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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books A History of Muslim Philosophy Volume 2, Book 4 Chapter 41: Ibn Taimiyyah A. Life and Works After having seen the rise and development of theological and philosophical movement in Islam and the contributions made by the theologians and philosophers before the sack of Baghdad, we have now come to a point which may be called the pre-renaissance period in the history of Islam.

By ibn Taimiyyah’s time theology, philosophy, and jurisprudence had made remarkable progress and given rise to different schools of thought. But, unfortunately, political dissensions and doctrinal differences sapped the unity of the Muslims and made their countries easy prey to Mongol invasions in the seventh/13th century.

It was at this critical juncture that Imam ibn Taimiyyah appeared as a mujtahid (one qualified to form an independent opinion in Muslim Law) and called upon the people to go back to the original teachings of Islam as they are found in the Qur’an and the Sunnah of the Prophet. He had little respect for theology (Kalam) or philosophy and he could not be called a theologian or a philosopher in the truest sense of the terms, though he himself acted as a great theologian and a great philosopher.

The excellence of Imam ibn Taimiyyah as an original thinker and a critic has been widely accepted, and he is generally considered to be the forerunner of Wahhabism, Sanusism, and similar other reform movements in the Muslim world. Taqi al-Din Abu al-‘Abbas Ahmad ibn ‘Abd al-Halim, commonly known as ibn Taimiyyah, was born in Harran,[^1] a city near Damascus, on Monday, the 10th of Rabi‘ I 861/22nd January 1263.

During the year 667/1269 when ibn Taimiyyah approached the age of seven, the Mongols ravaged the city of Harran, and his father ‘Abd al-Halim went to Damascus with all the members of his family and settled there. Here ibn Taimiyyah received an excellent education under his father who was a great scholar of the Hanbalite School. He also studied under ‘Ali ibn ‘Abd al-Qawi and mastered the Arabic grammar of Sibawaihi.