Taqi ad-Din Ibn Taymiyyah
1263-1328 · Islamic Philosophy · Known
Ibn Taymiyyah was a Hanbali jurist and theologian in Damascus whose own rulers jailed him more than once. He went after Shia doctrine, the cult of saints' shrines and the theologians' speculative reasoning alike, and sent Muslims back to the Qur'an and the reports of the Prophet, nothing beside. Sunni revivalists, the movements that call Islam back to its earliest sources, have leaned on him since the 1700s.
Signature
The position Ibn Taymiyyah is most identified with in the Profiler:
- The Divine
- strongly leans Describable
- Authority
- Divine Revelation
Positions on the 10 axes the sources answer
- Society
- leans Collectivism (25 on a 0–100 scale from Collectivism to Individualism)
- The Divine
- strongly leans Describable (0 on a 0–100 scale from Describable to Indescribable)
- Universals
- leans Nominalism (75 on a 0–100 scale from Realism to Nominalism)
- Meaning
- strongly leans Inherent (100 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Order
- leans Vertical (22 on a 0–100 scale from Vertical to Horizontal)
- Ground of Being
- leans Transcendence (75 on a 0–100 scale from Immanence to Transcendence)
- Truth
- leans Objective (75 on a 0–100 scale from Subjective to Objective)
- Polity
- leans Illiberalism (25 on a 0–100 scale from Illiberalism to Liberalism)
- Ignorance
- mildly leans Bondage (35 on a 0–100 scale from Bondage to Bliss)
- Allegiance
- leans Local (25 on a 0–100 scale from Local to Global)
10 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Ibn Taymiyyah refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Non-Trinitarian Monotheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Government
- Monarchy / Confessional State
What is your ideal form of government? - Highest Good
- Virtue / Knowledge
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Moral Realism
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - Perception
- Direct Realism
What do we directly perceive? - Knowledge
- Tradition / Grounded in God
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Divine Command
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Divine Providence
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Beginning of Things
- Creation ex Nihilo
What is the origin of reality? - Time
- Linear Progressive / Eschatological
What is the fundamental shape of time? - Authority
- Divine Revelation
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Language
- Logos
What is the fundamental nature of language? - Law
- Sacred Law
What is the ultimate source of legitimate law? - Death
- Judgement
What happens at death? - Role of Emotion
- Obstacle to Reason / Virtue to Cultivate
What is the proper role of emotion? - Human Nature
- Redeemably Corrupted
What is human nature? - Primary Bond
- The Divine
What is your primary bond and loyalty?