Ibn Taymiyyah's Critical Realism on the Relationship Between Reason and Revelation in the Context of the Taymian–Ashʿarite Debate: An Analytical Study

Abstract

Abstract

This study aims to analyze Ibn Taymiyyah's realist perspective on the relationship between reason and revelation and to reconstruct the underlying framework of this perspective through his critical examination of the theological principle of contradiction formulated by Fakhr al-Din al-Razi. The study investigates this framework through both horizontal and vertical analyses from two perspectives: first, the internal structure of reason and revelation; and second, the relational structure between them.

Within this analysis, the study also identifies several misconceptions advanced by modern scholars regarding Ibn Taymiyyah's understanding of the relationship between reason and revelation. Particular attention is given to the German researcher Frank Griffel, whose critical study of Ibn Taymiyyah's theory contains several interpretive inaccuracies.

The research adopts a concise approach appropriate to the nature of the study while providing a coherent scholarly synthesis of the subject. It employs several methodologies, including the historical-retrospective method to trace the historical development of the debate over reason and revelation from the Muʿtazilah to the Ashʿarites, and the analytical and synthetic methods to reconstruct Ibn Taymiyyah's epistemological framework by analyzing its foundational concepts and clarifying the rational principles governing this dialectical relationship.

Following the introduction and preliminary discussion, the study is organized into two main sections: the first examines the internal structure of reason and revelation, while the second analyzes the relationship between them. The study concludes with a summary of its principal arguments and findings