Ibn Taymiyya
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Taqi al-Din Ahmad ibn Taymiyya (born 661 AH / 1263 CE in Harran, died 728 AH / 1328 CE in Damascus) was a Muslim scholar specializing in jurisprudence, principles of Islamic law, Islamic theology, and Qur'anic exegesis. He came from a Hanbali family—one of the four schools of Sunni Islam—and both his father and grandfather were legal scholars. He was honored with the title "Shaykh al-Islam," an honorific designation used for eminent scholars over several centuries.
He spent much of his life in Damascus and Cairo, repeatedly embroiled in scholarly and political disputes. He was imprisoned several times in the jails of Cairo, Alexandria, and the Citadel of Damascus, resulting from his legal opinions and positions that opposed those held by many scholars of his era. He died while in prison.
Early life and education
His family fled Harran due to Mongol invasions and settled in Damascus during his childhood. There he studied Hadith, Hanbali jurisprudence, Arabic language, and comparative Islamic law. He became known for his early work as a lecturer and legal authority. He adopted the method of returning to the Qur'an and Sunna (the Prophet's tradition) and the understanding of the early generations (Salaf), rather than relying solely on the positions of a single school of law.
Thought and controversial positions
He argued that reason and transmitted reports (revelation) do not genuinely contradict each other, which became the subject of his book "Darʾ taʿaarud al-ʿaql wa al-naql" (Reconciling Reason and Revelation). On God's attributes, he advocated taking them as they appear in the texts without resorting to taʾwīl (figurative interpretation), a position that departed from Ashʿari practice. He also wrote positions concerning visits to tombs and long journeys to them, and concerning the pronouncement of three divorces at once, which differed from the widely accepted views of his time.
Writings
His writings are extremely numerous, and most have been collected in "Majmuʿ al-Fataawaa" (Collection of Legal Opinions). His well-known works include "Minhaj al-Sunna al-Nabawiyya" (The Method of the Prophetic Sunna, a response to a Shiʿi argument), "al-ʿAqīda al-Wāsitiyya" (The Intermediate Creed), "al-Siyāsa al-Sharʿiyya" (On Islamic Governance and Administration), and "al-Jawāb al-Sahīh" (The Correct Answer, regarding Christianity). His most famous student was Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, whose writings transmitted Ibn Taymiyya's thought to later generations.
Influence and ongoing debate
Many scholars of his time, including some from the Shāfiʿī and Ashʿarī schools, opposed his positions fiercely, and these disputes continued for centuries afterward. From the later medieval period onward, his writings influenced movements of Islamic reform, including the call of Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb and the approach known as Salafism. Today he remains a contested figure: some regard him as a mujtahid (qualified legal scholar) who revitalized Islamic knowledge, while others accuse him of departing from scholarly consensus (ijmāʿ).