Ibn Taymiyyah's Linguistic Paradigm Against Corporealism and Assimilation

Sheikh Hatim al-Haj

It is strange that many people would not speak about Mulla Ṣadra’s¹ corporealism even though he said that “God may have a corpus that is unlike all others”², while condemning Ibn Taymiyyah for it, although he said, “Most of Ahl-ul-Sunnah of the followers of our madhhab and others accuse the assimilationists (mushabbihah) and corporealists (mujassimah) of disbelief.”³

Ibn Taymiyyah's Position on the Word “Jism”

Having said that, it is important to note that he (IT) did not deny the word “jism” (body) or accept it. Why? The word “jism” in the conventions of the Arabic language and the Quranic usage is totally inapplicable to God, as he stated.

The problem is that they transfused the word with special technical definitions of the philosophers, who consider any entity of which attributes could be predicated and in which extant qualities may subsist, a body. So, they classified all existent things into “jawhar” (substance) and “‘araḍ” (accident). They used “jawhar” and “jism” interchangeably.

Rejecting Misinterpretations of “Jism”

If we reject God being a jism/jawhar in their sense of the word ‘body,’ we would be rejecting all His attributes. After all, “‘araḍ” (accident) cannot be described with other qualities; you cannot say that ‘red’ is tall or that it loves and hates, or that ‘length’ hears and sees. Most Muslims who used the word “jism” (in error) did not ever mean that God is divisible, composed, or made of parts, but they meant that He subsists by Himself.⁴

Imam Ibn Taymiyyah (rA) favored a suspension of judgment regarding terms that have not been revealed, such as movement, relocation, corpus, direction, spatial locatedness, composition, and change. He argued that the interpolation of those terminologies and discursive techniques in the theological discussions is an innovation, condemning the use of terms like body, substance, direction, or supervening of originated events in the Divine essence while speaking about God.⁵ To ascribe any of those to him is simply putting words in his mouth.

The Epistemic Value of Revelation

Imam Ibn Taymiyyah (rA) was concerned about the epistemic value of the text of revelation. People who proudly espouse an esoteric interpretation of it would certainly be opposed to his viewpoints. If the language of the revelation was not consistent with the linguistic conventions of the first audience, anyone may say anything about God and what He told us and demanded of us.

Ismâ‘ilis have always adopted such esoteric positions (prompting Imam al-Ghazâli (rA) to pen his famous refutation⁶ of them). The Twelvers also renounce their ways. These views may be considered by some in our times progressive, particularly because the completely ineffable god is what appeals to many people nowadays who rebelled against a Judeo-Christian conception of God (while there are many depictions of it, they are mostly too anthropomorphic in the Islamic standard). They were not unprecedented during those time. The esoteric interpreters of Islam took those concepts from the philosophers with some adaptations to provide an Islamic taste to them.

Ibn Taymiyyah and Nominalism

Imam Ibn Taymiyyah defended the concept of a personal god who has true existence outside the mind, and who is perpetually sustaining and controlling His dominion. How did he (rA) affirm the linguistic meanings of the Divine attributes in the text of revelation while denying assimilation and rejecting the supposed concomitants?

Through nominalism.

Nominalism is the view that there are no universals in the extramental reality, that universals exist only in the mind, and in reality, only particular things exist. This is in contrast with Platonic realism that presumed ontological existence of universals, like redness, cat-ness, man-ness, hand-ness, face-ness, for example, as extant mind-independent abstract patterns of which particular objects are copies in which these forms are inherent. Therefore, in order for God and humans to share the same qualities by the mere virtue of being described by the same names, such qualities must have an existence in reality in which they participate.

However, this is not true. Imam Ibn Taymiyyah (rA), who spoke of nominalism before William of Ockham⁷ and other European nominalists did, stressed the fact that only particular things exist in reality. He argued, for instance, that the revealed sources describe numerous things in Paradise such as foods, clothes, marriage, and so on, but Ibn ‘Abbâs said, “There is nothing in Paradise that is of this world except the names.” If that may be said about the incomparability of creations among themselves, what may be said about the incomparability of God to His creations? Once the attribute is particularized to a certain being, its meaning is commensurate with its essence. The knowledge of God is not in any way like our knowledge. It is eternal, necessary, and all-inclusive.

Philosophy is much more flexible now than the peripatetic philosophy of the Middle Ages that Muslim philosophers, the Mu‘tazilah, and the Mutakallimoon had to contend with. However, no matter how much you concede to "standard" philosophical principles, you will not be consistent unless you truly make them the measuring rod and reinterpret the Revelation to strictly accord with them. This was something not even the Mu‘tazilah could countenance, let alone the Mutakallimoon. The result is inconsistency in either case, from the philosophers’ perspective.

The Common Degree Theory and Linguistic Comprehensibility

Nominalism was Ibn Taymiyyah’s way of shifting the paradigm and cleverly formulating the concept that Ibn Rushd had expressed about the one truth and two languages, or what Wittgenstein would later call two “language games.” However, Ibn Taymiyyah achieved this without detracting from the epistemic value of the declarative part of the Revelation. His common degree (al-qadr al-mushtarak) theory was to affirm the coherence of the scriptural language and its comprehensibility.⁸ We can confidently say that the Taymiyyan project with respect to the qualities of the Divine was to transfer the discussion from the philosophy of metaphysics (which is futile; ask Kant) to the philosophy of language.

Nominalism would allow Imam Ibn Taymiyyah (while accepting the linguistic meanings of the text of revelation) to affirm that the “kunh” (ontological reality) of such attributes is unknown to us. He also affirmed that the universalizing function of the mind is not operative with regard to the Divine attributes because of the great dissimilarity between the world of the shahâdah (seen) and that of the ghayb (unseen) disallowing us from inferring from the seen about the unseen.⁹ He condemned the mention of the attributes together, because that may lead to a cognitive synthesis in the mind of the listener that is inappropriate of God.¹⁰ He affirmed that “the apparent implication that comes first to the minds of uneducated people is rejected.” In other words, a primer of tanzeeh (God’s transcendence and incomparability) is essential for the reader of sacred text.

How is that different from the tafweeḍ al-ma‘na (consigning the meaning to God) of some Ash‘aris and even Ḥanbalis?

According to Ibn Taymiyyah, you make tafweeḍ al-kayf (consigning the modality or ontological reality to God) but establish the primary linguistic meaning. After all, to him, God would not use disjointed letters in the middle of his speech that are void of meaning. It is impossible to make any sense of His speech without accepting the primary meaning (or giving a secondary one, which mufawwiḍah reject). According to him, you can translate God’s “ḥubb” into love and “yadd” into hand, and teach the second audience in the new language about proper tanzeeh (God’s transcendence and incomparability).

Examples of Ibn Taymiyyah’s Denial of Assimilation

Nominalism would also allow him to deny assimilation and all the concomitants about those attributes. Here are two examples of Imam Ibn Taymiyyah’s denial of assimilation and the concomitants to give you a taste of his ithbât (affirmation) of the Divine attributes.

1. He said:

“Even if the created being may be ṣamad in certain respects, the reality of ṣamadiyyah does not exist in them, since they are subject to disunion and divisibility, and are also dependent on others.”¹¹

This is a denial that the hand when ascribed to God would mean a part, limb, organ, etc., as it would mean to us. After all, we say in Arabic yad-ul-dahr (the hand of time), and it does not mean any of that.

2. Imam Ibn Taymiyyah (rA) gives the parable of the rooḥ (spirit) and how it is described in the Quran to ascend and descend and how the Prophet says about it that the vision of the deceased follows it upon its ascension at the time of death. Are we going to call it a body? Some do. How do we define a body, then? It is known that people of sound reason differed on its definition. It does not appear from the scriptural usage of the word jism or jasad (body) that it would be called a body, yet it is described by all those attributes, such as knowing, hearing, seeing, ascending, prostrating, etc., that some presume are to be only ascribed to bodies. The spirit, Ibn Taymiyyah adds, is described by all these attributes, even though it does not look anything similar to the bodies we see, and we cannot talk about its divisibility or other concomitants if we would like to call it a body. Furthermore, it doesn’t matter whether we call it a body or not, it is only another of God’s creations. How can we, then, subject Him (Exalted is He) to the same principles we are confined to because of our limited empirical experiences?¹²

Imam Ibn Taymiyyah is not the end-all mujtahid in these matters or any others. However, our intellectual history is full of controversies and sectarianism, and he is one of a few in our history who reached the pinnacle of knowledge in the transmitted and rational sciences and had the courage and fortitude to stand behind his positions. This is the testimony of many imams of the highest caliber, including adversaries of his school of theology. He also devoted his celibate life to learning, teaching, and jihad by the pen and sword. It is not unexpected that many people dislike him. However, it is disappointing to see how unfair and aggressive many of them can be.

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Comment: Ibn Taymiyyah Uphelded God’s Transcendence (tanzīh)

Ibn Taymiyyah’s contributions shifted the theological discussion from metaphysics to the philosophy of language. This approach aligns with modern developments in analytical philosophy. Nominalism allowed him to maintain the integrity of the revelatory texts while disavowing assimilation or anthropomorphism. His emphasis on linguistic conventions provided a framework for understanding Divine attributes in a manner that upheld God’s transcendence (tanzīh).

1. Ṣadr ad-Dīn Muḥammad Shīrāzī, more commonly known as Mullā Ṣadrā, was a Persian Twelver Shi'i Islamic mystic, philosopher, theologian, and ‘Ālim who led the Iranian cultural renaissance in the 17th century.

2. Sharḥ Uṣool al-Kâfi, 3:377

3. Majmoo‘ al-Fatâwa, 6:356

4. Ibn Taymiyyah, al-Jawâb al-Ṣaḥeeḥ li man Baddala Deen al-Maseeḥ, 4:430

5. Ibn Taymiyyah, Dar’ Ta‘âruḍ al-‘Aql wa al-Naql, 1:239

6. "Fada’ih al-Batiniyyah" (فضائح الباطنية), which translates as The Infamies of the Esoterics or The Infamies of the Batiniyyah

7. William of Ockham (c. 1287–1347) is among the most prominent figures in the history of philosophy during the Late Middle Ages along with Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus. He is probably best known today for his espousal of metaphysical nominalism.

8. Ibn Taymiyyah, Majmoo‘ al-Fatâwa, 5:346

9. Ibn Taymiyyah, Dar’ Ta‘âruḍ al-‘Aql wa al-Naql, 1:29

10. Ibn Taymiyyah, al-Jawâb al-Ṣaḥeeḥ, 4:411

11. Majmoo‘ al-Fatâwa, 17:238

12. Majmoo‘ al-Fatâwa, 3:33