Work · Philosophy in the Islamic World
Averting the Conflict between Reason and Revelation (Darʾ taʿarud al-ʿaql wa-l-naql)
Against Fakhr al-Din al-Razi’s rule that reason must prevail where it seems to contradict scripture: rightly understood, sound reason and authentic revelation never conflict.
Introduction
Ibn Taymiyya’s longest philosophical work, written after 1313 and running to some ten volumes in its modern edition. It is directed against the “universal rule” formulated by Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, according to which, where reason and scripture seem to conflict, reason must take precedence and scripture be interpreted figuratively. Ibn Taymiyya replies that reason itself supports revelation, and that apparent conflicts arise from faulty reasoning or from reading into scripture what it does not say. Along the way he discusses Avicenna, Averroes, al-Ghazali and the Asharite theologians at length. Recent studies, among them Carl Sharif El-Tobgui’s Ibn Taymiyya on Reason and Revelation (2020), treat it as the core of his philosophical thought.
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