, Int'l Business Publications. ISBN 9780739739136 (2025). 9780521765848, Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521765848
"Until there stands even a single rock, do everything in your power to not surrender the castle. There is great benefit for the Syrians. Allah declared it a sanctuary for the people of Shām—where it will remain a land of faith and Sunnah until the descent of the Prophet Jesus."Despite political pressure, Ibn Taymiyya's directives were heeded by the Mamluk officer and Mongol negotiations to surrender the Citadel stalled. Shortly after, Ibn Taymiyya and a number of his acolytes and pupils took part in a counter-offensive targeting various Shia Islam tribes allied to the Mongols in the peripheral regions of the city; thereby repelling the Mongol attack. Ibn Taymiyya went with a delegation of Ulama to talk to Ghazan, who was the Khan of the Mongol Ilkhanate of Iran, to plead clemency.(2025). 9781032131832, Routledge. ISBN 9781032131832
The fatwa broke new Islamic legal ground because "no jurist had ever before issued a general authorization for the use of lethal force against Muslims in battle", and would later influence modern-day Jihadism in their use of violence against other Muslims whom they deemed as apostates. In his legal verdicts issued to inform the populace, Ibn Taymiyya classified the Tatars and their advocates into four types:
Ibn Taymiyya called on the Muslims to jihad once again and personally participated in the Battle of Marj al-Saffar against the Ilkhanid army; leading his disciples in the field with a sword. The battle began on April 20 of that year. On the same day, Ibn Taymiyya declared a fatwa which exempted Mamluk soldiers from fasting during Ramadan so that they could preserve their strength. Within two days the Mongols were severely crushed and the battle was won; thus ending Mongol control of Syria. These incidents greatly increased the scholarly prestige and social stature of Ibn Taymiyya amongst the masses, despite opposition from the establishment clergy. He would soon be appointed as the chief professor of the elite scholarly institute " Kāmiliyya Dār al-Haḍīth."
The first hearing was held with Ash'ari scholars who accused Ibn Taymiyya of Tashbih. At the time Ibn Taymiyya was 42 years old. He was protected by the then Governor of Damascus, Aqqush al-Afram, during the proceedings. The scholars suggested that he accept that his creed was simply that of the Hanbalites and offered this as a way out of the charge. However, if Ibn Taymiyya ascribed his creed to the Hanbali school of law then it would be just one view out of the four schools which one could follow rather than a creed everybody must adhere to. Uncompromising, Ibn Taymiyya maintained that it was obligatory for all scholars to adhere to his creed.
Two separate councils were held a year later on January 22 and 28, 1306. The first council was in the house of the Governor of Damascus Aqqush al-Afram, who had protected him the year before when facing the Shafii scholars. A second hearing was held six days later where the Indian scholar Safi al-Din al-Hindi found him innocent of all charges and accepted that his creed was in line with the "Qur'an and the Sunnah". Regardless, in April 1306 the chief Islamic judges of the Mamluk state declared Ibn Taymiyya guilty and he was incarcerated. He was released four months later in September.
After his release in Damascus, the doubts regarding his creed seemed to have resolved but this was not the case. A Shafii scholar, Ibn al-Sarsari, was insistent on starting another hearing against Ibn Taymiyya which was held once again at the house of the Governor of Damascus, Al-Afram. His book Al-Aqidah Al-Waasitiyyah was still not found at fault. At the conclusion of this hearing, Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn al-Sarsari were sent to Cairo to settle the problem.
Three years after his arrival in the city, Ibn Taymiyya became involved in efforts to deal with the increasing Shia influence amongst Sunni Muslims. An agreement had been made in 1316 between the amir of Mecca and the Ilkhanid ruler Öljaitü, brother of Ghazan Khan, to allow a favourable policy towards Shi'ism in the city. Around the same time the Shia theologian Allamah Al-Hilli, who had played a crucial role in the Mongol ruler's decision to make Shi'ism the state religion of Persia, wrote the book Minhaj al-Karamah (The Way of Charisma'), which dealt with the Shia doctrine of the Imamate and also served as a refutation of the Sunni doctrine of the caliphate. In response, Ibn Taymiyya wrote his famous book, Minhaj as-Sunnah an-Nabawiyyah, as a refutation of Al-Hilli's work.
According to the scholars of the time, an oath of divorce counted as a full divorce and they were also of the view that three oaths of divorce taken under one occasion counted as three separate divorces. The significance of this was, that a man who divorces the same partner three times is no longer allowed to remarry that person until and if that person marries and divorces another person. Only then could the man, who took the oath, remarry his previous wife. Ibn Taymiyya accepted this but rejected the validity of three oaths taken under one sitting to count as three separate divorces as long as the intention was not to divorce. Moreover, Ibn Taymiyya was of the view that a single oath of divorce uttered but not intended, also does not count as an actual divorce. He stated that since this is an oath much like an oath taken in the name of God, a person must expiate for an unintentional oath in a similar manner.
Due to his views and also by not abiding to the sultan's letter two years before forbidding him from issuing a fatwa on the issue, three council hearings were held, in as many years (1318, 1319 and 1320), to deal with this matter. The hearing were overseen by the Viceroy of Syria, Tankiz. This resulted in Ibn Taymiyya being imprisoned on August 26, 1320, in the Citadel of Damascus. He was released about five months and 18 days later, on February 9, 1321, by order of the Sultan Al-Nasir. Ibn Taymiyya was reinstated as teacher of Hanbali law and he resumed teaching.
During his imprisonment, he encountered opposition from the Maliki and Shafi'i Chief Justices of Damascus, Taḳī al-Dīn al-Ikhnāʾī. He remained in prison for over two years and ignored the sultan's prohibition, by continuing to deliver fatwas. During his incarceration Ibn Taymiyya wrote three works which are extant; Kitāb Maʿārif al-wuṣūl, Rafʿ al-malām, and Kitāb al-Radd ʿala 'l-Ikhnāʾī (The response to al-Ikhnāʾī). The last book was an attack on Taḳī al-Dīn al-Ikhnāʾī and explained his views on saints (wali).
When the Mongols invaded Syria in 1300, he was among those who called for a Jihad against them and he ruled that even though they had recently converted to Islam, they should be considered unbelievers. He went to Egypt in order to acquire support for his cause and while he was there, he got embroiled in religious-political disputes. Ibn Taymiyya's enemies accused him of advocating anthropomorphism, a view that was objectionable to the teachings of the Ash'ari school of Islamic theology, and in 1306, he was imprisoned for more than a year. Upon his release, he condemned popular Sufi practices and he also condemned the influence of Ibn Arabi (d. 1240), causing him to earn the enmity of leading Sufi shaykhs in Egypt and causing him to serve another prison sentence. In 1310, he was released by the Egyptian Sultan.
In 1313, the Sultan allowed Ibn Taymiyya to return to Damascus, where he worked as a teacher and a jurist. He had supporters among the powerful, but his outspokenness and his nonconformity to traditional Sunni doctrines and his denunciation of Sufi ideals and practices continued to draw the wrath of the religious and political authorities in Syria and Egypt. He was arrested and released several more times, but while he was in prison, he was allowed to write Fatwas (advisory opinions on matters of law) in defense of his beliefs. Despite the controversy that surrounded him, Ibn Taymiyya's influence grew and it spread from Hanbali circles to members of other Sunni legal schools and Sufi groups. Among his foremost students were Ibn Kathir (d. 1373), a leading medieval historian and a Quran commentator, and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziya (d. 1350), a prominent Hanbali jurist and a theologian who helped spread his teacher's influence after his teacher's death in 1328. Ibn Taymiyya died while he was a prisoner in the citadel of Damascus and he was buried in the city's Sufi cemetery.
Oliver Leaman says that being deprived of the means of writing led to Ibn Taymiyya's death. It is reported that two hundred thousand men and fifteen to sixteen thousand women attended his funeral prayer. Ibn Kathir says that in the history of Islam, only the funeral of Ahmad ibn Hanbal received a larger attendance. This is also mentioned by Ibn `Abd al-Hadi. Caterina Bori says that, "In the Islamic tradition, wider popular attendance at funerals was a mark of public reverence, a demonstration of the deceased's rectitude, and a sign of divine approbation."
Ibn Taymiyya is said to have "spent a lifetime objecting to tomb veneration, only to cast a more powerful posthumous spell than any of his Sufi contemporaries." On his death, his personal effects were in such demand "that bidders for his lice-killing camphor necklace pushed its price up to 150 dirhams, and his skullcap fetched a full 500." A few mourners sought and succeeded in "drinking the water used for bathing his corpse."Laoust, Henri, Essai sur les doctrines sociales et politiques de Taki-d-Din Ahmad b Timiya, Cairo, 1939, pp.149–50 His tomb received "pilgrims and sightseers" for 600 years. His resting place is now "in the parking lot of a maternity ward", though as of 2009 its headstone was broken, according to author Sadakat Kadri.Yahya Michot, www.saphirnews.com/Pour-une-tombe-a-Damas_a4483.html|Rédigé par Yahya Michot | Jeudi 21 Septembre 2006
In the pre-modern era, Ibn Taymiyya was considered a controversial figure within Sunni Islam and had a number of critics during his life and in the centuries thereafter. The Shafi'i scholar Ibn Hajar al-Haytami stated that,
He also stated that,
Taqi al-Din al-Hisni condemned Ibn Taymiyya in even stronger terms by referring to him as the "heretic from Harran" and similarly, Munawi considered Ibn Taymiyya to be an innovator though not an unbeliever. Taqi al-Din al-Subki criticised Ibn Taymiyya for "contradicting the consensus of the Muslims by his anthropomorphism, by his claims that accidents exist in God, by suggesting that God was speaking in time, and by his belief in the eternity of the world." Ibn Battuta (d. 770/1369) famously wrote a work questioning Ibn Taymiyya's mental state.Little, Did Ibn Taymiyya Have a Screw Loose? 95 The possibility of psychological abnormalities not with-standing, Ibn Taymiyya's personality, by multiple accounts, was fiery and oftentimes unpredictable.Antony Black, The History of Islamic Political Thought (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2001), 154.Ibn Taymiyya, Radical Polymath, Part I: Scholarly Perceptions (Religion Compass, 2015), p. 105 The historian Al-Maqrizi said, regarding the rift between the Sunni Ash'ari's and Ibn Taymiyya, "People are divided into two factions over the question of Ibn Taymiyya; for until the present, the latter has retained admirers and disciples in Syria and Egypt." Both his supporters and rivals grew to respect Ibn Taymiyya because he was uncompromising in his views. Dhahabi's views towards Ibn Taymiyya were ambivalent. His praise of Ibn Taymiyya is invariably qualified with criticism and misgivings and he considered him to be both a "brilliant Shaykh" and also "cocky" and "impetuous". The Hanafi-Maturidi scholar 'Ala' al-Din al-Bukhari said that anyone that gives Ibn Taymiyya the title Shaykh al-Islām is a disbeliever.
Despite the prevalent condemnations of Ibn Taymiyya outside Hanbali school during the pre-modern period, many prominent non-Hanbali scholars such as Ibrahim al-Kurrani (d.1690), Shāh Walī Allāh al-Dihlawi (d. 1762), Muhammad Birgivi (d. 1573), Ibn al-Amīr Al-San'ani (d. 1768), Al-Shawkani (d. 1834), etc. would come to the defense of Ibn Taymiyya and advocate his ideas during this era. In the 18th century, influential South Asian ulema and Islamic revival Shah Waliullah Dehlawi would become the most prominent advocate of the doctrines of Ibn Taymiyya, and profoundly transformed the religious thought in South Asia. His seminary, Madrasah-i-Rahimya, became a hub of intellectual life in the country, and the ideas developed there quickly spread to wider academic circles. Making a powerful defense of Ibn Taymiyya and his doctrines, Shah Waliullah wrote:
The reputation and stature of Ibn Taymiyya amongst non-Ḥanbalī Sunni scholars would significantly improve between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries. From a little-read scholar considered controversial by many, he would become one of the most popular scholarly figures in the Sunni religious tradition. The nineteenth-century Iraqi scholar Khayr al-Dīn al-Ālūsī (d. 1899) wrote an influential treatise titled Jalā’ al-‘aynayn fi muḥākamat al-Aḥmadayn in defense of Ibn Taymiyya. The treatise would make great impact on major scholars of the Salafiyya movement in Syria and Egypt, such as Jamāl al-Dīn al-Qāsimī (d. 1914) and Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā (d. 1935). Praising Ibn Taymiyya as a central and heroic Islamic figure of the classical era, Rashid Rida wrote:
Ibn Taymiyya's works served as an inspiration for later Muslim scholars and historical figures, who have been regarded as his admirers or disciples. In the contemporary world, he may be considered at the root of Wahhabism, the Senussi order and other later reformist movements."He has strongly influenced modern Islam for the last two centuries. He is the source of the Wahhābīyah, a reformist movement founded by Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb (died 1792), who took his ideas from Ibn Taymiyya's writings. Ibn Taymiyya also influenced various reform movements that have posed the problem of reformulating traditional ideologies by a return to sources.[2] Ibn Taymiyya has been noted to have influenced Rashid Rida, Maududi, Sayyid Qutb, Hassan al-Banna, Abdullah Azzam, and Osama bin Laden. The terrorist organization Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant used a fatwa of Ibn Taymiyya to justify the burning alive of Jordanian pilot Muath al-Kasasbeh. After the Iranian revolution, conservative Sunni Ulama robustly championed Ibn Taymiyya's anti-Shia polemics across the Muslim world since the 1980s; and vast majority of Sunni intellectual circles adopted Ibn Taymiyya's rhetoric against Shi'ism. (2025). 9789004118034, Brill. ISBN 9789004118034
Ibn Taymiyya adamantly insisted that his theological doctrines constituted the original creed of the Salaf, as well as that of Abul Hasan al-Ash'ari; the eponym of the Ash'arite school. He also believed that Sharia (Islamic law) was best preserved through the teachings and practices of the Salaf, the earliest three generations of Muslims. Modern movements salute Ibn Taymiyya as "the architect of Salafism", which symbolises the concept of reviving the traditions and values of the Golden Age of the prophet. For Salafiyya movements across the Muslim world, Ibn Taymiyya is their exemplar scholar who revived the methodology of the Salaf, and also a social reformer who defiantly stood against foreign occupation. Today, Salafi Muslims constitute the most avid readers and promoters of the works of Ibn Taymiyya.
One of main arguments put forth by Ibn Taymiyya was his categorising the world into distinct territories: the domain of Islam (dar al-Islam), where the rule is of Islam and sharia law is enforced; the domain of unbelief (dar-al-kufr) ruled by Kafir; and the domain of war (dar al-harb) which is territory under the rule of unbelievers who are involved in an active or potential conflict with the domain of Islam. (Ibn Taymiyya included a fourth. When the Mongols, whom he considered unbelievers, took control of the city of Mardin the population included many Muslims. Believing Mardin was neither the domain of Islam, as Islam was not legally applied with an armed forces consisting of Muslims, nor the domain of war because the inhabitants were Muslim, Ibn Taymiyya created a new "composite" category, known as dar al-`ahd.) A second concept is making a declaration of apostasy (takfir) against a Muslim who does not obey Islam. But at the same time Ibn Taymiyya maintained that no one can question anothers faith and curse them as based on one's own desire, because faith is defined by God and the prophet. He said, rather than cursing or condemning them, an approach should be taken where they are educated about the religion.
Another concept attributed to Ibn Taymiyya is, "the duty to oppose and kill Muslim rulers who do not implement the revealed law (shari'a). Based on this doctrine, Ibn Taymiyya excommunicated the Ilkhanate for not ruling by Sharia (Islamic law); despite officially professing Islam. Ibn Taymiyya issued various obliging all Muslims to fight the Mongols; declaring them as Mushrikoun (polytheists) similar to the people from the age of Jahiliyyah (pre-Islamic ignorance). Thus, he is widely regarded as the "spiritual forefather" of the Salafi-Jihadist thought. 20th century Islamism ideologues like Rashid Rida, Sayyid Qutb, Abd al Salam Faraj, Usama bin Laden, etc. drew upon these revolutionary ideas to justify armed Jihad against the contemporary nation-states. Ibn Taymiyya's fatwa on Alawites as "more infidel than Christians and Jews" has been recited by Muslim Brotherhood affiliated scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawi.
Ibn Taymiyya's role in the Islamist movements of the twentieth and twenty first century have also been noted by the previous Coordinator for Counterterrorism at the United States Department of State, Daniel Benjamin, who labels the chapter on the history of modern Islamic movements in his book The Age of Sacred Terror, as "Ibn Taymiyya and His children". Yossef Rapoport, a reader in Islamic history at Queen Mary, however, says this is not a probable narrative. Ibn Taymiyya's intellectual tradition and ideas such as his emphasis on the revival of pristine ideals and practices of early generations also made an intense impact on the leading ideologue of revolutionary Islamism in South Asia, Sayyid Abul A'la Maududi (1903–1979 C.E/ 1321–1399 A.H).
According to Nettler and Kéchichian, Ibn Taymiyya affirmed that Jihad against the Mongols, "was not only permissible but obligatory because the latter ruled not according to Sharīʿah but through their traditional, and therefore manmade, Yassa code. This essentially meant that Mongols were living in a state of Jahiliyyah (ignorance)." The authors further state that his two famous students, Ibn Qayyim and Ibn Kathir, agreed with this ruling. He called for a defensive jihad to mobilize the people to kill the Mongol rulers and any one who supported them, Muslim or non-Muslim. Ibn Taymiyya when talking about those who support the Mongols said, "Everyone who is with them (Mongols) in the state over which they rule has to be regarded as belonging to the most evil class of men. He is either an atheist (zindīq) or a hypocrite who does not believe in the essence of the religion of Islam. This means that he (only) outwardly pretends to be Muslim or he belongs to the worst class of all people who are the people of the bida` (heretical innovations)." Yahya Mochet says that, Ibn Taymiyya's call to war was not simply to cause a "rebellion against the political power in place" but to repel an "external enemy".
In another series of fatwas, Ibn Taymiyya reiterated the religious obligation of Muslims to fight the Ilkhanate on account of their negligence of Sharia. He also took issue with their non-religious approach to dealing with various communities such as Christians, Jews, Buddhists, etc. and employing a large chunk of their armies with non-Muslims. (2025). 9781032131832, Routledge. ISBN 9781032131832 Citing these and various other reasons, Ibn Taymiyya pronounced:
In 2010, a group of Islamic Scholars at the Mardin conference argued that Ibn Taymiyya's famous fatwa about the residents of Mardin when it was under the control of the Mongols was misprinted into an order to "fight" the people living under their territory, whereas the actual statement is, "The Muslims living therein should be treated according to their rights as Muslims, while the non-Muslims living there outside of the authority of Islamic Law should be treated according to their rights." They have based their understanding on the original manuscript in the Al-Zahiriyah Library, and the transmission by Ibn Taymiyya's student Ibn Muflih. The participants of the Mardin conference also rejected the categorization of the world into different domains of war and peace, stating that the division was a result of the circumstances at the time. The participants further stated that the division has become irrelevant with the existence of nation states.
According to Lebanese people philosopher Majid Fakhry, "Ibn Taymiyah protests against the abuses of philosophy and theology and advocates a return to the orthodox ways of the ancients ( Salaf)... in his religious zeal he is determined to abolish centuries of religious truth as they had been long before they became troubled by theological and philosophical controversies."
Jamaat-e Islami leader Abdul Haq Ansari contends the ubiquitous notion that Ibn Taymiyya rejected Sufism outright as erroneous. While "the popular image of Ibn Taymiyya is ... that he criticized Sufism indiscriminately ... was deadly against the Sufis, and ... saw no place for Sufism in Islam,"M. Abdul Haq-Ansari, "Ibn Taymiyya and Sufism", Islamic Studies, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Spring, 1985), pp. 1–12 it is historically known, according to the same scholar, that Ibn Taymiyya actually considered Tasawwuf to be a significant discipline of Islam. "Far from saying Sufism has no place in Islam", Ibn Taymiyya was on the whole "sympathetic" towards what everyone at the time considered an important aspect of Islamic life. Various scholars have also asserted that Ibn Taymiyya had a deep reverence and appreciation for the works of such major Sufi Wali (saints) such as Junayd, Sahl al-Tustari, Abu Talib al-Makki, Bayazid Bastami, etc., and was part of the Qadiriyya Tariqa himself.Makdisi, ', American Journal of Arabic Studies 1, part 1 (1973), pp. 118–28 Saudi Arabia scholar Hatim al-Awni has criticised Ibn Taymiyya over his sectarian discourse against Ash'arite and schools as well as his creedal beliefs like three-fold classification of Tawhid (monotheism). He also wrote about the origins of Sufism and types of Sufis in his Majmu' al-Fatawa, which equates the "Sufi of realities" with the " siddeeq," or very truthful Muslim.
Others such as the French scholar Henri Laoust (1905–1983) have argued that such portrayals of Ibn Taymiyya are flawed inasmuch as they are often borne of a limited reading of the theologian's substantial corpus of works, many of which have not yet been translated from the original Arabic. According to Laoust, Ibn Taymiyya wanted to reform the practice of medieval Sufism as part of his wider aim to Islah Sunni Islam (of which Sufism was a major aspect at the time) by divesting both these traditions of what he perceived as Bidah within them.
According to James Pavlin, Professor of theology at Rutgers University: "Ibn Taymiyya remains one of the most controversial Islamic thinkers today because of his supposed influence on many fundamentalist movements. The common understanding of his ideas have been filtered through the bits and pieces of his statements that have been misappropriated by alleged supporters and avowed critics alike."
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