Ibn Taymiyyah

Significance: Controversial in his own time during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Muslim theologian Ibn Taymiyyah connected Islamic beliefs to politics and issued fatwas, or nonbinding religious-based legal opinions, against people he felt were infidels, or nonbelievers. In the twenty-first century, extremist groups have cited some of his teachings as justification for declaring jihad, or war against supposed enemies of Islam.

Background

Ibn Taymiyyah was born on January 22, 1263, in Harran, Mesopotamia, now known as Altinbasak, Türkiye. He was the son of Shahab ud-Din ‘Abdul Halim and grandson of Abd-ul-Barakaat Majd ud-Din, both well-known and respected teachers of the Hanbali school of Islamic legal and philosophical thought. Founded by Ahmad ibn Hanbal in Baghdad, Iraq, the Hanbali school of thought promotes a literal interpretation of sacred texts such as the Koran (Qur’an) and independent thought and reasoning based on the study of those texts.

Ibn Taymiyyah’s family moved to Damascus, Syria, when he was six or seven to escape a Mongol invasion. There, he had the opportunity to study with dozens of well-known scholars of the time, including his father. An excellent student, Ibn Taymiyyah is said to have had an incredible memory that allowed him to learn whole passages of the Koran, the words of prophets, and other texts after hearing or reading them just once. In addition to his outstanding memory, Ibn Taymiyyah was a prolific writer. Before he was twenty-five years old, he had written at least ten scholarly manuscripts on theology and religion.

Life’s Work

Although he studied a broad range of subjects and used many references for his study of Islam’s holy texts, Ibn Taymiyyah’s opinions were drawn largely from the earliest followers of Islam, known as the al-salaf al-ṣāliḥ. These early Muslims from the first three centuries of the faith were sometimes called the pious predecessors. Those who promote following in their footsteps are very conservative and reject aspects of Islam that were not part of the earliest beliefs of the faith. This is known as Salafi, though the term was not commonly used to describe this form of Islam until around the eighteenth century. Ibn Taymiyyah’s writings indicate he was among those who held this viewpoint.

His ultraconservative opinions frequently put Ibn Taymiyyah at odds with government authorities, including the Mamluk Turks who ruled for most of his lifetime. As a religious leader in a time and place when religion and government were strongly intertwined, he was sometimes asked to provide a judgement about whether a crime violated religious laws. In 1293, one such ruling resulted in Ibn Taymiyyah calling for the execution of a Christian man accused of blasphemy, or making a statement lacking in reverence and respect toward God. The governor of Syria instead pardoned the man after he apologized, and Ibn Taymiyyah led protests against the decision. This prompted the first of his many imprisonments, often ordered for his lack of regard for the rules of the legal (as opposed to religious) authorities.

Sometimes, it was convenient for the legal authorities to enlist Ibn Taymiyyah’s opinion and the support of those who followed him. One such instance was when Mongols attempted to invade the area that is now Syria. Mahmud Ghazan, the leader of the Mongols, converted to Islam and attempted to convince the people of Damascus that they should fight with him against the Mamluk Turks. The Turks’ army refused to fight against fellow Muslims, even if they were newly converted.

The Mamluk Turks asked Ibn Taymiyyah to bolster their position against the Mongols. He responded by issuing three fatwas that called into question the legitimacy of the Mongols’ conversion and called them apostates (people who reject or abandon a religious belief) because they supposedly still followed some of their former beliefs. One of the rulings went so far as to state that in cases of apostasy the killing of one group of Muslims by another was lawful and justified, the first time such a ruling was issued. Ibn Taymiyyah’s ruling was based on theological differences between how two groups of Muslims practiced their faith. This would have repercussions centuries later when the ruling was used as the basis for holy wars, or jihads. The fatwa as written by Ibn Taymiyyah also referenced the Mongol invasion of his childhood homeland, indicating he had deep personal feelings about the situation that may have affected his decision.

While these fatwas resulted in the defeat of the Mongols and brought praise to Ibn Taymiyyah for a time, he continued to run into problems with the authorities over his staunch adherence to ultraconservative viewpoints. This led to additional imprisonments and house arrests. Very often his insistence that his strict interpretation of the beliefs of the founders was correct above anyone else’s opinion was what caused trouble. Ibn Taymiyyah spent his final years in Damascus. He served as a schoolmaster and had many followers. However, he was imprisoned in the Damascus citadel when he died on September 26, 1328.

Impact

During his lifetime, Ibn Taymiyyah wrote more than three hundred books. Through these, he left a lasting legacy that has endured for centuries. Among his notable works are Minhāj al-Sunnah al-Nabawiyyah, al-ʿAqīdah al-Wāsiṭiyyah, al-Sārim al-Maslūl, and al-Jawāb al-Ṣaḥīḥ. In the eighteenth century, another Islamic scholar named Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb shared Ibn Taymiyyah’s views and cited him in his writings. In the twentieth century, Syed (or Sayyid) Qutb used ideas from Ibn Taymiyyah’s fatwa against the Mongols, which allowed Muslims to kill other Muslims because of apostasy, as justification to attack the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1950s. In the eighteenth century, Muhammed Ibn Abd Al-Wahhab, to whom Wahhabism with its emphasis on literal jihad is attributed, applied the principles espoused by Ibn Taymiyyah. Wahhabism is at the root of the modern terroristic practices espoused by Muslim extremists. Other terror group leaders have cited the writings of Ibn Taymiyyah as an influence and example, including Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, founders of Al Qaeda, and Mohammad Yusuf, the founder of Boko Haram. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, also frequently mentions Ibn Taymiyyah in their propaganda. In the twenty-first century, scholars continue to debate the meaning of Ibn Taymiyyah’s Mardin fatwa, including whether it was intended to justify fighting in certain circumstances or to promote fair treatment of people living under particular political conditions.

Bibliography

“About Ibn Taymiyya.” Masud, www.masud.co.uk/ISLAM/misc/ibntaymiyya.htm. Accessed 29 May 2026.

Gurumurthy, S. “Paris Mastermind: Abu Oud or Ibn Taymiyyah?” Vivekananda International Foundation, 5 Sept. 2023, www.vifindia.org/article/2023/september/05/Paris-Mastermind-Abu-Oud-or-Ibn-Taymiyyah. Accessed 29 May 2026.

Livesey, Bruce. “The Salafist Movement.” PBS, www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/front/special/sala.html. Accessed 29 May 2026.

Muir, Jim. “Islamic State Group’: Raqqa’s Loss Seals Rapid Rise and Fall.” BBC, 20 June 2016, www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-35695648. Accessed 29 May 2026.

Sharif, Mohd Farid Mohd, and Mohd Firdaus Abdullah. “Ibn Taymiyyah’s ‘Mardin Fatwa’ and the Mongols: An Analysis.” KEMANUSIAAN: The Asian Journal of Humanities, vol. 29, no. 1, 2022, pp. 169–85, doi:10.21315/kajh2022.29.1.8. Accessed 29 May 2026.