Table Of ContentSTUDIES IN ISLAMIC PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE
Published under the auspices of
the Society for the Study of Islamic Philosophy and Science
EDITORIAL BOARD
George F. Hourani, State University
of New York at Buffalo
Muhsin Mahdi, Harvard University
Parviz Morewedge, Baruch College
of City University of New York
Nicholas Rescher, University of Pittsburgh
Ehsan Yar-Shater, Columbia University
A MUSLIM THEOLOGIAN'S RESPONSE
TO CHRISTIANI1Y
IBN TAYMIYYA'S
ALJAWAB AL-SAHJH
EDITED AND TRANSLATED BY
THOMAS F. MICHEL, SJ.
CARAVAN BOOKS
DELMAR, NEW YORK, 1984
For Fazlur Rahman,
who introduced me to
the thought of Ibn Taymiyya
and generously directed my research
Published by Caravan Books
Delmar, New York 12054, U.S.A.
© 1984 Thomas F. Michel
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Ibn Taymiyah, Ahmad ibn 'Abd al-Halim, 1263-1328.
A Muslim theologian's response to Christianity.
( Studies in Islamic philosophy and science)
Translation of:
Jawab al-sahili li-man baddala din al-Masili.
1. Christianity-Controversial literature.
2. Islam-Apologetic works.
I. Michel, Thomas F., 1941- .
II. Title. III. Series.
BP170.118913 1983 297'.293 83-15430
ISBN 0-88206-058-9
CONTENTS
Foreword vii
PART ONE: THE THEOLOGY OF IBN TAYMIYYA AND HIS CRI
TIQUE OF CHRISTIANITY
Introduction 1
1. The polemic against wahdat al-wujud 5
2. The polemic against the philosophers 15
3. The polemic against the Sufis 24
4. The polemic against the speculative theologians 40
5. The polemic against the Shi'a 56
6. Ibn Taymiyya's polemical writings against Christianity 68
7. Paul of Antioch's challenge to Islam 87
8. lbn Taymiyya's argumentation against Christianity in Al- 99
Jawab al-Sahib
PART TWO: A TRANSLATION OF ALJAWAB AL-SAHIH LI-MAN
BADDAL DIN AL-MASIH
I. THE UNNERSAL NATURE OF MUHAMMAD'S
PROPHETHOOD
A. Foreword: The purpose ofwritingAlJawab al-Sahib 137
B. The Nature of prophethood 146
C. Qur'anic testimony for the universality of the 164
prophethood of Muhammad
D. Signs of the prophethood of Muhammad 173
E. Implications of denying Muhammad's prophetic call 181
F. God's treatment of those in error 192
G. Causes of error among Christians and those like them 198
II. TAHRIF: THE CORRUPTION OF THE SCRIPTURE
A. Corruption of Scripture before the time of ?.10
Muhammad
B. Corruption of Scripture after the time of Muhammad 220
v
vi IBN TAYMIYYA
C. Extent of corruption in the Bible 231
D. Claims of Qur'anic approval for Christianity 240
III. TRINITARIAN QUESTIONS
A. Philosophical explanation of Trinity 255
B. The divine hypostases 266
C. The incarnation of the divine word in Christ 279
D. Hulul: Indwelling of God in Christ 288
E. Qur'anic teaching about Jesus 303
F. Ittibad: Union of God with a creature 312
IV: FINAL QUESTIONS
A. The compatibility of rational and revealed knowledge 325
B. Adequacy of philosophical or prophetic language 337
for discussing the nature of God
C. Superiority and necessity of Islam 350
Appendix: The relationship of AlJawab al-Sahib to Takhjil 370
Ahl al-Injil
List of Abbreviations 382
Bibliography 439
Glossary 455
Index 461
FOREWORD
In 717/ 13171 the Hanbali scholar Taqi al-Din Ahmad ibn Tay
miyya, residing in Damascus, received a treatise sent to him by
Christians in Cyprus. The work was an enlarged version2 of an
apology for Christianity composed about the year 1150 by Paul of
Antioch, the Melkite bishop of the Crusader see of Saida. In re
sponse, Ibn Taymiyya composed Al-]awab al-Sahib Ii-Man Bad
dal Din al-Masih [The correct answer to those who changed3 the
religion of Christ], a work whose length and scope have never
been equalled in Muslim critiques of the Christian religion and
whose depth of insight into the issues that separate Christianity
and Islam sets it among the masterpieces of Muslim polemic against
Christianity.
Al-]awab al-Sahib is far more than a rebuttal of Paul of Anti
och's 25-page treatise, and it cannot be viewed simply as contain
ing Ibn Taymiyya's attitude towards Christianity. In this work his
concern-as always in his writings-was Islam. Ibn Taymiyya was
essentially a dialogical type of thinker; among his voluminous
writings4 there exists hardly any extended work in which the po
lemical element is missing. He seemed best able to say what Islam
is ( or should be) by pointing up its contradistinction to what Islam
is not ( or must not become).
Ibn Taymiyya viewed Christianity as an example instructive for
Muslims on how the recipients of the one and eternal divine mes
sage, delivered to them by their infallible prophet Jesus, went astray
by substituting their own teachings and practices for those com
manded by their prophet. Hence the title of Al-]awab al-Sahib.
Ibn Taymiyya's concern was that he saw the same tendencies in
the practices and teachings of Muslims of his time. He observed
world views and theologies current among many Muslims of his
day which he considered parallel to and sometimes even farther
from the truth-embodied in the Qur'an and hadith rightly inter
preted by the salaf-than what was held and practiced by Christians.
The crucial difference is that whereas the Christian community
as a whole had departed from the teachings of Jesus, the earlier
prophets, and Jesus' right-believing early followers, the Islamic
vii
viii IBN TAYMIYYA
umma still retained the correct teaching of Muhammad and the
other prophets. It was destined to remain on the right path, be
cause it had been promised that there would always remain a small
core of believers who would in every age profess and teach the
undiluted and unadulterated religion of Islam.
Ibn Taymiyya saw himself as representative of this body of pro
ponents of the truth. This belief is the basis of the polemical nature
of so many of his writings. He was constantly on the watch for
deviations from the right path and ready to oppose error within
the Islamic community with all the considerable learning in the
Islamic tradition which he possessed and all the force of his con
siderable argumentative powers.
Christians are, of course, outside the Islamic umma. An attack
by one of their number on the universal nature of Muhammad's
prophetic mission and ultimately upon the necessity of Islam within
God's eternal plan for human salvation was a challenge which lbn
Taymiyya could not pass up. However, his interest was always in
the Islamic community, and by pointing up the falsity of the Chris
tian's argumentation and indicating the errors into which Chris
tians as a people had fallen, he hoped to call back Muslims from
their dangerous tendencies in the same directions.
Thus, as a background for understanding Ibn Taymiyya's basic
concerns in Al-]awab al-Sahib, I have chosen to place the work
in the context of his polemical theology as a whole. By under
standing lbn Taymiyya's polemical reactions to wahdat al-wujud
theology, popular Sufism, the peripatetic philosophical movement
in Islam, Mu'tazili and Ash'arite kalam theologies, and Shi'ism, one
can better appreciate the principal interests underlying his argu
mentation against Christianity.
It must be further noted that although Al-]awab al-Sahib was
certainly the most important work which lbn Taymiyya directed
against Christianity, it did not include everything which he wrote
on the subject. Earlier works of his against Christianity provide a
survey of the development of his thought concerning the Christian
religion, and I have consequently included a treatment of these
other, earlier works.
Finally, there needs to be a note concerning the text itself. Al
Jawab al-Sahib has been printed twice.5 The second edition is
basically a reprint of the first with typographical errors corrected.
The few changes in wording are based on sense rather than on
consultation of the manuscripts. The manuscript evidence gives a
conflicting witness to the original state of the text. For reasons I
explain in the Appendix to this study, I believe the present printed
edition of 1,400 pages to have been originally two works: the first,
A MUSLIM THEOLOGIAN'S RESPONSE TO CHRISTIANI1Y ix
Al-]awab al-Sahib, a response to Paul of Antioch, found in the first
1,000 pages of the printed edition, the second, an unnamed work
of approximately 400 pages intended to prove the prophethood
of Muhammad to whomever might deny that. In this study I am
concerned with the former work, to which I will refer by the title
Al-]awab al-Sahib. For lack of a better title available, I will refer
to the latter work by the (probably spurious) title given it in one
manuscript: Takbjil Ahl al-Injil [Putting to shame the people of
the gospel].
PART ONE
THE THEOLOGY OF IBN TAYMIYYA
AND HIS CRITIQUE OF CHRISTIANI1Y
INTRODUCTION
The central and overriding concern which underlies all of lbn
Taymiyya's controversialist writing is the problem of the relation
ship between God and the Universe; that is, the question of God's
transcendence and immanence. The proper goal of rational reflec
tion upon the sources of religion-the Qur'an and the sunna-is
the affirmation of tawhid, the assertion of God's oneness. True
tawhid means the elaboration of God's nature as He is in Himself
and as He is vis-a-vis the universe as Creator (al-khaliq) and Com
mander (al-amir).
For Ibn Taymiyya, in declaring God to be the one creator, he
affirms the essential separateness and dissimilarity of God from the
universe and avoids tashbih. By declaring Him commander, lbn
Taymiyya maintains the religious and ethical connection between
God and the universe and rejects ta'til.
Viewed another way, the assertion of true tawhid means follow
ing the nart thread between, on the one hand, so associating
)W
God with His creation that the real distinctions between them are
compromised, and, on the other, making Him so transcendent that
the divine Power and Will which are the essential bases for reli
gious life become irrelevant. lbn Taymiyya describes this endeavor
in characteristically Qur'anic imagery-that of the Straight Path.
Following pure tawhid means describing God only as He has de
scribed Himself in the Qur'an and sunna, and responding to Him
in obedience only as He commanded men in these sources of di
vine information. Any deviation from this Straight Path inevitably
leads to error, and the farther a sect strays from this path, the more
severely they are in error.
True Islam expresses at the ontological level the median path
between ta'til and tashbih, and thus those views which are most
strongly opposed by lbn Taymiyya in his controversialist writings
2 IBN TAYMIYYA
are those of the Muslim philosophers, particularly of the peripa
tetic school, and of the wahdat al-wujud school of Ibn 'Arabi. Of
these two, the former represents to Ibn Taymiyya pure ta'til-the
description of God as self-centered First Principle who neither cre
ates nor speaks nor wills nor acts nor knows the particularia of
His universe; the latter, Ibn 'Arabi's wahdat al-wuhud school, rep
resents pure tashbih-the existential identification of God with
the universe, union of God with the whole of creation, and the
oneness of all that exists.
In questions of metaphysics, these two positions are the logical
extremes into which men's errors lead them when they depart
from the Qur'an and the sunna. Other errors are dangerous as well,
not only as deviations in themselves from the Straight Path, but
because they lay the groundwork of principles which logically
conclude in the two great errors of pure ta'til and pure tashbih.
From this standpoint Ibn Taymiyya takes issue with the Ash'arite
school on matters of divine power and human freedom and with
the Mu'tazilis on questions of the divine nature and attributes. This
viewpoint further serves as the basis for his criticism of tendencies
and practices within Sufism, Shi'ism, and-outside the Islamic
umma-in Christianity. He sees all these as manifestations of ghu
luw-exaggeiated conceptions of God's immanent presence, which
result in a specified or limited form of divine ittihad and hulul
with individual creatures.
Although Ibn Taymiyya's controversialist writings are mostly
concerned with what he sees as errors in the area of theodicy, his
point of view is the same when he is attacking errors in the ethical
sphere. If at the ontological level tawhid means affirming the real
ity of God's being creator and carefully defining that according to
the norms of the Straight Path, at the ethical level it means the
believer's affirming God's nature as commander and walking the
narrow Way between antinomianism and formalistic legalism. For
Ibn Taymiyya the ethical counterparts of the peripatetic school of
philosophy are the Batinis-Durzi, Qarmati, and Nizari Isma'ilis
whom for their antinomian beliefs he labels apostate and renegade
( murtadd, mu/hid).
At the other extreme are the mutafaqqihun, the would-be ju
rists, whom Ibn Taymiyya accuses of turning Islam into a soulless
legalism. Ibn Taymiyya's criticism of Ash'arite kalam has strong
ethical implications in that he accuses them of destroying the eth
ical basis of religion by making morality dependent upon the ar
bitrary will of God. This, in ethical terms, is ta'til and gives reli
gious support for the peripatetic philosophers' reduction of God
to the Unknowing and the Unwilling.
