Ibn Taymiyyah S Ethics

Ibn Taymiyya is a thinker often associated with dogmatism, but who also valued moderation and considered himself a defender of the harmony between human reason and religious faith. By closely examining the tenets of his ethical thought, Sophia Vasalou sheds fresh light on Taymiyya's intellectual identity.

Preface; Foreword Michael Marmura; Conventions; Titles and locations of the original articles; Introduction; 1. Islamic theology and Muslim philosophy; 2. Ethics in classical Islam: a conspectus; 3. Ethical presuppositions of the Qur'an; 4. 'Injuring oneself' in the Qur'an, in the light of Aristotle; 5. Two theories of value in early Islam; 6. Islamic and non-Islamic origin of Mu'tazilite ethical rationalism; 7. The rationalist ethics of 'Abd al-Jabbar; 8. Deliberation in Aristotle and 'Abd al-Jabbar; 9. Ash'ari; 10. Juwayni's criticisms of Mu'tazilite ethics; 11. Ghazali on the ethics of action; 12. Reason and revaltion in Ibn Hazm's ethicical thought; 13. The basis of authority of concensus in Sunnite Islam; 14. Ibn Sina's 'Essay on the secret of destiny'; 15. Averroes on good and evil; 16. Combinations of reason and tradtion in Islamic ethics; Select bibliography; Index.

This book analyzes for the first time in English the ethical theory that underpins Quranic legislation by providing a classification of specific verses in which Islam's holy book discusses moral issues. It demonstrates the ways in which the Quran theoretically and practically provides the moral code to which Muslims around the world adhere. The author divides his analysis into a survey of Quranic attitudes towards the basic ethical issues of obligation and responsibility, issues of moral psychology such as motivation and intention, as well as matters of social ethics such as the function of law in society. He then explores the meanings of individual morality, morality within the family and civil society, and the relationship of morality to the idea of the state.

This book approaches the question of technology from an Islamic ethical perspective. The book tries to broaden the scope of the Sharia to deal comprehensively with the ethical questions and dilemmas that arise in the midst of a postmodern technological culture due to the absence of well-defined religious-ethical ends. It looks at the maqasid as a universal ethical theory to be interpreted and applied in the global technological context. It weaves the contemporary philosophical analysis of technology within the maqasid discourse and assesses modern technology through the lens of the ultimate aims and purposes of the Sharia. It works out the relationship between the various objectives and how they can be developed into an Islamic ethics of technology. Following in the recent interest in the objectives of the Sharia, the book further expands the scope of the maqasid and carries it further to encompass metaphysical and ethical debates surrounding technology. Anyone interested in finding alternatives to the existing technological model will find this book valuable. Specifically those interested in Islam and Modern World and how ijtihad is being undertaken to tackle contemporary ethical problems will find this book helpful.

The Muslim jurist Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328) is famous for polemic against Islamic philosophy, theology and rationalizing mysticism, but his positive theological contribution has not been well understood. This comprehensive study of Ibn Taymiyya’s theodicy helps to rectify this lack. Exposition and analysis of Ibn Taymiyya’s writings on God’s justice and wise purpose, divine determination and human agency, the problem of evil, and juristic method in theological doctrine show that he articulates a theodicy of optimism in which God in His essence perpetually wills the best possible world from eternity. This sets Ibn Taymiyya’s theodicy apart from Ashʿarī divine voluntarism, the free-will theodicy of the Muʿtazilīs, and the essentially timeless God of other optimists like Ibn Sīnā and Ibn ʿArabī.

Ibn Taymiyya is a thinker often associated with dogmatism, but who also valued moderation and considered himself a defender of the harmony between human reason and religious faith. By closely examining the tenets of his ethical thought, Sophia Vasalou sheds fresh light on Taymiyya's intellectual identity.

In Ibn Taymiyya on Reason and Revelation, Carl Sharif El-Tobgui offers the first comprehensive study of Ibn Taymiyya’s ten-volume magnum opus, Darʾ taʿāruḍ al-ʿaql wa-l-naql (Refutation of the conflict of reason and revelation). In his colossal riposte to the Muslim philosophers and rationalist theologians, the towering Ḥanbalī polymath rejects the call to prioritize reason over revelation in cases of alleged conflict, interrogating instead the very conception of rationality that classical Muslims had inherited from the Greeks. In its place, he endeavors to articulate a reconstituted “pure reason” that is both truly universal and in full harmony with authentic revelation. Based on a line-by-line reading of the entire Darʾ taʿāruḍ, El-Tobgui’s study carefully elucidates the “philosophy of Ibn Taymiyya” as it emerges from the multifaceted ontological, epistemological, and linguistic reforms that Ibn Taymiyya carries out in this pivotal work.