Islam And The State In Ibn Taymiyya

"Proto-Salafist" 14th-century theologian Ibn Taymiyya is recognized as the intellectual forefather of contemporary Salafism and Jihadism. This volume offers a unique approach to the study of Ibn Taymiyya, by offering an English translation of his fundamental political treatise, The Office of Islamic Government, and shorter collections from The Collected Fatwas and The Prophetic Way, and Islamic Governance in Reconciling between the Ruler and the Ruled. The volume not only sheds light on these primary sources through translation and annotation, but also offers a theoretical analysis of Ibn Taymiyya’s thought and how his legal views can be reconciled with current trends in Islamic political theory. The analysis provides an overview of Ibn Taymiyya’s geopolitical context, and includes an original study of his normative political thought. In examining the contemporary implications of Ibn Taymiyya’s political theology, the authors explore his doctrine of the Islamic state in the context of Islamic decolonial theory. Islam and the State in Ibn Taymiyya will appeal to academics in the fields of political science and religious studies, particularly within the field of Islamic history.

Islam and the State in Ibn Taymiyya will appeal to academics in the fields of political science and religious studies, particularly within the field of Islamic history. The translations are thoroughly annotated making it an easy read for non-specialists.

The expert essays in this volume deal with critically important topics concerning Islam and politics in both the pre-modern and modern periods, such as the nature of government, the relationship between politics and theology, Shi'i conceptions of statecraft, notions of public duty, and the compatibility of Islam and democratic governance.

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.

Articles collected in Historicizing Sunni Islam in the Ottoman Empire, c. 1450-c. 1750 engage with the idea that “Sunnism” itself has a history and trace how particular Islamic genres—ranging from prayer manuals, heresiographies, creeds, hadith and fatwa collections, legal and theological treatises, and historiography to mosques and Sufi convents—developed and were reinterpreted in the Ottoman Empire between c. 1450 and c. 1750. The volume epitomizes the growing scholarly interest in historicizing Islamic discourses and practices of the post-classical era, which has heretofore been styled as a period of decline, reflecting critically on the concepts of ‘tradition’, ‘orthodoxy’ and ‘orthopraxy’ as they were conceived and debated in the context of building and maintaining the longest-lasting Muslim-ruled empire. Contributors: Helen Pfeifer; Nabil al-Tikriti; Derin Terzioğlu; Tijana Krstić; Nir Shafir; Guy Burak; Çiğdem Kafesçioğlu; Grigor Boykov; H. Evren Sünnetçioğlu; Ünver Rüstem; Ayşe Baltacıoğlu-Brammer; Vefa Erginbaş; Selim Güngörürler.

First published in 2004. For the Muslim the foundation from which all discussion of government starts is the law of God, the sharī‘a. Theoretically pre-existing and eternal, it represents absolute good. It is prior to the community and the state.‘ Part of London Oriental Series, this volume’s concern wis with the political ideas of the period extending from the 2nd/8th century to the 11th/17th century and to the central lands of the caliphate, including Persia, and North Africa.

Papers presented at a conference on Ibn Tamiyya and his times, held at Princeton University during 8-10 April 2005.

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.