“IF IBN TAYMIYYAH DID NOT ACCEPT the certain universal proposition as the basis or source of knowledge, then what, for him, was that basis?” ʿAlī Sāmī al-Nashshār asked in the expanded 1965 edition of his earlier study, Methods of Research among Muslim Thinkers. “This basis was sense perception (ḥiss) and experience (tajribah); in this, he precedes Bacon and Mill in making experience, or induction, the basis of knowledge.”1

With varying degrees of emphasis—and accuracy—modern scholars of Ibn Taymiyyah have likewise stressed the empiricist character of his thought.2 This interpretation received further impetus following the complete publication of al-Radd ʿalā al-manṭiqiyyīn in the midcentury, yet as early as 1927, Ibn Taymiyyah was described as “the forerunner of Hume’s philosophy.”3 Subsequent scholarship, however, has both clarified and qualified this comparison, examining the degree to which Ibn Taymiyyah prioritized sense perception and the ways in which that priority—far removed from British empiricism—ultimately served deeper scripturalist commitments.4

Whatever one makes of the label, sense perception is unequivocally primary in Ibn Taymiyyah’s account of acquired human knowledge.5 Although reason and testimony stand alongside perception as sources of knowledge, neither possesses the priority Ibn Taymiyyah accords to sensory apprehension. Reason—or, more specifically, “rational inference through discursive and analogous reasoning”—compares particular apprehensions and formulates universal propositions from them, while human testimony transmits reports of what has been apprehended to those who did not perceive it directly. Both, however, depend for their content on the particular apprehensions that serve as their basis.6

This essay, adapted from a forthcoming study, examines the place of sense perception within Ibn Taymiyyah’s multifaceted epistemology, with particular attention to internal sense, its post-Avicennian context, and the first-person apprehension it provides the subject.

I. Sense Perception in Ibn Taymiyyah’s Thought

The epistemic claim that sensation is primary does not restrict knowledge to the immediately observable. Far from a reductive naturalist, Ibn Taymiyyah draws his fundamental division among extramental existents not between “the sensible (al-maḥsūs) and the intelligible (al-maʿqūl),” but between “the unseen (al-ghayb) and the witnessed (al-shahādah).”7 The former encompassing, at least on most occasions, unseen realities such as “the angels, the Throne, the Kursī, Paradise, the Fire,” and of course, God, the Almighty, who is “the greatest reality...belonging to the unseen.”8

These latter entities, however, should not be mistaken for existents that are intrinsically imperceptible, since “no scriptural or rational proof has been established for the existence of any existent that cannot possibly be known through sense perception in any respect whatsoever.”9 That is to say, if an existent is imperceptible under present conditions, the question is not whether it is actually sensible or forms a separate category of existents purely intellectual in form—for “what exists only in the mind does not exist outside the intellect”10—but more precisely, whether it “is presently witnessed, while the other is […] not presently witnessed.”11

In the latter case, Ibn Taymiyyah emphasizes that circumstantial imperceptibility does not mean that an entity is intrinsically imperceptible.12 God, the Almighty, as mentioned, is generally not perceived by human eyes in the worldly realm, however, it would be a grave error to claim that God therefore must be intrinsically imperceivable to human eyes in all circumstances. Such conclusion would run contrary to the beatific vision promised to believers in the Hereafter, as mentioned by the Prophet ﷺ in his statement: “You will see your Lord on the Day of Resurrection just as you see [the full moon].”13 Rather, Ibn Taymiyyah stresses what cannot be “witnessed now [can] be witnessed after death or at another time,” just as what lies beyond the reach of another sense under present conditions may become perceptible under different ones.14

Neither is sense perception confined to the five outward senses. Ibn Taymiyyah divides perception into two categories: external sense (al-ḥiss al-ẓāhir) and internal sense (al-ḥiss al-bāṭin):

Sense is of two kinds: external sense, by which a person senses through his external perceptive faculties—seeing something, hearing it, or coming into direct contact with it through his skin—and internal sense, by which a person senses what is within himself, such as pleasure and pain, love and hatred, joy and sorrow, strength and weakness, and other such things.15

Whereas external sense apprehends particular objects and their sensible qualities as they exist publicly in the external world, internal sense apprehends particular states as they occur privately within the individual—including bodily sensations and hedonic, conative, affective, and cognitive states. Ibn Taymiyyah describes this internal domain as being conceived “through internal perceptive capacities (bi-mashāʿirihi al-bāṭinah), just as internal, experiential sensible matters (al-umūr al-ḥissiyyah al-bāṭinah al-wajdiyyah) are conceived.”16

These terms do not refer to ontologically distinct faculties, but rather different aspects of the same process. The internal perceptive capacities are the faculties through which individuals apprehend what is occurring within them; the internal sensible matters are the particular states apprehended; while the descriptor al-wajdiyyah qualifies those states as directly found or immediately experienced by the subject. Other internal acts, such as taṣawwur, or conceptualization, may denote either the act of apprehending such a state or the conception formed through that apprehension. Although Ibn Taymiyyah does not propose a rigid taxonomy for these expressions, the functional distinction among them remains important.

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II. Internal Sense as Post-Avicennian Inheritance

Ibn Taymiyyah’s account of internal sense perception cannot be comprehensively understood apart from the post-Avicennian context in which its formulation and terminology had, by his period, become closely associated with the Avicennian account of the internal senses.17 In the standard Avicennian scheme, the internal senses comprised:

1. Common sense (ḥiss al-mushtarak);

2. Retentive imagination (khayāl/muṣawwirah);

3. Compositive imagination (mutakhayyilah/mutafakkirah);

4. Estimation (wahm);

5. Memory and recollection (ḥāfiẓah/dhākirah).

The enumeration of these faculties sought to exlain issues not answered by external sense alone: how inputs from differentiated senses are unified into a single perception; how sensible forms are mentally preserved once the object is no longer present; how those forms can be combined and separated in myriad ways; how nonsensible meanings, such as intentions or motives, in sensible particulars can be apprehended and remembered.

Built largely on Galenic brain anatomy, Ibn Sīnā conceived of the internal senses as distinct, organ-dependent faculties located in different regions of the brain.18 These corporeal faculties, tethered to material conditions and particularity, served progressively to abstract sensible forms from their immediate objects. In doing so, they prepared the rational soul (al-nafs al-nāṭiqah) for its apprehension of universals—an activity independent of bodily mediation, as “nothing that perceives the universal can be corporeal.”19 Similarly, the rational soul’s fundamental awareness of itself was also considered to be independent of sensation or embodied experience, a case argued in Ibn Sīnā’s floating man thought experiment, which suggested that human subjects, even if deprived of all sensory awareness, would nevertheless still affirm their own existence, as “what you apprehend [as yourself] does not belong to what you apprehend through sense perception in any respect, nor to anything resembling sense perception.”20

As his works attest, Ibn Taymiyyah clearly knew the Avicennian scheme and could reproduce its terminology and distinctions with studious precision. Yet while his masterful command demonstrates willingness to employ the Islamic philosopher’s terminology and engage its concepts, it does not suggest that he inherited the framework in full; nor does his conceptual departure amount to anything resembling wholesale rejection. Concerned less with the mechanics of the internal senses—“whether these particular apprehensions… belong primarily to the soul, albeit through bodily mediation, or instead belong primarily to the body; or whether the locus [the internal senses] is a single thing or multiple things; or whether they occur through a single faculty or multiple faculties”—Ibn Taymiyyah instead affirms a conclusion that he suggests all people of sound mind would agree to: “the human being—and truly, other animals as well—may perceive in another [person] something that he loves, which causes him to grow in affection and whose presence he desires; or inversely, something that he hates [in another], which causes him to grow in hostility and whose presence he fears.”21

Three major functions inherited from the Avicennan scheme can be identified in Ibn Taymiyyah’s discussion:

1. The preservation of internal sense perception as the apprehension of particulars;

2. The retention and re-presentation of sensible forms;

3. The apprehension of particular non-sensible meanings, such as friendship or hostility, in sensible objects.

The scope given to internal sense, however, marks one of the clearest divergences between the two accounts. Whereas Ibn Sīnā’s internal senses form differentiated, organ-dependent apparatus for intepreting content grounded in sensory experience—including nonsensible intentions apprehended in sensible particulars—Ibn Taymiyyah’s internal sense designates the far broader domain of the subject’s immediate, first-person apprehension of states occurring within himself—one that encompasses bodily appetites, affects, volitions, and cognitive states, including hunger, satiety, pleasure, pain, love, hatred, joy, sorrow, volition, aversion, and knowledge. This broader internal life also accounts for inwardly devotional states, such as spiritual tasting (dhawq) and felt experience (wajd).22

This grouping crosses boundaries that otherwise remain structurally distinct within Avicennian faculty psychology—particularly through its inclusion of knowledge, which places the subject’s cognitive condition itself within the scope of internal sensory apprehension. The inclusion of cognitions does not, however, collapse internal sense into reason, itself. As will be seen shortly, internal sense may apprehend the subject’s determinate cognitive and affective condition without supplanting reason’s ability to compare, generalize, and form universal judgments on the basis of such apprehensions.

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III. Internal Sense and Pre-Reflective Cognition

Ibn Taymiyyah distinguishes the presence of a cognition or volition within the subject from reflective awareness of it and the ability to articulate it. “Just as volition may be present within a person while he doubts its presence, cannot express it well, or seeks it,” he writes, “so necessary knowledge and other knowledge may be present within a person while he doubts its presence, seeks it, or cannot express it well.”23

He proceeds to distinguish between four conditions: (1) a cognition or volition existing within the self; (2) knowledge of its existence within the self; (3) the ability to distinguish it from other cognitions or volitions; and (4) the ability to express that distinction.24

During the night before a Ramadan fast, for instance, a person may resolve to fast the following day without ever explicitly articulating that resolve, either inwardly or outwardly. Rather than basing said intention on an explicit reflection or verbal formulation, the subject may instead possess a pre-reflective volition that shapes their readiness, expectation, and conduct—e.g., rising before the true dawn to eat suḥūr—thereby achieving the condition of a valid intention.25

This sort of apprehension may be understood as a form of tacit cognition and pre-reflective volition, where “knowledge and volition may be present in actuality, or in a potency close to actuality, simlutaneously with a degree of distraction and heedlessness.”26 This is exemplified by the praying person who becomes distracted during the act, as it cannot be said that awareness of the prayer and the volition directing are wholly absent when the praying person becomes absentminded, since even a slight reminder may allow the self to return to what is already within it—all without forming an entirely new cognition. What occurs instead is the reflective recovery of an existing cognition that already belongs to the subject’s condition.

Nor does an inability to articulate the state signify its absence, as the presence of a cognition or volition does not require that the person fully recognize what it is, distinguish it precisely from every other state, or reconstruct it discursively, since “the existence of a thing within the self is one thing, knowledge of its existence within the self is another, and distinguishing it from other things and expressing that distinction is yet another.”27

IV. Internal Sense and Fiṭrī Moral Recognition

Far from being value-neutral, internal sense perception registers states such as. pleasure and pain, love and hatred, attraction and aversion as part of a larger embodied process of moral recognition. These instinctive proclivities, together with their responsiveness to moral truths, constitute part of the human fiṭrah, or natural constitution. Through this primordial affective register and its continued maintenance, human beings may find themselves “naturally disposed to love justice and its people and to hate oppression and oppressors”.28 Conceptually, this process may be described as beginning with the sensation of an inward, affective particular—such as this pleasure or this pain, specifically—which generates a broader orientation of attraction or aversion in the subject. General judgments then follow, as the subject reflects upon and classifies the particular sensation, compares recurrent cases, and forms broader moral evaluations about benefit, harm, justice, and oppression. The resulting evaluation may, or may not, inform later deliberation or action on behalf of the subject.29

At least three functions may be conceptually distinguished within this fiṭrī process:

1. Affective registration: Internal sense perception first apprehends pleasure, pain, attraction, or aversion as an immediate and particular state within the subject.

2. Evaluative recognition: The subject then interprets this affective state as signifying benefit or harm.

3. Motivational orientation: This recognition inclines the subject toward pursuit or avoidance, though this does not automatically necessitate deliberation or action.

These functions, though mutually integrated and often reinforcing, often conflict, particularly when the subject’s natural constitution—i.e., its perceptive and volitional capacities—become impaired. Someone may judge an act to be good, at least conceptually, without feeling any instinctive attraction toward it. Conversely, someone may feel a strong pull toward what authentic revelation and sound reason identify as explicitly harmful. Within this greater moral sequence, internal sense perception pertains primarily to the first function: the affective registration that precedes the formation of any universal proposition. If the inward pleasure that follows love—which can be “experiential, sweet and tasted inwardly,”30 regardless of its validity—can point towards moral recognition, as Ibn Taymiyyah suggests, it must be understood as only one element of the evaluative process and not the sole criterion of moral truth.31

A major concern raised regarding the efficacy of indigenizing an American Muslim identity is whether such a project could withstand the pressures of what has proven, for other religious groups, to be a corrosive assimilation process.

If Islam allows itself to be filtered through the American experience, rather than fighting it at all costs, what could possibly emerge that would still be legibly read as truly Muslim?

I understand the hesitation. At the same time, there is no future for Islam in America if it is to either desperately cling onto cultural expressions foreign to its context, or remain dependent on new arrivals to provide it its identity and fortitude. Neither option is sustainable, and I’d argue both have contributed to a broader disillusionment found in younger generations—who nonetheless still seek religious refuge and identity, but are forced to choose between ephemeral third spaces or vocabulary foreign to their tradition, yet familiar to their context.

The latter spans the gamut of political identities that young Muslims gravitate towards to provide some semblance of meaning in a world adrift: liberation theology, postcolonial-critical Muslim studies, and even redpill ideology. And that’s for those who still yearn to express their religious commitments through relevant social issues; not including the many who simply find no relevance, drift away, and remain Muslim in name only. And of course, we know the risk this poses for religious transmission another generation or two down the line.

With that said, there are a number of things that must be taken into consideration.

THESIS I.

For the vast majority of people, religiosity will remain heavily conditioned by their social networks. Meaning, most people won’t be tullāb al-ʿilm. Their connection to the dīn will be heavily dependent on their environment and the degree to which religious practice is sustained, reinforced, and made socially intelligible within their networks.

THESIS II.

Tight-knit social networks, particularly those that maintain religious observance, become especially durable under conditions of necessity and mutual dependence. Ethnic enclaves present the most prominent example of this, as their viability is often tied to the degree to which their community members require mutual support. The more opportunities afforded to members of such a group, particularly from external parties, the less dependent they become on the enclave—and, by consequence, on some of the practices and customs preserved within it.

THESIS III.

Ethnic enclaves may present the most visible version of point two, but physical proximity may also generate similar outcomes. This was more pronounced in urban areas in the mid-to-late 20th century, where Muslims from different backgrounds often formed associations based on religious commonality. The suburban sprawl that followed shortly after certainly did a lot to hinder this formation, as many ethnic groups dispersed and reconstituted their communities in suburban ethnic enclaves—often weakening the multiethnic urban institutions that remained and the Black American Muslim communities they served. Chicago’s inner-city masājid are testaments to this pattern, as once Muslim-dense neighborhoods like Marquette Park and Chicago Lawn were vacated through white flight-like migrations, consolidating into the suburban enclave, Little Palestine, twenty-five minutes southwestward.

THESIS IV.

This leaves us in quite the pickle: if religious observance is maintained among the generality mostly through closed networks of ethnic associations, and ethnic associations remain compact and durable due to the pressures of their social constraints, then we have to concede that either Muslims must remain permanent outsider categories or we risk dissolving the bonds that erect their religious expression. This, however, presents a false dilemma.

THESIS V.

The third option that is obscured above looks at the fortification of an American Muslim community through the lens of a localism that emphasizes social relations based on proximity and not necessarily ethnic origin. The ethnic enclave loses its grip on many third- and fourth-generation descendants because they no longer identify, first and foremost, as Pakistani, or Indian, or Yemeni, or Iraqi, but instead as American extensions of those identities—whether they explicitly say it or not. Their cultural standards and customs are American, even if a regional expression of them. This, of course, can be disadvantageous to the preservation of back-home cultural norms, such as language preservation and other forms of cultural inheritance, but these losses may be offset by a more cohesive localized culture.

THESIS VI.

As it stands right now, very few options are given to reconcile this cohesive localized culture with Islam at large. Too often, one either has to buy into a postcolonial framework that fixates on an imagined past, still disconnected from the realities of now, or absolve oneself of religious identity by subordinating it to another cultural identity that feels more salient and pronounced.

THESIS VII.

In the midst of this widening gap, third spaces have emerged to provide a refuge for the young American Muslim who wants religious engagement but is disassociated from institutions that mostly serve as back-home cultural annexes. The third space, as creative as it is, however, foregoes much of the critical connective tissue that keeps actual communities tethered to one another: they are not ethnic—on the contrary, often hostile to the idea—nor are they usually rooted in a bounded neighborhood in a way that allows for the obligations that arise through proximity.

THESIS VIII.

Many Black American Muslim communities, on the contrary, were formed around the notion that Islam was not preserved through inward isolation, but through public exposure. If the ethnic enclave protects its Islam like zam-zam water in a glass container, the Black American Muslim, and many of their convert counterparts, wielded the religion like a purifying agent cleansing against the wide array of social impurities. The convert, if not loving America, still loves his block and the particularities of the neighborhood he calls his own, and often does not look eastbound for signs of home. His frustration, in general, is not that Islam is incompatible with his surroundings, but that it has yet to impact them in the way he knows it can.

THESIS IX.

This last point must serve as our north star. Forming an indigenized American Muslim identity must be both an organic outcome, in that it responds to the experience of its members and not as a formula applied top-down, while simultaneously striving to implement the institutional levers that allow for such organic expression to flourish. Its lingua franca will be local, its taste will be local, its immediate commitments and obligations must be local. Key policy can be advocated that accelerates and incentivizes this project, such as permanently affordable housing constructed or repurposed on property owned by urban masājid—alleviating a portion of the housing crisis, while also providing material incentive for social-religious participation. The masjid serving as the jāmiʿ; block clubs formed to function as federations that allow for internal governance and mediation.

THESIS X.

What can we do now?

There’s the obvious: recommit to the local urban masjid, clean their space, volunteer for events, propose programming, lead programming, offer mentorship, schedule a youth retreat, enter your children into their school, audit the efficacy of their offerings, provide solutions and not empty critique. Once you are integrated and vouched for, if you are not already, offer more substantive strategy. Fundraise for capital campaigns that move beyond gymnasiums. Identify potential benefactors who may bring such a vision to life. Above all, begin treating the masjid as the center of a shared social world—one whose obligations extend beyond its walls and into the neighborhood around it.

Among later Ḥanbalī theologians, love (maḥabbah) occupied a foundational role in the relation between God and man.1 More than an affect accompanying worship, it was understood as the animating principle of worship itself—a claim Ibn Taymiyyah (d. 728/1328) develops into a broader account of human agency.

In the treatise Qāʿidah fī’l-maḥabbah (A Principle Concerning Love), Ibn Taymiyyah argues that every purposive human act, whether devotional or otherwise, proceeds for the sake of some intended and beloved end—and without such an end, there can be no motive for action. He then extends this account beyond individual psychology and devotion to the ordering of social life, supplying the basis for what may be reconstructed as a duty-based theory of social action. Love draws human beings into association around goods they can secure only together; the need to procure and defend those goods gives rise to the shared obligations of cooperation and mutual defense.

This study develops that reconstruction by following the movement from individual affection to collective power, showing how shared benefits and harms generate binding duties and organize the capacities through which an association pursues and defends its common good.

I. Attraction, Aversion, and Action.

Ibn Taymiyyah opens the treatise by identifying the basis of all human action:

“Every act and movement in the world has its origin in love and desire: they are the foundation and beginning of every act. Hatred and aversion, by contrast, hinder and repel whatever is bound up with their cause and object; they are therefore the foundation of all renunciation, if renunciation is interpreted as a positive matter.”2

Love (maḥabbah) and desire (irādah), in this account, denote the human being’s affective inclination toward something apprehended as desirable. Hatred (bughḍ) and aversion (karāhah), by contrast, arise in response to what is apprehended as harmful or repugnant, instinctively turning the person away from it. These affective states register how an object or action is experienced while also disposing the person toward pursuit or avoidance. The basic point is self-evident: love attracts; hatred repels.

In the formation of determinate love, encounter with the object precedes the affection it elicits. A person first experiences something existent as desirable, and love arises in response to it. Ibn Taymiyyah grounds this relation in sensation:

“If love (ḥubb) follows sensation (iḥsās), and sensation occurs only in relation to something existent, then... love itself can only be directed toward something existent or toward an object of love (maḥbūb).”3

This encounter does not necessitate direct experience with the object itself. Its desirability may become known through something resembling it or through a description that renders it intelligible by reference to goods already experienced. An absent object—or the future existence of something not yet present—can therefore become beloved only insofar as its desirability is mediated through materials supplied by prior experience.

The motivation necessary for action is built upon this initial apprehension. Once particular goods—e.g., nourishing food, the welfare of a child or dependent, rain upon a field, or the pleasure of worship—become objects of desire, they assume a place within an ordered hierarchy of loves and aversions. Action proceeds from this dynamic order, as the human being “gives up what it loves and desires only for what it loves and desires more; abandoning the weaker love for the stronger [love], doing what it dislikes when its love of the result is stronger than its aversion to the means, and abandoning what it loves when its aversion to the consequence is stronger than that love.”4

A loved object is never pursued in isolation from competing goods or anticipated consequences. A person may relinquish an immediate pleasure because he hates its expected consequence more than he loves the pleasure itself, or he may endure something unpleasant because his love of the intended end outweighs his aversion to the means. The famous example being that of the sick man who—despite detesting the taste of his bitter medicine—drinks it due to his greater love for health.

Even hatred itself remains dependent upon love, since something is ordinarily hated precisely because it threatens, obstructs, or destroys a good deemed beloved:

“Love and desire are the basis for the existence of hatred and aversion, and the basis for the removal of what is hated. Hatred exists only because of love, and what is hated is removed only because of love.”5

II. The Formation of a Dīn

If love serves as the basis of all action, then love alone cannot serve as the criterion of an act’s moral soundness (ṣalāḥ). The relevant question is not whether a person loves, but what he loves, in what measure, and toward which final end.

Ibn Taymiyyah makes the ordering principle explicit:

“The soundness of a living being consists only in the soundness of its intended end (maqṣūd) and what is sought from it (murād), while the soundness of acts and movements depend upon the soundness of their will (irādah) and intentions (niyyāt).”6

A love, even if sincere, may still be corrupt if its object is unworthy, its means prohibited, or its place within the hierarchy of goods disordered. The soundness of the spiritual heart (qalb) depends upon the soundness of the ends it loves and pursues. When love, will, and intention are properly ordered, action contributes to the heart’s soundness; when disordered, action deepens its corruption.

Action may be understood, then, as operating bidirectionally, as it both expresses a preexisting disposition while also shaping the disposition from which later perceptions, affections, and actions emerge. Ibn Taymiyyah describes this movement:

“From the [servant] proceeds the act, and to him returns the fruit of the act, whether it is good or evil... The act has an effect upon the heart—of benefit, harm, and soundness—before its effect can be detected outwardly.”7

When habituated action, or practice, is sustained to the point that it becomes a normative standard from which customs and values arise, it ceases to be an isolated behavior and instead constitutes a way of life, or dīn. For Ibn Taymiyyah, dīn—commonly translated as religion, though more accurately rendered here as a way of life—encompasses the practical order through which beliefs take shape as stable patterns of obedience:

“Dīn is comprised of obedience (ṭāʿah), worship (ʿibādah), and character (khuluq). It is the enduring and binding obedience, however, that has become a custom (‘ādah) and a disposition, unlike [an act of] obedience that is merely performed once. For this reason, dīn has been interpreted as referring to customs and character, and character is likewise interpreted as dīn, as in [Allāh’] saying: “Indeed, you are certainly upon magnificent character.” Ibn ʿAbbās explained: “Upon magnificent dīn.”8

Dīn is both instrument and the result of moral formation. It arises from attractions and obediences that have become stable habits, but also preserves and reinforces those habits through recurring practice. What begins as an individual act through this process of habituation becomes a settled manner of life.

III. Shared Affections and the Common Good

Once love, action, and custom are connected, Ibn Taymiyyah moves directly from individual moral psychology to the necessity of social order:

“Since every action proceeds from love and desire, while renunciation proceeds from hatred and aversion; since every person is an intending actor who possesses love and hatred… and whose actions follow what he loves and hates; and since these affections may concern matters that have become customary and characteristic of him, or matters that arise incidentally yet become binding, it is known that every group of human beings must possess a dīn that unites them. They cannot do without one another, as no individual can secure what benefits him and repel what harms him independent of others. They must therefore associate.”9

The argument joins two claims developed in the preceding sections:

1. Human beings act through love and aversion;

2. The actions arising from these affections, when repeated and sustained, form customs and practices that constitute a way of life, or dīn.

Yet if action is motivated by the pursuit of goods and the resistance of harms, the individual remains severely limited in his ability to realize either objective, as goods require powers, skills, time, and social positions that no single person possesses in full. The more atomized the individual, the less capable he is of attaining his intended ends. Human dependence is therefore not a social defect to be overcome, but a basic feature of human existence.

For Ibn Taymiyyah, human dependence necessitates association, while the shared pattern of loves, aversions, and practices that orders an association becomes the dīn that gathers its members. It is precisely through association that individuals can collectively and concretely enact the loves and aversions they share in common:

“Once they associate, they must share in securing what benefits them all, such as seeking the descent of rain—which they may collectively love—and in repelling what harms them, such as an enemy—which they may collectively hate. They must therefore share in the love of some common object and the hatred of some common object. This is their shared, common dīn.”

These shared affections function as a social bond, supplying human associations with a common direction of action. The adjective “common,” or ʿāmm, does not imply that every member experiences the good identically, or loves it with equal intensity, as motives will invariably differ amongst the constituents within an association. One person may protect his neighborhood out of concern for the safety of his family, another out of material concern for the market value of his rental property, and another from a place of deep religious conviction. Their actions nevertheless converge upon a shared objective whose preservation encompasses the particular interests of all.

IV. Obligation, Covenant, and Collective Power

Shared affections and the associations that form around them, while rooted in love, must not be mistaken as primarily voluntary, or choice-based, commitments. Goods whose procurement depends upon multiple contributors cannot be secured if contributions remain optional. Neither can harms be repelled if participants may defect whenever resistance becomes costly. The affective bond must understood, first and foremost, as binding:

“The things [associations] require must be made obligatory upon themselves, while the things that harm them must be prohibited to themselves. This is their dīn, and it can arise only through their agreement upon these matters—that is, through the formation of a covenant (taʿāhud) or contract (taʿāqud). This forms part of the dīn shared by all human beings: committing themselves to obligations and prohibitions, and fulfilling the covenants by which they are bound.”10

A good that can be secured only through cooperation gives rise to a network of obligations, while a common threat that warrants mutual defense mandates collective restraint. Covenants (taʿāhud), contracts (taʿāqud), and alliances (taḥāluf) give these duties determinate form by specifying what each participant must undertake, what each may rightfully expect from others, and which failures of performance constitute betrayal. For this reason, the covenant retains universal recognition as a central part of most human associations:

“Faithfulness to covenants is among the matters that the people of the earth have agreed to require of one another—even if among them is one who possesses the power not to fulfill them—just as they have agreed upon requiring justice and truthfulness.”11

This emphasis on agreement as an element of the covenant must not be mistaken as elucidating a proto-Lockean account in which social duty is established primarily through consent. While covenants give prior practical necessities a determinate and reciprocally binding form, Ibn Taymiyyah makes clear that shared obligations may also arise from inherited relations that transcend choice or agreement, such as place and lineage:

“Even if they have made no verbal agreement, their very participation in a shared undertaking requires them to secure what sustains that common undertaking and repel what threatens it. The same applies to people of a common lineage or residents of the same region: kinship and proximity require cooperation in securing shared benefits and repelling shared harms.”

He then distinguishes these associations according to how they are established:

“Association among them is established at times through their own act—namely, covenanting upon that wherein lies their good—and at other times through the act of God Most High.”

Human associations consequently arise through two basic modes:

1. Voluntary associations, or associations formed through personal conduct (bi-fiʿlihim), such as contracts, alliances, partnerships, exchanges, and explicit covenants;

2. Necessary associations, or associations arising through providence (bi-fiʿli Allāh), such as familial descent, kinship, marital affinity, and local proximity.

The latter, literally described as associations established “through God’s act,” are relations not chosen by those who receive them, but established prior to their consent. They nevertheless carry corresponding obligations, whether or not the persons involved acknowledge or fulfill their demands.

Persons who inhabit the same neighborhood, for example, share exposure to insecurity, infrastructure failure, violence, health crises, and political disorder. Their common situation implicates them in securing the goods upon which their shared life depends. Kinship likewise creates claims of maintenance, protection, and continued connection that do not disappear merely because one party refuses to acknowledge them. Covenant is therefore not the sole source of social obligation, but one means by which obligations already rooted in a shared and inherited relation acquire determinate and reciprocal form.

This, of course, extends beyond relations of kinship and locality. Ibn Taymiyyah argues that faith itself establishes rights among believers prior to any expressly concluded covenant:

“The rights [owed to a fellow believer] are obligatory by virtue of faith itself. Committing oneself to uphold them is like committing oneself to prayer, almsgiving, fasting, and pilgrimage; and entering into a covenant concerning them is like entering into a covenant to uphold what God and His Messenger have made obligatory. These rights are owed by every believer to every other believer, even when no formal pact of brotherhood has been concluded between them.”

Explicit agreement—whether in the form of covenants or contracts—may therefore specify, reinforce, formalize, or even generate particular obligations. It does not, however, exhaust the sources from which obligation arises. Many duties arise directly through divine legislation and thus precede consent, including those attached to enduring relations such as kinship and locality, as well as the divinely ordained rights that accompany the bond of faith.

V. Cooperation, Mutual Defense, and Collective Agency

With respect to collective action, Ibn Taymiyyah applies the same two conditions that govern action at the individual level, namely will (irādah) and power (qudrah). An association, as an organized unit, becomes capable of acting when a shared end is joined to the coordinated capacities necessary to attain it:

“It is known that every act requires both will and power. Those who act together must therefore be united in both will and power. What some of them obtain from others in securing something beloved or repelling something disliked occurs through will and voluntary consent. What they obtain from those outside their association—whether securing something beloved or repelling something disliked—occurs through their power over the enemy from whom the harm is feared.”12

As we have noted on the individual scale: an apprehended good or harm may give rise to love or aversion, which results in action when the person’s will becomes decisive and is joined to sufficient capacity. When applied to the association, the same causal structure is distributed across the organized unit. Collective wills converge upon a shared object of pursuit or defense, while distinct capacities are organized toward its attainment.

As Ibn Taymiyyah elsewhere illustrates, one person may contribute wealth and generosity, while another contributes courage and physical protection. Such a differentiation does not grant moral superiority to one agent over another, but instead strengthens the association’s organized power, provided that these diverse capacities are coordinated in relation to the same end.

Of course, collective action does not hinge on consensus decision-making. Participants are not required to possess identical motives, perform identical functions, or participate equally in deliberation. What collective action does demand, however, is sufficient convergence in relation to the intended end, mutual expectations concerning each participant’s contribution, and an effective arrangement through which their several powers can produce a common result.

Ibn Taymiyyah identifies two principal directions in which this coordination operates:

1. Cooperation in procuring a beloved good (taʿāwun);

2. Mutual support in repelling a hated harm (tanāṣur).

“When they agree and covenant to procure the thing they love and repel the thing they hate, they assist (aʿāna) one another in procuring what is loved and support (naṣara) one another in repelling what is hated.”13

An agreement of cooperation and mutual support is formed through which its members bind their respective capacities to a common object of love. Taʿāwun organizes their powers toward acquisition, provision, and preservation, while tanāṣur organizes them toward protection, resistance, and defense. The first concerns the attainment of a desired good, while the second concerns the removal or prevention of a perceived harm. In practice, the two frequently coincide, since preserving a beloved good often requires defending it against whatever threatens it.

The same affective logic underlies Ibn Taymiyyah’s account of walāyah (allegiance) and ʿadāwah (enmity), which organize social relations along opposing lines of proximity and distance. Walāyah generates attachment, assistance, conformity, and mutual support, while ʿadāwah generates separation, resistance, and opposition. Although not every association requires a common enemy in order to endure, social order cannot be sustained through positive provision alone. Whatever a community loves and seeks to preserve must also be defended against the persons, actions, and conditions capable of undermining or destroying it.

An association’s ability to unite around a shared aim and act with collective power does not, by themselves, make its actions just. This reality is why Ibn Taymiyyah identifies justice as indispensable to partnerships and exchanges, since the same cooperation that enables people to provide for one another can also be turned toward organized predation and oppression. An association may combine its powers to secure an unjust advantage, preserve a corrupt privilege, violate the rights of outsiders, or protect its members from rightful accountability. Neither the strength of the association nor the number of its participants sanctifies the object around which they unite.

Ibn Taymiyyah illustrates this danger through his analysis of corrupt affection:

“In general, love causes the lover to conform to the object of love…. When corrupt love and attachment arise between them, it causes them to cooperate in their purposes…. His love may drive the pursuer to take people’s wealth unlawfully in order to give it to the beloved, to abandon people’s rights, and to sever kinship ties for the beloved.”14

As the Prophet ﷺ is reported to have said, love of a thing can render the lover blind, particularly when that love reaches its most intense form. Love often produces conformity, binds people together, and moves them toward mutual assistance. None of these actions, at least in the abstract, carry moral value. That judgment depends entirely upon the ultimate object of love, the means leveraged to serve it, the rights preserved or violated in the process, and the consequences generated by its pursuit.

VI. Authority, the Highest Good, and True Religion

Covenants, contracts, and alliances may serve as mechanisms of coordination, just as community may also act through the command of an authority whom its members obey. Ibn Taymiyyah accordingly identifies several ways in which shared conduct may be organized:

“Under the revealed law sent down by God, the acts owed to God and the duties that people owe one another sometimes become obligatory through God’s imposition and sometimes through contract, as with vows and contracts of exchange and partnership… If people do not follow a law revealed by God, they will instead follow either an unrevealed law or a political order established by one of the figures they venerate, owing to some measure of power, knowledge, or the like. Whatever is not encompassed by these unifying arrangements requires them to form alliances among themselves. Their affairs cannot be properly ordered except through obedience to an authority whose leadership they have mutually agreed to accept, or through the command of someone whom they already obey.”15

The passage distinguishes several sources of social obligation: revealed law, inherited or constructed normative order, enacted policy, authoritative command, and voluntary agreement. All of these structures may have the capacity to coordinate conduct and organize collective power, but this alone does not establish their justice or congruence with truth.

The practical order of a society—its dīn in the broader Taymiyyan sense—is therefore defined not only by the rules governing conduct, but also by the object those rules ultimately serve. Ibn Taymiyyah gives every dīn a twofold structure:

“Every dīn, obedience, and love necessarily contains two things. First is the dīn’s object of love and obedience—the intended end (al-maqṣūd al-murād). Second is the very form of the act through which obedience and worship occur: the way, path, law, method, and means.”16

This twofold structure prevents Ibn Taymiyyah’s account from collapsing into a purely consequentialist ethics. In a report from al-Fuḍayl b. ʿIyāḍ that he transmits approvingly, an act is accepted only when it is both sincere and sound—i.e., sincere in being directed to God; sound in conforming to the Prophetic tradition. The object pursued and the form of pursuit are irreducible to one another, as the goodness of an end does not necessarily render every means used to attain it legitimate.

Revealed law performs both the teleological and practical functions mentioned in the twofold structure. It identifies God as the only object worthy of unrestricted love, worship, and obedience, and also distinguishes genuine benefit from what merely appears beneficial, preserves rights that collective preference might otherwise sacrifice, and governs the means by which legitimate goods may be pursued. Although the natural disposition enables human beings to recognize goodness in general terms, revelation reforms and disciplines their affections through practice. Repeated obedience reshapes what they love, teaches them to order competing goods, and restrains desires that would corrupt that order.

To a lesser degree, a non-revealed order may also contain genuine elements of truth and justice. Such an order, though ethically limited in scope, may still preserve life, enforce contracts, protect the wronged, cultivate courage and generosity, and establish justice in partnerships and exchanges. These goods are not nullified due to the incomplete or defective nature of a society’s ultimate end. Ibn Taymiyyah’s broader use of dīn permits an order to be sound in one respect and corrupt in another.

The complete sense of al-dīn al-ḥaqq—the true way of life—however, is reserved for obedience and worship directed to God alone:

“The true dīn is obedience to God and worship of Him…. Dīn is habitual obedience that has become character. Through this, the one obeyed becomes beloved and intended, for the foundation of this is love and will.”17

A social order possesses truth insofar as it recognizes genuine goods, preserves legitimate rights, and pursues them through just means, though it only becomes comprehensively true when both its final object of love and its practical form are rightly ordered toward God—through His love, worship, and obedience.

اللهم صل على محمد وعلى آل محمد

﷽

Few jurists have been as consequential to the development of Ḥanbalī legal thought—and as persistently misrepresented—as Abū al-Wafāʾ Ibn ʿAqīl (d. 513/1119) and Taqī al-Dīn Ibn Taymiyyah (d. 728/1328). Often reduced to their theological controversies and portrayed as iconoclasts standing outside the school, both were nevertheless deeply rooted in the Ḥanbalī legal tradition they inherited: Ibn ʿAqīl as one of the foremost disciples of al-Qāḍī Abū Yaʿlā (d. 458/1066), and Ibn Taymiyyah as the heir to one of the most consequential juristic lineages in Ḥanbalī history.

Although the intellectual independence of both jurists cannot be dismissed, it would be a mistake to construe their legal ingenuity as a rupture from their legal heritage. If their reasoning was especially innovative, it was largely in the manner in which they retrieved and developed resources already embedded within the school: authenticating secondary narrations from Aḥmad, formulating alternative takhrīj from his principles, calling into question qualifications and restrictions imposed by other jurists, or preferring conclusions they considered more faithful to the governing text and operative legal cause.

In describing Ibn ʿAqīl’s intellectual stature, Ibn Taymiyyah remarked that he was “among the most intelligent people in the world, much given to reflection and to examining the discourse of others,” even while criticizing the theological variation found throughout his writings. On various occasions, Ibn Taymiyyah engages Ibn ʿAqīl’s legal reasoning, adopting conclusions attributed to him—even when those conclusions diverged from what later became the authorized position. This combination of explicit engagement and recurring legal convergence raises the central question of this study: to what extent did Ibn ʿAqīl provide Ibn Taymiyyah with juristic precedents, arguments, or models of intra-madhhab independence?

To investigate that question, this study audits thirty sites of convergence, or near-convergence, preserved in Imām al-Mardāwī’s (d. 885/1480) al-Inṣāf fī maʿrifat al-rājiḥ min al-khilāf ʿalā madhhab al-Imām Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal. Each attribution is assessed to identify explicit joint selections, authentication of secondary narrations from Imām Aḥmad, qualified agreement, indirect attributions, or merely the shared transmission of an opinion. Where possible, al-Mardāwī’s reports are checked against the surviving works of both jurists and the intermediate sources he cites. Their legal rationales are likewise examined to determine whether the convergence concerns only the conclusion or extends to the underlying argument, including appeals to textual generality, takhrīj from Aḥmad’s principles, analogy, hardship, operative legal causes, and practical consequences.

Each position is then compared with the later authorized formulations articulated in Imām al-Buhūtī’s (d. 1051/1641) authoritative commentaries, Sharḥ Muntahā al-irādāt and Kashshāf al-qināʿ. Their respective source texts—Muntahā al-irādāt and al-Iqnāʿ—constitute the two principal reference points for identifying the school’s later authorized position (muʿtamad). Against this baseline, the study identifies those questions on which Ibn ʿAqīl and Ibn Taymiyyah converge with one another while departing from the later authorized doctrine. Although agreement alone cannot establish direct influence, these cases reveal Ibn ʿAqīl as a recurring intellectual predecessor whose conclusions—and sometimes underlying reasoning—frequently coincide with Ibn Taymiyyah’s own.

In the Chapter of Purification (Kitāb al-Ṭahārah):

1. Water that has already been used to remove ritual impurity remains pure and purifying (ṭahūr).

The authorized position: A small quantity of water—less than two qullahs—that removes major or minor ritual impurity becomes ṭāhir but no longer ṭahūr once it separates from the body.

Divergence: A second narration from Imām Aḥmad holds that the water remains ṭahūr. Ibn ʿAqīl gave this narration preponderance in his Mufradāt, and Ibn Taymiyyah selected it as his chosen position. The standard rationale for this secondary narration is that ritual use neither changes the water nor removes it from the unqualified designation “water.” It therefore remains purifying just as water used for cooling does. Ibn Taymiyyah’s selection accords with his broader rejection of an intermediate category of water that is pure but non-purifying.

Ibn ʿAqīl’s attribution, however, must be qualified: although he preferred the ṭahūr narration in the Mufradāt, he affirmed the authorized position in al-Fuṣūl and Tadhkirah. Though al-Mardāwī classifies the primary narration as the school’s established position, he nevertheless concedes that the second is “stronger in legal reasoning” (aqwā fī’l-naẓar). He also transmits the observation that no clear, explicit text from Imām Aḥmad has been found for the authorized narration.

See more: Al-Inṣāf, 1:35–36.

2. Water does not become impure merely through contact with najāsah unless the impurity changes its color, taste, or odor.

The authorized position: Water amounting to less than two qullahs becomes najis upon contact with an unexcused najāsah, even when the impurity is imperceptible to the eye, no time has elapsed for it to spread, and none of the water’s properties has changed.

Divergence: A second narration from Imām Aḥmad holds that water, whether below or above two qullahs, does not become impure unless the najāsah actually changes one of its properties. Ibn ʿAqīl selected this narration in his Mufradāt and elsewhere, while Ibn Taymiyyah likewise adopted it. Ibn ʿAqīl’s attribution is again work-specific, as he affirms the authorized narration in his Tadhkirah.

Though Ibn ʿAqīl does not provide legal rationale, Ibn Taymiyyah suggests the secondary narration is supported by the report concerning the well of Buḍāʿah: “Water is purifying; nothing renders it impure.” He further argues that water whose color, taste, and odor remain unaffected continues upon its original state as something pure and wholesome. Mere contact cannot itself be the operative cause of impurity, since water necessarily contacts najāsah while removing it; if that contact immediately rendered the water impure, its capacity to purify would become difficult to explain.

He therefore reads the two qullah report not as establishing an automatic threshold below which water becomes impure, but as indicating that water is not impure while the khabath has been absorbed without leaving an effective trace. The same legal cause consequently applies to little and much water alike. The physical substance of any remaining najāsah is still impure and must be removed; the rule concerns whether it renders the surrounding water itself impure.

See more: Al-Inṣāf, 1:55–57; Majmūʿ al-fatāwā, 20:516–20.

3. When pure and impure garments become indistinguishable, the worshipper may exercise considered judgment (taḥarrī).

The authorized position: If no certainly pure garment is available and the number of impure garments is known, taḥarrī does not suffice. The person performs the obligatory prayer in different garments a number of times equal to the number known to be impure plus one, intending the obligatory prayer each time. This ensures with certainty that at least one prayer was performed in a pure garment. If the number of impure garments is unknown, he continues until certain that he has prayed in a pure garment. If a certainly pure garment is available, he must use it.

Divergence: Ibn ʿAqīl and Ibn Taymiyyah permit taḥarrī, wherein the worshipper examines the available indications and prays once in the garment he considers more likely to be pure. Ibn ʿAqīl’s position appears in two formulations. One permits taḥarrī when the impure garments are numerous because repeating the prayer would cause hardship; the unrestricted position attributed to his Funūn and Munāẓarāt permits it whether the garments are few or many. Ibn Taymiyyah selected the unrestricted position.

Ibn ʿAqīl’s expressly reported rationale for the qualified formulation is the avoidance of hardship. Ibn Taymiyyah’s rationale, as preserved by Ibn al-Qayyim, is that avoiding impurity belongs to the category of abstentions (bāb al-turūk), rather than positive ritual acts requiring a separate intention. Accordingly, someone who exercises taḥarrī and prays in a garment whose purity he reasonably considers more probable has fulfilled what is required of him; this is reinforced by Ibn Taymiyyah’s position that one who unknowingly prays in an impure garment need not repeat the prayer after discovering the impurity.

See more: Al-Inṣāf, 1:77–78; Kashshāf al-qināʿ, 1:49; Majmūʿ al-fatāwā, 21:477–78.

4. Purification performed from a gold or silver vessel is invalid.

The authorized position: Using gold or silver vessels is prohibited, but the purification would remain valid. This is because the required washing and wiping in ritual purification are built on the water itself, not the vessel, which is external to the constitutive acts of purification.

Divergence: Ibn ʿAqīl authenticated the position of invalidity in his Tadhkirah, while Ibn Taymiyyah selected it as his chosen position. According to this view, the prohibited vessel is not merely incidental to the purification but the operative means through which it is performed. The prohibition therefore attaches to the performance itself, analogously to prayer performed in a usurped house. This position is also attributed to Ghulām al-Khallāl and Ibn Abī Yaʿlā.

See more: Al-Inṣāf, 1:81–82.

5. A turban may be wiped over even when it has neither a “chin-wrap” nor a hanging tail.

The authorized position: Wiping is confined to a muḥannakah turban (i.e., wrapped beneath the chin) or one possessing a dhuʾābah (i.e., a hanging tail). A bare ṣammāʾ turban does not qualify because it is readily removable and is not the turban worn by Muslims during the time of the Prophet ﷺ.

Divergence: Ibn ʿAqīl and Ibn Taymiyyah permit wiping over a ṣammāʾ turban without either feature. Ibn ʿAqīl relies on an unrestricted report from Imām Aḥmad concerning wiping over turbans; Ibn Taymiyyah construes Imām Aḥmad’s objection to the ṣammāʾ form as dislike rather than prohibition and therefore not as barring the concession (rukhsa).

See more: Al-Inṣāf, 1:186–87.

6. A separate tayammum is required for a second funeral prayer when there was enough time to renew it.

The authorized position: Tayammum remains valid until the end of the relevant prescribed prayer time; successive funeral prayers performed within that period do not require its renewal.

Divergence: Ibn ʿAqīl and Ibn Taymiyyah require tayammum to be renewed before a second funeral prayer whenever the interval between the two prayers was sufficient for its renewal. Ibn ʿAqīl treats each funeral prayer as possessing its own operative “time,” limited to the duration of that prayer. Ibn Taymiyyah applies the same reasoning more broadly to purification-dependent observances lacking prescribed times, such as touching the muṣḥaf and performing ṭawāf. The uninterrupted performance of each observance constitutes its temporary “time.” A single tayammum therefore remains effective throughout that continuous performance, but must be renewed before a subsequent performance if time permits.

See more: Al-Inṣāf, 1:295–96.

7. Najāsah may be removed with any pure liquid that effectively eliminates it.

The authorized position: Najāsah ḥukmiyyah—impurity supervening upon an originally pure object—can be removed only with ṭahūr water. Vinegar, rosewater, and other pure liquids do not render the affected object legally pure, even if they physically remove the impurity.

Divergence: Imām al-Mardāwī reports a narration from Aḥmad indicating that najāsah may be removed with any pure liquid that effectively eliminates it, “such as vinegar and the like,” and attributes its selection to Ibn ʿAqīl and Ibn Taymiyyah. This narration is explained on two grounds: (1) the command to “wash” the vessel licked by a dog is unrestricted, such that limiting it to water requires additional evidence; and (2) any pure liquid that effectively removes the impurity performs the same relevant function as water.

Ibn Taymiyyah develops this rationale further. The Prophetic commands to use water address particular cases rather than establishing a universal restriction, while other texts recognize removal by stones, soil, friction, and similar means. Unlike purification from ritual impurity, removing najāsah belongs to the category of prescribed abstentions (min bāb al-turūk): its purpose is the absence of the impurity, not the performance of a particular ritual act. Accordingly, whenever the impurity is effectively eliminated, its legal ruling ceases with the disappearance of its operative cause. The surviving attribution to Ibn ʿAqīl establishes his selection of the narration, but does not preserve an equally detailed rationale in his own words.

See more: Al-Inṣāf, 1:309–10; Majmūʿ al-fatāwā, 21:474–77.

8. Pre-ejaculatory fluid (madhy) may be purified by sprinkling rather than full washing.

The authorized position: Sprinkling does not remove pre-ejaculatory fluid; it must be washed like other impurities and whatever it contacts must be washed as well.

Divergence: A secondary narration from Imām Aḥmad holds that sprinkling the affected area is sufficient to purify it, analogously to the urine of a male infant who has not begun eating food. Ibn Taymiyyah selected this narration as his chosen position. Ibn ʿAqīl is likewise reported to have deemed it correct in his Al-Ishārah; however, Al-Inṣāf conveys this attribution only through an unnamed commentator on Al-Muḥarrar, rather than directly from Ibn ʿAqīl’s work. The position is therefore attributed to both scholars, with the caveat that Ibn ʿAqīl’s attribution is indirect.

See more: Al-Inṣāf, 1:330.

In the Chapter of Prayer (Kitāb al-Ṣalāh):

9. Wearing a garment with an animate image is disliked rather than prohibited.

The authorized position: Wearing a garment containing an animate image is prohibited.

Divergence: Ibn ʿAqīl and Ibn Taymiyyah both transmit a narration from Imām Aḥmad holding that wearing such clothing is disliked rather than prohibited. Al-Sharḥ al-kabīr expressly attributes the position itself to Ibn ʿAqīl and supports it through the textual exception for images woven into textiles and by analogy with the permissible use of image-bearing textiles as furnishings. It is not established, however, that Ibn Taymiyyah adopted the narration as his chosen position.

See more: Al-Inṣāf, 1:473–74; Sharḥ al-kabīr, 1:471.

10. A garment composed of exactly one-half silk is prohibited for a man.

The authorized position: A mixed garment is permissible when silk does not predominate; this includes a garment that is exactly half silk.

Divergence: Ibn ʿAqīl and Ibn Taymiyyah prohibit the exactly-half case. Ibn ʿAqīl reasons that one-half is itself a substantial amount and that, where the materials are equal, there is no basis for making permission prevail over prohibition.

See more: Al-Inṣāf, 1:476–77.

11. Praying in congregation is a condition for the validity of the five daily prayers.

The authorized position: Performing the five prescribed prayers in congregation is individually obligatory for every able man, but congregation is not a condition of validity (sharṭ al-ṣiḥḥah). A man who prays alone without a valid excuse sins, though his prayer remains valid.

Divergence: Ibn ʿAqīl and Ibn Taymiyyah make congregation a condition for the validity of the prescribed prayer for an able man without an excuse. Ibn ʿAqīl grounds this in the legal principle that a prohibition directed to an act of worship itself entails its invalidity (al-nahy yaqtadī al-fasād), analogizing it to prayer performed in a usurped garment. Ibn Taymiyyah similarly reasons that congregation is an obligatory feature of the prescribed prayer and that “whatever is established as obligatory within the prayer is a condition of its validity, like its other obligations.” He further invokes the report, “Whoever hears the call and does not respond without an excuse, there is no prayer for him,” while construing the reported superiority of congregational prayer over solitary prayer as referring to someone excused from attending the congregation.

See more: Al-Inṣāf, 2:210.

12. An obligatory prayer is valid behind an imam performing a different obligatory prayer.

The authorized position: The imam and follower must intend the same specific obligatory prayer. Thus, even though Ẓuhr and ʿAṣr have the same outward form, performing Ẓuhr behind an imam performing ʿAṣr—or the reverse—is invalid.

Divergence: Ibn ʿAqīl and Ibn Taymiyyah validate the follower’s prayer when the two obligations differ in designation but correspond in their outward actions. The permissive rationale is that each worshipper’s intention designates his own prayer, while conformity to the imam concerns the observable acts of prayer rather than the imam’s internal intention. Ibn Taymiyyah expressly construes the command not to differ from the imam as referring to differences in actions, not intention. He extends the ruling even to prayers differing in the number of rakʿahs—such as Fajr or Jumʿah prayer behind a four-rakʿah prayer—whereas Ibn ʿAqīl’s position in Al-Fuṣūl appears restricted to prayers whose outward forms correspond.

See more: Al-Inṣāf, 2:277.

13. The concessions of travel may be used during a sinful journey.

The authorized position: A sinful journey does not permit shortening prayer, breaking the fast, or the other travel concessions, because a concession is not attached to an act of disobedience.

Divergence: Ibn Taymiyyah permits the concessions, while Ibn ʿAqīl preferred this position “in some places,” so his attribution is genuine but potentially work-specific.

See more: Al-Inṣāf, 2:316.

In the Chapter of Funerals (Kitāb al-Janāʾiz):

14. A person who already prayed the funeral prayer may repeat it.

The authorized position: Barring a few specific cases, repetition of the funeral prayer is disliked for someone who has already performed it.

Divergence: Ibn ʿAqīl selected unrestricted permissibility in Al-Funūn, although he adopted the opposite position in Al-Fuṣūl, likening the funeral prayer to the ‘Eid prayer. Because the relevant al-Funūn entry cannot be securely dated relative to al-Fuṣūl, it is unclear which represents his later position.

Al-Inṣāf likewise includes Ibn Taymiyyah among those permitting repetition, but elsewhere records his qualification that it should occur only for a renewed cause—such as joining a later congregation or leading it when he is most entitled to the imamate.

See more: Al-Inṣāf, 2:531.

15. Burying two persons in one grave without necessity is disliked rather than prohibited.

The authorized position: Combining two bodies in one grave is prohibited absent need or necessity.

Divergence: Ibn ʿAqīl and Ibn Taymiyyah reduce the ruling to reprehensibility (karāhah) when necessity is absent.

See more: Al-Inṣāf, 2:551.

In the Chapter of Ritual Seclusion (Kitāb al-Iʿtikāf):

16. A journey may not be undertaken solely to fulfill a vow at a mosque or religious site for which travel has no special scriptural warrant.

The authorized position: A vow to pray or perform iʿtikāf in a mosque other than the three privileged mosques does not make that location binding; the vow may be fulfilled elsewhere. If the person nevertheless wishes to travel to the designated mosque, it is permitted to do so.

Divergence: Ibn ʿAqīl and Ibn Taymiyyah prohibit traveling to a distant mosque merely because it was named in a vow. They hold that a mosque other than the three privileged mosques may not be treated as a destination possessing special religious merit. Ibn ʿAqīl’s objection concerns the journey, not performing the vowed worship at the named mosque itself: if the mosque is nearby and no journey is required, he permits the vow to be fulfilled there, although it may also be fulfilled elsewhere.

See more: Al-Inṣāf, 3:367–68.

In the Chapter of Pilgrimage (Kitāb al-Manāsik):

17. A man is considered a maḥram to the mother and daughter of a woman with whom he had intercourse under legal ambiguity (waṭʾ al-shubhah).

The authorized position: A woman’s maḥram for pilgrimage travel must be her husband or someone permanently prohibited from marrying her through lineage or a legally permissible cause. Although waṭʾ al-shubhah establishes permanent affinity prohibitions, the school does not consider the man a maḥram to the woman’s mother or daughter because the intercourse producing that prohibition was not legally permissible. The same exclusion applies to zinā.

Divergence: Ibn ʿAqīl, in al-Fuṣūl, and Ibn Taymiyyah consider the man a maḥram to the woman’s mother and daughter when the prohibition arose through waṭʾ al-shubhah, but not through zinā. Ibn Taymiyyah reasons that intercourse under legal ambiguity carries the ordinary legal consequences of intercourse and therefore falls within the Qurʾānic maḥram categories, unlike zinā.

See more: Al-Inṣāf, 3:413.

18. Intercourse after the first stage of release from iḥrām, while ṭawāf al-ifāḍah remains outstanding, requires a genuine, complete ʿumrah.

The authorized position: The ḥajj remains valid, but the intercourse invalidates the remaining iḥrām. The person proceeds to the ḥill, assumes a new iḥrām, performs ṭawāf al-ifāḍah, performs the ḥajj saʿy if it remains outstanding, and then exits iḥrām. The new iḥrām serves only to complete the remaining rites of ḥajj.

Divergence: Ibn ʿAqīl, in his Al-Mufradāt, requires a genuine, complete ʿumrah, comprising iḥrām from the ḥill, ṭawāf, saʿy, and shaving or shortening the hair. Ibn Taymiyyah expressly prefers this formulation in Sharḥ ʿUmdat al-Fiqh. He reasons that intercourse spoiled what remained of the pilgrimage rite, and that a newly initiated iḥrām must attach to a complete nusuk—either ḥajj or ʿumrah—not merely to isolated remaining acts. The complete ʿumrah therefore stands in place of the spoiled remainder; Ibn Taymiyyah further treats its ṭawāf as the outstanding ṭawāf of ḥajj.

Al-Inṣāf, however, also attributes to Ibn Taymiyyah the authorized corrective-iḥrām formulation. His position must therefore be recorded with both transmitted formulations, although his own Sharḥ al-ʿUmdah unequivocally prefers the complete-ʿumrah view.

See more: Al-Inṣāf, 3:499–500.

In the Chapter of Sales (Kitāb al-Bayʿ):

19. The prohibition on disposing of purchased property before taking possession applies regardless of the type of property purchased.

The authorized position: Ordinary dispositions before possession—such as sale, lease, gift, and pledge—are invalid when the property was purchased by measure, weight, count, or length, because it remains subject to the seller’s obligation of full delivery. The same applies to property sold by description or on the basis of a prior viewing. By contrast, a specified item outside these categories may ordinarily be disposed of before possession, and its accidental loss is borne by the buyer. The school nevertheless recognizes limited exceptions to the prohibition, including manumission, making the property a dower, concluding a khulʿ in exchange for it, and bequeathing it.

Divergence: Ibn ʿAqīl and Ibn Taymiyyah extend the prohibition to every category of purchased property before possession, even when the buyer already bears its risk of loss. Ibn ʿAqīl reasons that the first transaction remains incomplete while delivery is outstanding and therefore cannot be followed by another transaction before its completion. Ibn Taymiyyah argues that liability and the power of disposition do not necessarily coincide: property may enter the buyer’s liability while disposition remains barred, and disposition may sometimes be permitted while liability remains elsewhere. He therefore maintains that Aḥmad’s principles support the broader prohibition.

See more: Al-Inṣāf, 4:465–67.

20. Circulating fulūs may be exchanged for gold or silver on a deferred basis and without reciprocal possession before the parties separate.

The authorized position: Al-Inṣāf identifies the contrary as the correct position of the madhhab and the view of most Hanbalī authorities. Al-Muntahā likewise requires both immediate maturity of the exchange (ḥulūl) and reciprocal possession before separation (taqābuḍ), assimilating circulating fulūs to coined money. Kashshāf al-qināʿ, following al-Iqnāʿ, expressly permits both deferment and delayed possession. It therefore departs from al-Muntahā on this issue.

Divergence: A narration from Imām Aḥmad permits the transaction, and Ibn ʿAqīl and Ibn Taymiyyah selected it. The permissive view treats fulūs as originally merchandise (ʿurūḍ), whose monetary function is incidental; accordingly, exchanging them for gold or silver is not governed as an exchange between two currencies. Ibn Taymiyyah explains that immediate maturity and reciprocal possession are specifically required when both countervalues belong to the genus of gold and silver. Ibn ʿAqīl similarly states in al-Fuṣūl that fulūs are merchandise under all circumstances.

See more: Al-Inṣāf, 5:41, 5:91; Majmūʿ al-fatāwā, 29:459.

21. Preemption extends to jointly owned real property even when it does not admit compulsory division.

The authorized position: Preemption is confined to an undivided share in land that admits compulsory division. It does not attach independently to movable property; buildings and plantings are included only when sold together with land subject to preemption.

Divergence: Ibn ʿAqīl and Ibn Taymiyyah extend preemption to jointly owned real property that does not admit compulsory division. Ibn Taymiyyah reasons that the Prophetic reports do not condition preemption upon divisibility and that the harm of continued co-ownership is greater, not lesser, when the property cannot be divided.

See more: Al-Inṣāf, 6:257–58.

In the Chapter of Endowments (Kitāb al-Waqf):

22. If a parent dies without rectifying an unequal gift, the other children may recover the excess from the favored child.

The authorized position: If the parent dies before equalizing the children, the completed gift becomes irrevocably vested in its recipient, and the other children have no right of recovery. This excludes a gift made during the parent’s terminal illness, which is governed as a bequest.

Divergence: Ibn ʿAqīl and Ibn Taymiyyah selected the narration that the unequal gift does not become irrevocably vested upon the parent’s death and that the other children retain recourse against it. Ibn Taymiyyah further holds that the favored child must return the preferential excess after the parent’s death. The supporting rationale is that the Prophetic characterization of such preference as injustice—and the command to rectify it—is not extinguished by the parent’s death.

See more: Al-Inṣāf, 7:140–41.

In the Chapter of Manumission (Kitāb al-ʿItq):

23. Sale of an umm walad is legally possible.

The authorized position: Her sale is prohibited and invalid.

Divergence: Ibn ʿAqīl expressly permits her sale in his Funūn, reasoning that ʿAlī and other Companions held this position and that a subsequent consensus among the Successors could not extinguish an established Companion position. Ibn Taymiyyah selected the same permissive position. Al-Inṣāf separately records a narration from Imām Aḥmad indicating permissibility with dislike, while noting that the school did not act upon it.

See more: Al-Inṣāf, 7:495.

In the Chapter of Marriage (Kitāb al-Nikāḥ):

24. A marriage contracted without the requisite prior authority may become effective through later ratification.

The authorized position: A marriage contracted without the presently effective guardianship, agency, or consent is invalid and cannot be cured by subsequent approval. Kashshāf expressly includes a more remote guardian acting without a valid excuse for the nearer guardian, a stranger acting without authority for either spouse, a guardian marrying a woman whose permission is required without obtaining it, and a slave marrying without his master’s permission. The requisite authority or consent is treated as a condition of the contract’s formation, not something later ratification can supply retrospectively.

Divergence: Ibn ʿAqīl reads Aḥmad’s report transmitted by Abū Ṭālib as establishing the validity of a suspended marriage (al-nikāḥ al-mawqūf) upon later ratification, and Ibn Taymiyyah expressly approves his reading. In the report, men contracted a marriage on behalf of an absent groom, who ratified it after they returned. Ibn Taymiyyah explains that the groom’s later “I accept” is not a delayed acceptance completing an outstanding offer, but ratification of an unauthorized contract already formed on his behalf. He therefore does not infer that an ordinary offer remains open after contracting parties present in the same session separate without acceptance. He also concludes that the later ratification must occur before two witnesses.

See more: Al-Inṣāf, 8:51.

25. If two guardians marry the same woman to different men and it is known that one contract preceded the other, but the earlier contract cannot be identified, the man selected by lot is treated as her husband without a new contract.

The authorized position: The judge dissolves both marriages because the valid earlier contract cannot be identified. Under the relied-upon ruling concerning the dower, a lottery determines which man owes the woman half of her dower; it does not establish that he is her husband.

Divergence: Ibn ʿAqīl and Ibn Taymiyyah select the narration treating the man chosen by lot as the husband without renewal of the marriage contract. Ibn Taymiyyah reasons that requiring an entirely optional new marriage would eliminate the distinction between the two narrations and render the lottery legally pointless. Even under the alternative requiring renewal, he argues that either the woman is already treated as the selected man’s wife for maintenance, housing, and inheritance—with renewal required only to permit intercourse—or the renewal itself must be obligatory upon both of them.

See more: Al-Inṣāf, 8:89-90.

26. The named dower is proportionally adjusted for a preexisting defect or an absent stipulated quality.

The authorized position: If the marriage is rescinded for a spouse’s defect before consummation or valid seclusion, the wife receives no dower. If rescission occurs afterward, the full named dower is fixed, although a husband deceived about his wife’s defect may recover it from the party responsible for the deception. The defect itself does not proportionally alter the dower.

Divergence: Ibn ʿAqīl and Ibn Taymiyyah hold that, when the wife has a preexisting defect or lacks a quality stipulated by the husband, the named dower is reduced by the same proportion that the defect or missing quality reduces her mahr al-mithl, whether the husband rescinds or continues the marriage. Ibn Taymiyyah extends the principle reciprocally: if the husband proves defective or a condition stipulated by the wife is unfulfilled, her dower is correspondingly increased to compensate for the difference. The rule analogizes the marital exchange to proportional compensation for a defective sale and seeks to preserve the value presupposed by the parties’ agreement.

See more: Al-Inṣāf, 8:201–02.

In the section of Benefits benefits concerning the etiquette of eating and drinking:

27. Hanging a textile bearing an animate image, or using it to cover a wall, is not prohibited.

The authorized position: Hanging a textile bearing an animate image, or using it as a wall covering, is prohibited. Kashshāf al-qināʿ distinguishes such display—which entails honoring the image, drawing attention to it, and resembling the treatment of worshipped idols—from spreading the textile on the floor or making it into a cushion, which subjects the image to lowly use and is permissible without dislike.

Divergence: Ibn ʿAqīl and Ibn Taymiyyah both report another narration from Imām Aḥmad according to which such hanging or wall-covering is not prohibited. Under this narration, it is treated like spreading the textile or making it into a cushion. The convergence is therefore one of transmission only: Al-Inṣāf does not state that either scholar selected the narration as his own position.

See more: Al-Inṣāf, 8:336–38.

In the Chapter of Divorce (Kitāb al-Ṭalāq):

28. A divorce pronounced by a culpably intoxicated person does not take effect.

The authorized position: A divorce pronounced by one who knowingly and voluntarily became intoxicated through prohibited consumption takes effect. The relied-upon position in the school holds him accountable for his statements and actions because he culpably removed his own reason in a manner capable of harming others; imposing their legal consequences is therefore treated as punishment for his culpable conduct.

Divergence: Ibn ʿAqīl and Ibn Taymiyyah select the narration from Imām Aḥmad that the divorce does not take effect. Ibn ʿAqīl states that the intoxicated person is not legally accountable while bereft of reason. Ibn Taymiyyah argues that juridically effective utterances and dispositions require discernment and rational intent (al-qaṣd al-ʿaqlī). The drinker’s sin lies in the antecedent act of drinking and warrants its prescribed punishment; it cannot suply the discernment missing from the subsequent pronouncement of divorce or justify harming an innocent spouse by giving that pronouncement effect. Al-Zarkashī remarks that the evidence for this narration is stronger, whereas al-Mardāwī states that Aḥmad’s hesitation reflected the strength of the evidence on both sides.

See more: Al-Inṣāf, 8:433–35; Majmūʿ al-fatāwā, 33:104–09.

29. When exactly one of two marriages is certainly dissolved but the affected marriage cannot be identified, a lottery designates which marriage is legally treated as dissolved.

The authorized position: If one husband says, for example, “If the bird was a raven, my wife is divorced,” and another says, “If it was not a raven, my wife is divorced,” neither wife is individually adjudged divorced when the bird’s identity remains unknown. Each husband proceeds from the certainty of his own marriage because fulfillment of the condition attached to his particular pronouncement remains uncertain. The ordinary incidents of both marriages therefore remain in force. Nevertheless, because one divorce certainly occurred, both husbands must abstain from intercourse unless one believes the other to be mistaken, in which case he may act upon his belief that his own marriage remains intact.

Divergence: Ibn ʿAqīl and Ibn Taymiyyah hold that the certainty that one divorce occurred cannot be disregarded merely because the affected wife is unknown; a lottery therefore determines which wife bears the divorce. Ibn Taymiyyah calls this the apparent implication of Aḥmad’s words. Al-Qāḍī Abū Yaʿlā likewise reports it as the transmitted ruling and describes it as consistent with the school’s analogy.

See more: Al-Inṣāf, 9:145–46.

In the Chapter of Food (Kitāb al-Aṭʿimah):

30. An animal slaughtered by a member of the People of the Book for a religious festival or as an offering to something venerated is unlawful even when God alone is invoked over it.

The authorized position: The animal is lawful if the slaughterer invokes God alone, although eating it is disliked because of the juristic disagreement. It falls within the general permission of the food of the People of the Book, and the slaughterer intended legally cognizable slaughter and is ordinarily qualified to perform it. Kashshāf calls this the relied-upon position. The animal is unlawful if another name is invoked, whether alone or together with God’s name.

Divergence: A secondary narration from Imām Aḥmad prohibits it, and Ibn Taymiyyah selected this narration. His rationale being that the dedicatory purpose governs even when it is not verbally expressed: slaughter performed as an offering to other than God constitutes sacrificial worship directed to other than Him and is therefore forbidden despite the pronouncement of God’s name. Al-Inṣāf transmits through Ibn Munajjā that Ibn ʿAqīl states in al-Fuṣūl that the animal is carrion, invoking the Qurʾanic prohibition of “that which is dedicated to other than God.” His description of it as carrion supplies the juridical characterization underlying the prohibition, rather than necessarily representing a stricter practical ruling than Ibn Taymiyyah’s.

See more: Al-Inṣāf, 10:408–09; Iqtiḍāʾ al-ṣirāṭ al-mustaqīm, 2:64–65.

Conclusions: Degrees of Convergence and Evidence of Influence

The thirty cases examined in this study establish a recurrent pattern of juristic convergence between Ibn ʿAqīl and Ibn Taymiyyah, but they do not all yield the same kind of evidence. Twenty-eight preserve substantive agreement or near-agreement, while two establish only that both jurists transmitted an alternative narration. Because the evidentiary categories overlap, they should be treated as different modes of convergence rather than as mutually exclusive numerical divisions.

The strongest evidence of direct engagement occurs in the suspended-marriage case (no. 24). Ibn ʿAqīl rejected al-Qāḍī Abū Yaʿlā’s interpretation of Aḥmad’s report and read it as validating a contract concluded without prior authorization but subsequently ratified. Ibn Taymiyyah expressly endorsed this reading: “Ibn ʿAqīl judged well” (qad aḥsana Ibn ʿAqīl), adding that the case involved delayed ratification rather than delayed acceptance. This passage proves that Ibn Taymiyyah encountered Ibn ʿAqīl’s argument, evaluated it, and adopted it. It therefore supplies the clearest evidence in the corpus that Ibn ʿAqīl functioned as a positive juristic precedent for Ibn Taymiyyah. It is also, however, the only case in the present sample in which such direct endorsement is unambiguous.

A second and more common form of convergence consists in the two jurists adopting the same secondary narration from Aḥmad. This occurs in at least six cases: used water remaining purifying (no. 1), water becoming impure only through perceptible change (no. 2), deferred exchange involving circulating fulūs (no. 20), recovery of an unequal parental gift after death (no. 22), using a lottery to identify the husband when two marriage contracts cannot be chronologically distinguished (no. 25), and the ineffectiveness of an intoxicated person’s divorce (no. 28). The ruling on sprinkling pre-ejaculatory fluid (no. 8) belongs to this category only with qualification: Ibn Taymiyyah expressly selected the narration, whereas Ibn ʿAqīl’s authentication of it is known through an unnamed commentator on al-Muḥarrar. These cases establish shared participation in the usage of alternative transmissions, but not necessarily direct influence. It is possible both jurists may have independently preferred the same material inherited from Imām Aḥmad.

A third category concerns takhrīj from Aḥmad’s words or principles. Here the evidence is considerably narrower, with the suspended-marriage case supplying the clearest example of direct influence. In the turban case (no. 5), both reason from material attributed to Aḥmad, but by distinguishable routes: Ibn ʿAqīl invokes an unrestricted report concerning turbans, whereas Ibn Taymiyyah construes Aḥmad’s objection to the ṣammāʾ form as dislike rather than prohibition. In the pre-possession disposition case (no. 19), Ibn Taymiyyah appeals to Aḥmad’s principles, while Ibn ʿAqīl’s preserved rationale concerns the incompleteness of the transaction before delivery. Likewise, in the paired conditional-divorce case (no. 29), Ibn Taymiyyah calls the lottery the apparent implication of Aḥmad’s words, while Ibn ʿAqīl’s own derivation is not preserved. The corpus thus reveals Aḥmad’s transmitted rulings and legal principles as a common point of departure, yet, with the notable exception of the suspended-marriage case, it does not establish that the two jurists relied upon the same report, construed Aḥmad’s words identically, or derived their conclusions through the same takhrīj.

Compatible underlying reasoning is nevertheless visible in several cases. Both jurists treat the performance of an untimed observance as supplying its operative period for tayammum (no. 6); regard the prescribed congregational form as integral to the validity of prayer (no. 11); restrict purposeful devotional travel to destinations possessing special scriptural warrant (no. 16); classify circulating fulūs as merchandise for the relevant exchange (no. 20); distinguish delayed ratification from delayed contractual acceptance (no. 24); and connect the ineffectiveness of an intoxicated person’s divorce to the absence of comprehension and operative intent (no. 28). Their treatment of festival slaughter also proceeds from the animal’s dedication to other than God (no. 30). These cases demonstrate compatibility of rationale, but only the suspended-marriage passage unequivocally establishes Ibn Taymiyyah’s appropriation of Ibn ʿAqīl’s argument.

The resulting conclusion must therefore remain graduated. The study demonstrates repeated and substantial convergence between the two jurists, much of it outside the later muʿtamad. It also shows that Ibn ʿAqīl supplied Ibn Taymiyyah with at least one expressly acknowledged interpretive precedent and, more broadly, represents an earlier repertoire of independent yet recognizably Ḥanbalī reasoning with which Ibn Taymiyyah repeatedly converged. What the evidence does not establish is systematic dependence: outside the suspended-marriage case, most agreements can also be explained by their common recourse to Aḥmad’s narrations, the school’s legal principles, or independently accessible textual arguments. The most defensible characterization is therefore neither accidental agreement nor wholesale intellectual transmission, but a patterned convergence in which direct influence is occasionally demonstrable, frequently plausible, and often impossible to distinguish from a shared Ḥanbalī inheritance.

As reported by Abū Ḥafṣ al-Bazzār in al-Aʿlām al-ʿAliyyah fī Manāqib Ibn Taymiyyah, pp. 36–41:

As for [Imām Ibn Taymiyyah’s] devotion in worship—may Allah be pleased with him—it would be rare to hear anything like it, for he dedicated nearly all his time and life to it. He did not allow himself to be occupied with anything that might distract him from Allah Almighty—not family nor wealth.

During the night, he would isolate himself completely from people, secluding himself with his Lord, the Almighty. He would humbly and attentively recite the Glorious Qur'an, and engage in various acts of worship both at night and during the day. When the night passed and he joined the people, he would begin his day with the Fajr prayer, always performing its Sunnah before appearing before them.

When he commenced the prayer, the reverence with which he pronounced the takbīrat al-iḥrām would strike awe into the hearts of those present. Once he entered the prayer, his body would tremble, and his movements would sway slightly to the right and left from the intensity of his focus. When he recited, he prolonged his recitation, following the manner authenticated in the recitation of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ.

His rukuʿ, sujūd, and upright posture between them were among the most perfect forms described in the performance of obligatory prayers. He would shorten his sitting for the first tashahhud significantly, and he would pronounce the first taslīm aloud such that all those present could hear it.

After completing the prayer, he, along with those in attendance, would praise Allah Almighty with the prescribed supplication:

اللَّهُمَّ انت السَّلَام ومنك السَّلَام تَبَارَكت يَا ذَا الْجلَال والاكرام

O Allah, You are Peace, and from You is peace. Blessed are You, O Possessor of Majesty and Honor.

He would then turn toward the congregation, recite the prescribed taḥlīlāt, and glorify Him, praise Him, and proclaim His greatness thirty-three times each, concluding the hundred with the taḥlīl (“lā ilāha illā Allāh”), as authentically narrated. The congregation would follow his lead in these practices.

He would then supplicate to Allah, the Almighty, for himself, for those present, and for all Muslims, drawing from the wide array of supplications found in the tradition.

Among his most frequent supplications were:

اللَّهُمَّ انصرنا وَلَا تنصر علينا وامكر لنا وَلَا تَمْكُر علينا واهدنا وَيسر الْهدى لنا اللَّهُمَّ اجْعَلْنَا لَك شاكرين لَك ذاكرين لَك اواهين لَك مخبتين اليك راغبين اليك راهبين لَك مطاويع رَبنَا تقبل توباتنا واغسل حوباتنا وَثَبت حجَجنَا واهد قُلُوبنَا اسلل سخيمة صدورنا

O Allah, grant us victory and do not grant victory over us; devise for us and do not devise against us; guide us and make guidance easy for us.

O Allah, make us grateful to You, remembering You, deeply supplicating to You, humbly submissive to You, desirous of You, fearful of You, and wholly obedient to You.

Our Lord, accept our repentance, wash away our sins, make firm our proofs, guide our hearts, and remove the rancor from our breasts.

He began and ended his prayers with blessings upon the Prophet ﷺ, then proceeded to engage in dhikr. It was known that his habit was such that no one would speak to him without necessity after the Fajr prayer. He remained engaged in dhikr, audible to himself, and sometimes his dhikr could be heard by those beside him. During this time, he frequently raised his gaze toward the sky. This was his constant practice until the sun rose and the time during which prayer is prohibited had passed.

During my stay in Damascus, I accompanied him most of the day and much of the night. He would draw me close, seating me by his side. I listened to what he recited and the adhkār he engaged in at that time. I observed that he would recite al-Fātiḥah and repeat it, spending all that time—from Fajr until the sun had risen—in its continuous recitation.

I pondered over this: why did he adhere to this particular surah over others?

It became clear to me—and Allah knows best—that his intention was to combine, through its recitation at that time, what has been narrated in the aḥadith and what scholars have mentioned regarding whether it is preferable to prioritize adhkār over Qur'anic recitation at that time, or vice versa. He, may Allah be pleased with him, saw that in reciting and repeating Al-Fātiḥah at that time, he combined both opinions and achieved both virtues. This reflects the sharpness of his intellect and the keenness of his insight.

Then he would bow [out of humility], and if he desired to hear ḥadīth in another place, he would hasten to it immediately with those accompanying him. Rarely would anyone with insight see him without falling upon his hands to kiss them. Even the people of trade, when they saw him, would step out of their shops to greet him and seek blessings from him. Despite this, he would give each of them a generous share of greetings and other interactions.

If he saw something objectionable on his path, he would remove it. If he heard of a funeral, he would hasten to pray for the deceased or express regret for missing it. Sometimes, he would even go to the grave of the deceased after finishing his hadith session to pray for them.

Then he would return to his mosque, alternating between issuing fatāwā for the people and fulfilling their needs until he prayed Ẓuhr with the congregation. He continued in this manner for the remainder of his day.

His gathering was open to all—old and young, noble and humble, free and enslaved, male and female. He welcomed everyone who came to him, making each person feel as though none were honored as highly as they were.

After performing the Maghrib prayer, he would offer additional voluntary prayers as Allah enabled him. Then, I or someone else would read to him from his own authored works or other texts, and he would enlighten us with unique insights and enrich us with profound wisdom until the time for the ʿIshāʾ prayer. After performing ʿIshāʾ, we would continue as before, engaged in learning and discussions, until a significant portion of the night had passed.

Throughout the day and night, he never ceased to remember Allah Almighty, declaring His oneness and seeking His forgiveness. He, may Allah be pleased with him, often raised his gaze toward the heavens, scarcely pausing from this habit, as though he were observing something he sought to affirm with his vision.

This remained his constant practice during the entire period of my stay in his presence.

We continue our working study of the Ḥanbalī legal theory manual Mukhtaṣar al-Taḥrīr, drawing principally upon Imām al-Mardāwī’s expansive commentary, al-Taḥbīr sharḥ al-Taḥrīr.

In the previous installment, we examined the first three sentences of the text’s introduction, exploring the subject matter of a science, the kinds of properties it properly investigates, and the specific subject of uṣūl al-fiqh.

In this installment, we revisit the final clause of the preceding passage before turning to the text’s next sentence, in shāʾ Allāh.

We ask Allāh to grant us tawfīq.

﷽

2.1. A Civilization of Means

In the previous installment of this working study, we concluded with the third line of Mukhtaṣar al-Taḥrīr’s opening chapter:

وَلَا بُدَّ لِمَنْ طَلَبَ عِلْمًا أَنْ يَتَصَوَّرَهُ بِوَجْهٍ مَا، وَتُعْرَفَ غَايَتُهُ وَمَادَّتُهُ
Anyone who seeks [to learn] a science must conceptualize it in some respect, and its purpose and source material must be known.

Before continuing, it is worth pausing over the concluding clause: “and its purpose (ghāyah) and source material (māddah) must be known.”

* * *

It has been said that our civilization today—in whatever capacity it may be understood as a coherent civilization—is one principally concerned with means.1

In our quest for knowledge, we often prioritize the mechanics of rote retention over genuine comprehension. In our longing to benefit others, we pursue the acquisition of skills and talents, satisfying our hearts with the appearance of mastery. In our pursuit of ease and material sufficiency, we treat upward mobility as a good in itself, as though the climb were its own reward.

Though worldly benefits are not without merit, their attainment becomes dangerous when confused for an end in itself. These activities and the objects to which they relate—knowledge, skills, wealth, and so on—exist as vehicles by which one arrives at a greater destination. Their utility remains meaningful insofar as they serve their purpose (ghāyah). Removed from that purpose, the tools risk becoming instruments of desire and distraction.

On this distinction, Imām Ibn al-Qayyim writes2:

Both the means (wasā’il) and the end (maqsūd) are intended, but the end is intended as a ghāyah, whereas the means is simply intended as a means.

In a separate passage, the Imām reflects at length3:

Every intended object, if it is not intended for His sake and connected to Him, is vanishing and severed. For the final end is not unto it; the final end is only unto the One to whom all affairs have come to their end, terminating in His creative act, His will, His wisdom, and His knowledge.

Thus, He is the ghāyah of everything sought: Every beloved thing that is not loved for His sake—its love is toil and torment; every act that is not intended for His sake is lost and false; and every heart that does not reach Him is wretched, veiled from its happiness and prosperity.

Within the Aristotelian and later scholastic traditions, it was held that an object of inquiry could not be fully understood apart from the purpose, or telos, toward which it was ordered. Thus, when one seeks knowledge of a new object or subject—to truly understand it as it is—it is incumbent upon the seeker to ask not only, “What does it do?” or “Of what is it composed?” but, most importantly, “For what purpose does it exist or occur?”

These questions were systematized within the causal schema known as the four causes (al-ʿilal al-arbaʿ), a conceptual framework intended to provide a comprehensive account of a thing’s existence and intelligibility. This framework was later received and developed by the Islamic philosophers (falāsifah), while elements of its causal apparatus were incorporated into Islamic legal theory—appearing in bare form in Imām al-Ḥaramayn’s al-Burhān4 before receiving clearer articulation in the works of Imām al-Āmidī5 and subsequent legal theorists.

This is precisely why a clause such as “anyone who seeks a science… must know its ghāyah” is so vital.

Before a student immerses himself in the study of a science, he must first understand its purpose before him: what faculty it cultivates, what masāʾil it investigates, and what greater benefit its mastery is intended to produce. In the case of Islamic legal theory, this entails recognizing that its end extends beyond the mere cultivation of disciplined, independent legal reasoning (ijtihād), encompassing an even greater purpose: the ability to transform sacred knowledge into action.

When this ghāyah is forgotten, the discipline becomes self-enclosed and its instruments become the terminus of study. Slowly and silently, the means replace the end.

2.2. The Part Before the Whole

In his discussion of the formal cause (al-ʿillah al-ṣūriyyah), Imām al-Mardāwī invokes a scholastic-logical principle concerning the relation between a composite (murakkab) and its constituent parts (arkān):

فتصور الْمركب مُتَوَقف على تصور أَرْكَانه وانتظامها على الْوَجْه الْمَقْصُود
Conceiving a composite depends upon conceiving its constituent parts and their arrangement in the intended manner.

This principle does not mean that one cannot recognize the whole before studying each of its parts, but it does mean that to understand the whole properly, one must understand what it is made of and how those parts fit together. The parts in isolation do not constitute the composite, but neither can the composite be understood with precision apart from the parts and their proper relation to each other.

Nonetheless, others—including Imām al-Mardāwī himself—disagreed with this approach. They argued that, through repeated technical usage, the expression uṣūl al-fiqh had come to function primarily as the proper name (ʿalam) of a distinct discipline, rather than merely as a genitive construction (murakkab iḍāfī) whose meaning was derived from its constituent terms.

This preference is reflected in my decision throughout this series to translate uṣūl al-fiqh as “Islamic legal theory,” rather than through a more literal formula such as “the [x] of [x].” In keeping with the method adopted by the present text, however, we will first analyze the expression through its constituent parts.

2.3. Terms, Conventions, and the Definition of Aṣl

The author—may Allāh bestow His mercy upon him—continues:

فَالْأُصُولُ جَمْعُ أَصْلٍ، وَهُوَ لُغَةً: مَا يُبْنَى عَلَيْهِ غَيْرُهُ، وَاصْطِلَاحًا: مَا لَهُ فَرْعٌ
Uṣūl is the plural of aṣl.

Linguistically: it is that upon which something else is built;
Technically: it is that which has a branch.

It is well known that terminology (muṣṭalaḥāt) can be both the saving grace of the specialist and the bane of the beginner. This is especially evident in the Islamic sciences, where the student gradually builds an impressive technical lexicon only to quickly discover that the meanings and applications of its terms can radically shift from one discipline to another.

The sunnah of the jurist is not the sunnah of the ḥadīth scholar; nor could the sunnah of the legal theorist possibly be identical to that intended in Imām Aḥmad’s famous principle, “There is no qiyās in the Sunnah,”6 for qiyās is undoubtedly among the legal theorist’s most prized and delicate tools.

A failure to distinguish between terms and their varied technical usages often serves as a source of much error, as noted by Imām al-Tahānawī7:

The greatest thing for which… one has need of teachers is the ambiguity of technical terminology. For every [science] has a terminology specific to it; if that is not known, then it is not easy for one entering into it to find a path by which to be guided to it, nor a guide by which to understand it.

This issue extends even beyond the language of the specialist, as the signification (dalālah) of an expression may itself vary according to the particular convention governing its use. Classical scholars therefore commonly distinguished between three registers of signification:8

1. Linguistic signification (dalālat al-lughah): an expression as employed according to its established linguistic meaning.

2. Legal signification (dalālat al-sharʿ): an expression as employed according to a meaning established for it by the Sacred Law.

3. Customary signification (dalālat al-ʿurf): an expression as employed according to an established customary meaning. This may be general (ʿurfī ʿāmm), as in the convention of the wider public, or specific (ʿurfī khāṣṣ), as in the technical terminology of a particular scholarly discipline.

The same expression may therefore require a different definition according to the convention under which it is employed. Such definitions may take the form of strict logical definitions (ḥudūd)—as discussed at length in the preceding installment—or of broader definitions (taʿrīfāt).9

In the case of aṣl, the definitions offered above belong to the latter category as neither contains a proximate genus, beginning instead with the general relative pronoun mā—“that which.”

Among the rather opaque terms frequently employed in religious discourse, aṣl stands apart as one especially demanding of clarification; often invoked, but seldom specified. Its capacity for ambiguity becomes apparent in the unusual difficulty of translating the following expressions in any consistent manner:

• Uṣūl al-fiqh

• Uṣūl al-madhhab

• Uṣūl al-ḥadīth

• Uṣūl al-Sunnah

• Uṣūl al-dīn

• Uṣūl al-masāʾil

What does uṣūl designate in each case? Foundations? Sources? Evidentiary methods? Governing principles? Cardinal doctrines? In an expression such as uṣūl al-masāʾil, for example, it refers to none of these! There, uṣūl denotes the base numbers from which the prescribed shares are calculated in inheritance law.

To help us arrive at a more concrete—and perhaps shared—understanding of aṣl, our author—may Allāh bestow mercy upon him—provides both its established linguistic meaning and its technical definition. Though formulated differently, the two definitions ultimately converge upon the same relational meaning, approaching it, interestingly enough, from opposite directions.

Linguistically, aṣl is best understood through its foundational role—that upon which other things are built and by which they are grounded and supported. In technical usage, however, aṣl is better understood through its relation to what branches from it, as that to which subsidiary branches are traced.

In relation to the science before us—which examines not only foundational evidences, but, more importantly, the derivation of subsidiary rulings from those evidences—it is only fitting that this latter technical definition remain our central point of focus.

And yet, while the definition “that which has a branch” may suffice at the conceptual level, it does not provide all the clarity we need. When we speak of the uṣūl in uṣūl al-fiqh, what precisely are we referring to?

This will form the focus of our next installment, inshāʾAllāh. With this, we complete our discussion of the fourth sentence of the text.

اللهم صل وسلم وبارك على نبينا محمد وعلى آله وصحبه أجمعين

Note: Skip to the study below if you don’t care for the spiel.

Due to the nature of my work, I am often in conversation with new Muslims—fresh, unfailingly curious, and driven deeply by a desire to learn. These traits, ones I recognize from my own experience, I also know to be both a gift and a burden.

While my work has taught me much, it has also been a cruel reminder of the discussions one becomes inundated by almost immediately after affirming the shahādatayn. What should be a beautiful path toward self-purification and social good, often twists, shifts, and spirals into a maze of secondary questions and inherited controversies.

Some learn to tabdīʿ before they learn their taḥiyyāt; others inherit a hatred of dogmatic literalists before they can even define the boundaries of their own orthodoxy.

I have become thoroughly convinced that many of the intellectual problems plaguing our communities are not truly theological in substance. Instead, they emerge from poor exposure to the principles by which theological and legal conclusions become warranted and actionable in the first place.

Among the pieces of advice afforded me by those far more knowledgeable than myself is the reminder that one’s conceptualization of a subject is only refined through revision and analysis. As the common adage goes: one never truly knows something until one attempts to teach it to someone else.

It is with the intention of identifying the gaps in my own understanding—and, hopefully, benefiting myself and others in the process—that I begin this informal and modest series on the principles of jurisprudence (uṣūl al-fiqh).

Given the legal tradition I have studied under my teachers, the series will focus on the Ḥanbalī school through a reading of Mukhtaṣar al-Taḥrīr fī uṣūl al-fiqh ʿalā madhhab al-Imām Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal by Imām Ibn al-Najjār al-Futūḥī (d. 972 AH). The work itself an abridgment of Taḥrīr al-manqūl wa-tahdhīb ʿilm al-uṣūl by Imām ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn al-Mardāwī (d. 885 AH).

Through a light but attentive study of the text, the series will attempt to break down some of the concepts it introduces and expand upon its more significant clauses. Given that al-Futūḥī’s work abridges al-Mardāwī’s Taḥrīr, I will rely heavily upon al-Mardāwī’s own extensive commentary on the original work, al-Taḥbīr Sharḥ al-Taḥrīr fī uṣūl al-fiqh.

Whatever errors appear in the series are attributable to my own limitations. I ask that readers notify me if and when they surface, and I ask Allāh for sincerity, sound understanding, and success.

﷽

1.1. What Gives a Science Its Identity?

The author—may Allāh bestow mercy upon him—begins:

مَوْضُوعُ كُلِّ عِلْمٍ: مَا يُبْحَثُ فِيهِ عَنْ عَوَارِضِهِ الذَّاتِيَّةِ
The subject of every science is that which is investigated with respect to its intrinsic accidents.

At first glance, one might suppose that the subject (mawḍūʿ) of a science is the science itself. What else would be the subject of the principles of jurisprudence if not the principles of jurisprudence?

This, however, would confuse a discipline with the object it investigates.

The science of medicine, for example, does not take medicine itself as its subject. Rather, its subject is the human body, while its questions (masāʾil) concern the conditions that belong intrinsically to the human body, such as health and disease.

These conditions are known as ʿawāriḍ dhātiyyah, or intrinsic accidents. In this context, an “accident” refers to a feature—or property—that may be attributed to something without forming part of its essential definition. That might sound like a whole lot of nonsense right now, but I promise it will become clearer shortly.

What must be understood at this stage is that, to return to the example above, both health and disease are deemed intrinsic accidents because they do not define the human body, yet remain directly connected to it. They are conditions that belong to the subject matter—i.e., the human body—without constituting its essence.

Despite lying outside the subject’s essential definition, an intrinsic accident still remains grounded either in the subject itself, in an internal constituent of its essence, or in something external to the essence but coextensive with the subject—as opposed to arising from something merely external or incidental to the subject.

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In total, Imām al-Mardāwī presents six categories of accidents: three intrinsic accidents (ʿawāriḍ dhātiyyah) and three extrinsic accidents (ʿawāriḍ gharībah).

As mentioned, the term “intrinsic” (dhātiyyah) does not mean that the accident forms part of the subject’s essence, but rather, that its connection to the subject is grounded in one of three ways:

1. A direct connection to the subject itself (e.g., health and disease in relation to the human body);

2. A connection to an internal constituent of the subject’s essence (e.g., voluntary movement in relation to the human through its animality);

3. A connection to something external to the subject’s essence but coextensive with the subject (e.g., laughter in relation to the human being through human wonder, which lies outside the essence of humanity but is treated as coextensive with it).

The remaining accidents—those that are extrinsic (gharībah)—are named as such because they connect to the subject by way of an external intermediary that is either:

1. Broader than the subject (e.g., visibility may be attributed to the human body through its having a hue, since the category of colored things extends beyond human bodies);

2. Narrower than the subject (e.g., gestation may be attributed to the human body only through the narrower class of pregnant female bodies);

3. Separate from the subject (e.g., excessive warmth may be attributed to the human body through exposure to the sun or fire, both of which are external to the body itself).

While extrinsic accidents may describe real—and even highly significant—features of a subject, and may therefore warrant investigation, their being extrinsic means that they do not properly belong to the subject as such.

To extend our example: pregnancy is not attributable to every human body, yet it becomes a proper object of medical investigation once the subject is narrowed to the mature female reproductive body. Likewise, the skin and its conditions may be studied medically, but their proper investigation belongs to a more specialized discipline with a correspondingly narrower subject.

What is extrinsic relative to a broader subject may therefore become central to a specialized science once that subject is appropriately narrowed.

This distinction sets the boundaries of a discipline, as a science does not—and should not be expected to—investigate everything that may truthfully be predicated of its subject. Its proper masāʾil concern the features that belong to the subject intrinsically, while extrinsic conditions enter its investigation insofar as they bear upon those features.

We will see how this applies to our specific subject at hand shortly.

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1.2. The Subject of Uṣūl al-Fiqh

Having defined the subject of a science generally, the author—may Allāh bestow mercy upon him—identifies the subject of uṣūl al-fiqh:

فَمَوْضُوعُ ذَا: الْأَدِلَّةُ الْمُوَصِّلَةُ إِلَى الْفِقْهِ
The subject of this discipline is the evidences that lead to fiqh.

Having now emphasized the precision required to produce a useful definition—and, consequently, to capture the essence of the thing being defined—we may begin to unpack this statement.

If one were to suggest that the subject matter of uṣūl al-fiqh is simply “evidences,” without further qualification, the definition would supply a genus without the differentia needed to distinguish the discipline. Evidences of what?

It is for this reason that the qualification “that lead to fiqh” is absolutely critical. Uṣūl al-fiqh does not investigate evidence in the abstract. It investigates evidences insofar as they may be used to yield knowledge of subsidiary legal rulings—or, in other words, fiqh.

While the Qurʾān and Sunnah may be studied by specialists as sources of theology, as reservoirs of grammatical and linguistic analysis, or as historical texts, the uṣūlī (legal theorist) studies them through a particular lens: how their language signifies legal rulings, under what conditions those indications carry authority, whether they yield certain or probabilistic knowledge, and how apparent conflicts between evidences are to be resolved.

If the subject of uṣūl al-fiqh is the evidences that lead to fiqh, then its masāʾil must also be identified—that is, the particular questions the science investigates concerning the intrinsic conditions of those evidences.

These include whether a command indicates obligation, whether a prohibition entails invalidity, whether general language encompasses every member of the class it names, how an unrestricted expression relates to a restricted one, under what conditions analogy may extend an established ruling to a new case, and so on.

1.3. Conceptualization as the Basis for Judgment

The author—may Allāh bestow mercy upon him—continues:

وَلَا بُدَّ لِمَنْ طَلَبَ عِلْمًا أَنْ يَتَصَوَّرَهُ بِوَجْهٍ مَا، وَتُعْرَفَ غَايَتُهُ وَمَادَّتُهُ
Anyone who seeks [to learn] a science must conceptualize it in some respect, and know its purpose and source material.

It stands as a rational maxim that conceptualization (taṣawwur) lies at the foundation of proper judgment (ḥukm). Without first knowing what a thing is, one cannot form a sound judgment concerning it.

For example, I am of the mind that Hyderabadi biryani is delicious. My mother, however, has never heard of biryani, nor Hyderabad. How am I to convince her of such a judgment if she has absolutely no point of reference for either concept?

And yet, this sense of confusion is all too common for aspiring seekers of knowledge. Perhaps not the biryani part (we may actually be too familiar with that), but the feeling of absolute befuddlement. More often than not, learning a new science can be crushing to both the ego and the intellect. By the end of each page, the seeker—more lost and confused than when he began—sees his precious “conceptualization” slip between his biryani-coated fingers.

So it must be asked: If one is not yet capable of properly conceptualizing a science, how can one even begin the process of learning it?

The clause “in some respect” plays a major role here. By requiring only a qualified and preliminary conception, it prevents the statement from becoming circular. Complete knowledge of a science is not required before its study begins. Were that the case, the student would have no need to pursue it in the first place!

What is required, however, is an initial conception sufficient to direct the act of seeking. This is, of course, self-evident: an entirely unknown object cannot be intentionally pursued as that object. The study of any science must therefore begin with some preliminary awareness of what the discipline is, what it contains, and what it seeks to achieve—with the hope (and abundant prayer) that this initial conception will be gradually expanded and refined through study, revision, and a fair amount of trial and error.

This concludes the first three sentences of the text’s introduction.

We pray Allāh grant us success in our continued pursuit. Āmīn.

A defining feature of the Atharī, or Islamic scripturalist, is a general aversion to speculative theorization. In its place, the Atharī orientation prioritizes practice, transmission, and fidelity to the Prophetic tradition.

As a result, relatively few scholars have attempted a comparative analysis between the Atharī creed and contemporary intellectual movements—especially those that may lend philosophical support to the scripturalist outlook in contrast to its more dominant rationalist counterparts.

This following list is indebted to Amine Al-Mutawasiti, who began a similar project some years ago by identifying key intellectual movements and figures that could aid the advancement of Atharī thought on an academic level. It is not intended as an apologetic defense of Atharī positions, nor as an attempt to derive their legitimacy from external frameworks. Instead, it seeks to continue Al-Mutawasiti’s broader objective of furthering serious scholarly inquiry among scripturalists by placing Atharī thought in conversation with relevant intellectual currents.

I. Alfred North Whitehead and Divine Dynamism

Benefits: The question of divine action marks one of the central divides between the rational theologians (mutakallimīn) and the scripturalists (Atharīs). According to the dominant kalām account, God’s perfection requires a divine transcendence that, by necessity, must exclude temporality. Of course, that is because temporality entails sequence, sequence entails change, and change suggests deficiency, dependence or composition—or so the account goes. It is therefore taken as axiomatic that God existed prior to space and time, created space and time, and remains transcendent beyond the limitations of space and time. Divine action is affirmed by the rational theologian, but with the qualification that newly occurring acts are not allowed within the divine essence. While temporal effects may occur in creation, the divine attributes themselves remain pre-eternal and untouched by succession.

On this issue, Alfred North Whitehead’s process theology provides a critique worthy of note. Taking aim at classical theism’s static conception of God—a distant remnant of the Aristotelian Unmoved Mover: divine existence as pure actuality, untouched by temporality—process theology instead presents God not as a frozen metaphysical absolute beyond space and time, nor as a lifeless abstraction, but as dynamically related to the world through temporal responsiveness, receptivity, and relation. This is useful for the Atharī insofar as it rebukes the a priori assumption that divine perfection must entail immobility and non-relation.

Drawbacks: For all of Whitehead’s ingenious creativity, he was still unable to arrive at divine dynamism without sacrificing divine transcendence and omnipotence in the process. For the process theologian, God does not exercise an absolute creative will over the world, but instead exists in a sort of reciprocal dialectic with creation: the world is affected by God, and in turn, God is conditioned by the world. That, of course, cannot be reconciled with Islam’s radical monotheism (tawḥīd). Islamic scripturalism affirms divine actions—such as Speech, Love, Anger, Mercy, and Descent—as ontologically real actions connected to God’s Will, yet is uncompromising in its insistence that God is never dependent upon or perfected by creation, nor limited by metaphysical principles external to Himself.

Key supporting scholars: Charles Hartshorne for a defense of God as both absolute and relational; John Cobb and David Ray Griffin for formal process theology; William Hasker, John Sanders, and Clark Pinnock for accounts of divine temporality and responsiveness. These are useful for defending divine dynamism, but unacceptable once the conversation shifts towards divine knowledge, power, and transcendence.

II. Antonio Damasio and Embodied Moral Recognition

Benefits: More than an innate disposition, the fiṭrah occupies a uniquely foundational role in Atharī theology and ethics. While it is not granted the kind of autonomy afforded to reason (ʿaql) for the Muʿtazila, the Atharī account also does not remove the built-in capacity to recognize moral truths in the way commonly associated with Ashʿarī voluntarism. Instead, the Atharī fiṭrah grants the human being an embodied and natural inclination toward the recognition of God (maʿrifat Allāh) and basic moral knowledge. This recognition is mediated through internal and external perception, remaining properly ordered so long as the natural disposition is preserved, specified, and fulfilled through connection to divine revelation.

Against a rationalist view of moral reasoning, Antonio Damasio’s account of embodied moral recognition challenges the assumption that moral judgments are attained primarily through cold, detached, syllogistic processes. As an anti-Cartesian neuroscientist, Damasio’s main argument, the somatic marker hypothesis, argues that practical reason is not severed from affect—i.e., automatic bodily sensations, emotions, feelings, and valuations—but, on the contrary, depends upon it. Unlike metaphysically idealist accounts—whether found among late-era rational theologians or philosophically inclined Sufis—the Atharī account of cognition does not treat the intellect (ʿaql) and conscience (qalb) as immaterial faculties wholly divorced from embodied perception and material causation. Rather, moral recognition is mediated through the entire human self: feeling, aversion, attraction, memory, habituation, and affective valuation. This makes Damasio’s embodied moral recognition valuable for an account of moral knowledge that pushes beyond the divide between immaterial reason and material sensation. It helps defend the notion that moral judgment is not merely abstract reasoning applied after the fact, but is often rooted in pre-reflective forms of recognition involving the entire human being.

Drawbacks: Embodied moral recognition does not, by itself, prove moral realism. Emotions may incline one toward moral judgment and practical reasoning, but they do not independently establish objective moral truth. Damasio may be leveraged to defend the idea that affective valence can guide moral perception, but—as the corrupted fiṭrah makes clear—it may also be malformed by trauma, vice, social conditioning, or biological adaptation. This limitation serves as both a drawback and a benefit for the Atharī, as it shows that while embodied moral recognition is real, complete moral objectivity is not attained without the clarification and correction provided by divine revelation.

Key supporting scholars: Jonathan Haidt for a social intuitionist model of moral judgment and the priority of intuition over post hoc rationalization; Joshua Greene for dual-process moral psychology and the tension between intuitive and deliberative reasoning; Mark Johnson and Jesse Prinz for more on embodied moral reasoning.

III. Edmund Burke and Non-Reductive Traditionalism

Benefits: While the rational theologians wage war against heterodoxy—often through abstract theoretical critiques of historical movements with concrete material causes—the struggle among the masses today is not merely theological, but also sociological. The central question: in our commitment to liberation and justice, do we cast off the weight of inherited tradition in the name of progress, or do we cling to the ancient wisdom of our predecessors in order to understand how we ought to inhabit the present?

On one side of the Muslim response stands the modernist, who treats tradition as a source of general instruction without binding relevance for particular application. Though tradition may serve as a reference point, the modernist senses that its markers and milestones no longer point to existing places. The journey forward is therefore marched with eyes closed and a heart full of good intentions.

On the other end stands the neotraditionalist—the ideological hegemon of the moment—who navigates the modern world with similar unease, though he sees Tradition as his jeweled relic and saving grace. He protects Tradition by encasing it behind glass—something to marvel at, but never touch, lest its shine be dulled by contact with the present. Rather than participate in Tradition as a living inheritance, the neotraditionalist often seeks to recreate a replica of what he cannot truly inhabit, adorned in garments that are not his own, and situated in spaces whose aesthetics conjure fantasies of a lost world.

Neither a blind traditionalist nor an enthusiast of modernity, Edmund Burke provides perhaps one of the strongest defenses of traditionalism as a living, breathing inheritance worth protecting. Against the rationalist logic embedded in the Enlightenment project, which sought to apply universal principles to reconstruct society from the top down, Burke emphasizes the primacy of inherited wisdom, accumulated experience, custom, and institutional memory as the foundations of a timeless “partnership between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.”

Burke’s traditionalism stands against both the progressive view of history as a necessary march away from the backwardness of the past and the ill-conceived notion that foreign customs, norms, and institutions can be imported onto a people without regard for the intergenerational experiences that make every place distinct. In defense of moral obligation, Burke rejects the Rousseauian myth of the pre-social man, along with any vision of humanity as intelligible prior to inherited social, moral, and political forms. Human rights, for Burke, cannot be abstracted from corresponding obligations, and liberty cannot be severed from order, virtue, and the concrete conditions that make the common good possible.

Burke’s non-reductive traditionalism teaches us that one cannot look toward the future without reverence for the past, but neither can one recreate the past without acknowledging the particularities of the present. An immersion in either extreme betrays the sacred pact of society.

Drawbacks: Although Burke precedes the modern binary of conservative and liberal, his account of prudence has often been reappropriated through the lens of what later came to be called “Burkean conservatism.” In this reading, Burke’s prioritization of tradition, inherited institutions, and intergenerational experience is flattened into a general preference for incremental reform and suspicion of radical change. As a result, Burke is often remembered as the reformer par excellence: the foremost champion of gradualism and the natural enemy of revolution. The danger is that, without careful application, a reductionist invocation of Burke can be used—and has been used—to justify cruel, inhumane, or deeply disordered conditions under the guise of institutional preservation, social order, and prudential restraint. Burke is strongest when tradition is understood as a living inheritance ordered toward moral and social goods, though his memory becomes dangerous when Tradition is treated as a blanket defense of whatever happens to exist.

Key supporting scholars: Alasdair MacIntyre for a rigorous and rational defense of tradition, virtue, and teleological political life; Christopher Lasch for a critique of progress that does not collapse into simplistic anti-modernity; Michael Oakeshott for a critique of rationalism in politics. Emphasis on MacIntyre and Lasch, as they recover Burkean themes without devolving into nostalgia, reaction, or institutional gradualism.

IV. William Paley and A Theological Utilitarianism

Benefits: Whereas Jeremy Bentham helped cement utilitarianism as a hedonistic moral calculus, William Paley proposed an earlier framework for utility in which the weighing of benefit and harm remained incomplete when severed from the divine command. For Paley, utility was not simply relegated to pleasure, pain, or short-term preference satisfaction; it was instead situated within a theological and eschatological order in which public welfare, obedience to God, and accountability in the afterlife were central to moral judgment. His utilitarianism therefore pushed beyond sensual gratification and immediate worldly advantage, identifying the human good as the basis of utility while insisting that this good could only be properly understood with eternal consequence in mind.

Drawbacks: While Paley is useful for thinking through public benefit (maṣlaḥah) and the relation between law and human flourishing, utility must still be properly qualified if it is not to become the final measure of moral truth. Without that qualification, Paley’s moral calculus risks resembling the excesses sometimes attributed to certain modernist maqāṣidī approaches, in which maṣlaḥah is treated as a free-standing moral sovereign rather than as a category governed, disciplined, and clarified by divine command.

Key supporting scholars: Jeremy Bentham for classical utilitarianism in its cruder form, with John Stuart Mill providing a corrective between higher and lower pleasures; Henry Sidgwick for a more philosophically rigorous account of utilitarian ethics.

The discussion here relates to a broader mode of thinking—whether philosophical, theological, or historical.1 Classical debates among various groups of Muslim scholars have long revolved around the central question: does nature exert influence, or does it have no influence at all?

On the side of those who affirm influence (taʾthīr), we find Ibn Taymiyyah, who held that everything in the world comes to be through secondary causes (asbāb), which are God’s produced effects. These produced effects, in turn, possess distinguishing characteristics that God has placed within them, enabling them to influence one another: fire burns, water satiates thirst, and so on. Within creation, then, resides a real capacity for influence.

In contrast to this position stand the Ashʿarīs, attributed to Abū’l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī of the fourth Islamic century. The name of Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī, however, emerges as a prominent defender of the theory of non-influence. For al-Ghazālī, fire does not intrinsically burn; rather, God creates burning directly upon the occurrence of fire. Thus, nothing has any true effect upon anything else.

This latter view maintains that what we observe as causal relations are merely habitual conjunctions to which we have become accustomed—not that things possess any inherent capacity to influence one another. Accordingly, its defenders often react with alarm to the suggestion that material entities exert influence, viewing such claims as reducible to a naturalistic or empiricist materialism, or even as a subtle encroachment upon Divine agency. It is therefore unsurprising that al-Ghazālī’s position aligns closely with philosophical strands of later taṣawwuf, which historically emphasizes that no influence in the world exists except that of God.

On the other side—whom Ibn Taymiyyah regarded as the majority, including traditionalists and philosophers alike—are those who affirm that nature does indeed exert influence, and that the Qur’an, in a real and ontological sense, attributes effects to secondary causes, as in the verse:

“And it is He who sends down rain from the sky, and We produce thereby the growth of all things.” (Q6:99)

—indicating that God brings forth growth by means of water, not merely in conjunction with its descent.

Even the philosopher Ibn Rushd responded to al-Ghazālī, characterizing his position as entailing the elimination of causation altogether, and asserting that whoever abolishes causes thereby abolishes reason itself.

Accordingly, one who has been raised upon the notion that nothing influences anything will view a statement such as “natural factors helped the Muslims succeed” as an innovation—perhaps even as something bordering on heresy, or outright disbelief. How, it is asked, can one attribute assistance and influence to anything other than God?

For those who affirm taʾthīr, however, no such tension arises. God, in His perfect wisdom, creates through secondary causes, and these causes genuinely operate in relation to one another.

This causal framework allows for more comprehensive explanations of historical developments. This is exemplified in the work of Muḥammad Jābir al-Anṣārī, who posed the question of why certain regions underwent Arabization while others resisted early Arab-Muslim expansion. He argued that the issue is fundamentally geographical, noting:2

“Where rugged highlands arise that are logistically difficult for the Arabian camel and its caravans to traverse, the movement of Arabization halts before them… The Arab caravans stopped before mountain elevations and spread wherever they were able to travel throughout history, reaching as far as the land extended without obstruction.

From this we can explain the Arabization of Mauritania on the Atlantic Ocean—thousands of miles from the Arabian Peninsula—and the non-Arabization of Iran, located only tens of miles from some Arab frontiers, as well as the non-Arabization of the Kurdish mountains despite their close proximity to Iraq.”

By contrast, within perspectives more closely aligned with later mystical thought, the distinction between mountains and plains holds little analytical significance, nor does it meaningfully factor into explanations of Arabization. This orientation—whose clearest philosophical articulation is found in idealist philosophy—does not treat the world as possessing independent reality so much as it regards it as a reflection of another realm, akin to the notion of direct divine creation (khalq Allāh al-mubāshir).

The alternative framework finds its clearest expression in a realist account of causation—a perspective to which Ibn Taymiyyah was receptive, and which he did not consider fundamentally at odds with the foundations of his religious outlook. In any case, the two frameworks yield distinct conceptions, with significant implications for how the world is understood, how historical processes are interpreted, and how analysis and evaluation are conducted.

Adherents of the perspective more closely aligned with the idealism of later taṣawwuf tend to reduce historical victories to the relationship with the sole effective agent—namely, God. As a result, they often view historical figures as akin to righteous saints, without further consideration of their personal competencies and capacities that shape events.

By contrast, the causal realist understands that events cannot be adequately explained within the framework of idealism, but rather require analysis of proximate causes, as in the approach of Ibn Taymiyyah. This problematizes even the conception that it is religiosity itself that prevents material progress, an idealist formation propagated by both Sufis and Salafis alike.

As expressed in al-Anṣārī’s analysis:3

“The Arabs repeatedly attempted to conquer Constantinople without success, because their land forces were unable to penetrate the elevations of the Anatolian plateau in order to establish a terrestrial base for attacking the Byzantine capital. Consequently, they limited themselves to a number of ineffective naval incursions.

By contrast, the Turkic tribes succeeded in conquering Constantinople after managing to traverse the entirety of the Anatolian plateau using the Asian camel, with its two humps and thick footpads suited for crossing rocky highlands and enduring cold climates—unlike the single-humped Arabian camel.”

Despite the fact that the early Muslims were, from a religious standpoint at least, more righteous than the later Turkic tribes.

For this reason, the theory of non-influence—effectively a denial of causality—tends to avoid discussions of gain and loss, as well as natural effects, in an effort to preserve a certain mystic-inflected ethos. In its more extreme formulations, this culminates in the Akbarian doctrine of waḥdat al-wujūd (Unity of Being), wherein existence itself is understood as a manifestation of the Divine.

This orientation further gives rise to conceptions of sainthood in which individuals, despite lacking any discernible competencies, are nevertheless believed to exercise extraordinary, supra-natural influence. If causes are denied efficacy, there remains no reason to question accounts of radical reversals of ordinary order: the saint, while seated, overturns states, or performs the pilgrimage to Mecca while asleep in his home.

By contrast, the philosophical orientation that affirms causal efficacy—often associated with realist frameworks—has historically facilitated openness to scientific inquiry, systematic study, strategic planning, and industrial development, culminating in the forms of technological and military dominance observable in the modern world.

Certain forms of knowledge and control require a narrowing of vision. The great advantage of such tunnel vision is that it brings into sharp focus certain limited aspects of an otherwise far more complex and unwieldy reality. This very simplification, in turn, makes the phenomenon at the center of the field of vision more legible and hence more susceptible to careful measurement and calculation. Combined with similar observations, an overall, aggregate, synoptic view of a selective reality is achieved, making possible a high degree of schematic knowledge, control, and manipulation.

The invention of scientific forestry in late eighteenth-century Prussia and Saxony serves as something of a model of this process. Although the history of scientific forestry is important in its own right, it is used here as a metaphor for the forms of knowledge and manipulation characteristic of powerful institutions with sharply defined interests, of which state bureaucracies and large commercial firms are per haps the outstanding examples. Once we have seen how simplification, legibility, and manipulation operate in forest management, we can then explore how the modern state applies a similar lens to urban planning, rural settlement, land administration, and agriculture.

The State and Scientific Forestry: A Parable

“I [Gilgamesh] would conquer in the Cedar Forest... I will set my hand to it and will chop down the Cedar.” — The Epic of Gilgamesh

The early modern European state, even before the development of scientific forestry, viewed its forests primarily through the fiscal lens of revenue needs. To be sure, other concerns—such as timber for ship building, state construction, and fuel for the economic security of its subjects—were not entirely absent from official management. These concerns also had heavy implications for state revenue and security. Exaggerating only slightly, one might say that the crown’s interest in forests was resolved through its fiscal lens into a single number: the revenue yield of the timber that might be extracted annually.

The best way to appreciate how heroic was this constriction of vision is to notice what fell outside its field of vision. Lurking behind the number indicating revenue yield were not so much forests as commercial wood, representing so many thousands of board feet of saleable timber and so many cords of firewood fetching a certain price. Missing, of course, were all those trees, bushes, and plants holding little or no potential for state revenue. Missing as well were all those parts of trees, even revenue-bearing trees, which might have been useful to the population but whose value could not be converted into fiscal receipts. Here I have in mind foliage and its uses as fodder and thatch; fruits, as food for people and domestic animals; twigs and branches, as bedding, fencing, hop poles, and kindling; bark and roots, for making medicines and for tanning; sap, for making resins; and so forth. Each species of tree—indeed, each part or growth stage of each species—had its unique properties and uses. A fragment of the entry under “elm” in a popular seventeenth-century encyclopedia on aboriculture conveys something of the vast range of practical uses to which the tree could be put.

Elm is a timber of most singular use, especially whereby it may be continually dry, or wet, in extremes; therefore proper for water works, mills, the ladles and soles of the wheel, pumps, aqueducts, ship planks below the water line, […] also for wheelwrights, handles for the single handsaw, rails and gates. Elm is not so apt to rive [split]... and is used for chopping blocks, blocks for the hat maker, trunks and boxes to be covered with leather, coffins and dressers and shovelboard tables of great length; also for the carver and those curious workers of fruitage, foliage, shields, statues and most of the ornaments appertaining to the orders of architecture… And finally… the use of the very leaves of this tree, especially the female, is not to be despised, […] for they will prove of great relief to cattle in the winter and scorching summers when hay and fodder is dear… The green leaf of the elms contused heals a green wound or cut, and boiled with the bark, consolidates bone fractures.

In state “fiscal forestry,” however, the actual tree with its vast number of possible uses was replaced by an abstract tree representing a volume of lumber or firewood. If the princely conception of the forest was still utilitarian, it was surely a utilitarianism confined to the direct needs of the state. From a naturalist’s perspective, nearly everything was missing from the state’s narrow frame of reference. Gone was the vast majority of flora: grasses, flowers, lichens, ferns, mosses, shrubs, and vines. Gone, too, were reptiles, birds, amphibians, and innumerable species of in sects. Gone were most species of fauna, except those that interested the crowns gamekeepers.

From an anthropologist’s perspective, nearly everything touching on human interaction with the forest was also missing from the state’s tunnel vision. The state did pay attention to poaching, which impinged on its claim to revenue in wood or its claim to royal game, but otherwise it typically ignored the vast, complex, and negotiated social uses of the forest for hunting and gathering, pasturage, fishing, charcoal making, trapping, and collecting food and valuable miner als as well as the forest’s significance for magic, worship, refuge, and so on.

If the utilitarian state could not see the real, existing forest for the (commercial) trees, if its view of its forests was abstract and partial, it was hardly unique in this respect. Some level of abstraction is neces sary for virtually all forms of analysis, and it is not at all surprising that the abstractions of state officials should have reflected the paramount fiscal interests of their employer. The entry under “forest” in Diderot’s Encyclopedic is almost exclusively concerned with the utilite publique of forest products and the taxes, revenues, and profits that they can be made to yield. The forest as a habitat disappears and is replaced by the forest as an economic resource to be managed efficiently and profitably. Here, fiscal and commercial logics coincide; they are both resolutely fixed on the bottom line.

The vocabulary used to organize nature typically betrays the over riding interests of its human users. In fact, utilitarian discourse replaces the term “nature” with the term “natural resources,” focusing on those aspects of nature that can be appropriated for human use. A comparable logic extracts from a more generalized natural world those flora or fauna that are of utilitarian value (usually marketable commodities) and, in turn, reclassifies those species that compete with, prey on, or otherwise diminish the yields of the valued species. Thus, plants that are valued become “crops,” the species that compete with them are stigmatized as “weeds,” and the insects that ingest them are stigmatized as “pests.” Thus, trees that are valued become “timber,” while species that compete with them become “trash” trees or “under brush.” The same logic applies to fauna. Highly valued animals become “game” or “livestock,” while those animals that compete with or prey upon them become “predators” or “varmints.”

The kind of abstracting, utilitarian logic that the state, through its officials, applied to the forest is thus not entirely distinctive. What is distinctive about this logic, however, is the narrowness of its field of vision, the degree of elaboration to which it can be subjected, and above all, as we shall see, the degree to which it allowed the state to impose that logic on the very reality that was observed.

Scientific forestry was originally developed from about 1765 to 1800, largely in Prussia and Saxony. Eventually, it would become the basis of forest management techniques in France, England, and the United States and throughout the Third World. Its emergence cannot be under stood outside the larger context of the centralized state-making initiatives of the period. In fact, the new forestry science was a sub-discipline of what was called cameral science, an effort to reduce the fiscal management of a kingdom to scientific principles that would allow systematic planning. Traditional domainal forestry had hitherto simply divided the forest into roughly equal plots, with the number of plots coinciding with the number of years in the assumed growth cycle. One plot was cut each year on the assumption of equal yields (and value) from plots of equal size. Because of poor maps, the uneven distribution of the most valuable large trees (Hochwald), and very approximate cordwood (Bruststaerke) measures, the results were unsatisfactory for fiscal planning.

Careful exploitation of domainal forests was all the more imperative in the late eighteenth century, when fiscal officials became aware of a growing shortage of wood. Many of the old-growth forests of oak, beech, hornbeam, and linden had been severely degraded by planned and unplanned felling, while the regrowth was not as robust as hoped. The prospect of declining yields was alarming, not merely because it threatened revenue flows but also because it might provoke massive poaching by a peasantry in search of firewood. One sign of this con cern were the numerous state-sponsored competitions for designs of more efficient woodstoves.

The first attempt at more precise measurements of forests was made by Johann Gottlieb Beckmann on a carefully surveyed sample plot. Walking abreast, several assistants carried compartmentalized boxes with color-coded nails corresponding to five categories of tree sizes, which they had been trained to identify. Each tree was tagged with the appropriate nail until the sample plot had been covered. Be cause each assistant had begun with a certain number of nails, it was a simple matter to subtract the remaining nails from the initial total and arrive at an inventory of trees by class for the entire plot. The sample plot had been carefully chosen for its representativeness, allowing the foresters to then calculate the timber and, given certain price assumptions, the revenue yield of the whole forest. For the forest scientists (Forstwissenschaftler) the goal was always to “deliver the greatest possible constant volume of wood.”

The effort at precision was pushed further as mathematicians worked from the cone-volume principle to specify the volume of sale able wood contained by a standardized tree (Normalbaum) of a given size-class. Their calculations were checked empirically against the actual volume of wood in sample trees. The final result of such calculations was the development of elaborate tables with data organized by tree size and age under specified conditions of normal growth and maturation. By radically narrowing his vision to commercial wood, the state forester had, with his tables, paradoxically achieved a synoptic view of the entire forest. This restriction of focus reflected in the tables was in fact the only way in which the whole forest could be taken in by a single optic. Reference to these tables coupled with field tests allowed the forester to estimate closely the inventory, growth, and yield of a given forest. In the regulated, abstract forest of the forstwissenschaftler, calculation and measurement prevailed, and the three watchwords, in modern parlance, were “minimum diversity,” the “balance sheet,” and “sustained yield.” The logic of the state-managed forest science was virtually identical with the logic of commercial exploitation.

The achievement of German forestry science in standardizing techniques for calculating the sustainable yield of commercial timber and hence revenue was impressive enough. What is decisive for our purposes, however, was the next logical step in forest management. That step was to attempt to create, through careful seeding, planting, and cutting, a forest that was easier for state foresters to count, manipu late, measure, and assess. The fact is that forest science and geometry, backed by state power, had the capacity to transform the real, diverse, and chaotic old-growth forest into a new, more uniform forest that closely resembled the administrative grid of its techniques. To this end, the underbrush was cleared, the number of species was reduced (often to monoculture), and plantings were done simultaneously and in straight rows on large tracts. These management practices, as Henry Lowood observes, “produced the monocultural, even-age forests that eventually transformed the Normalbaum from abstraction to reality. The German forest became the archetype for imposing on disorderly nature the neatly arranged constructs of science. Practical goals had encouraged mathematical utilitarianism, which seemed, in turn, to pro mote geometric perfection as the outward sign of the well-managed forest; in turn the rationally ordered arrangements of trees offered new possibilities for controlling nature.”

The tendency was toward regimentation, in the strict sense of the word. The forest trees were drawn up into serried, uniform ranks, as it were, to be measured, counted off, felled, and replaced by a new rank and file of lookalike conscripts. As an army, it was also designed hierarchically from above to fulfill a unique purpose and to be at the disposition of a single commander. At the limit, the forest itself would not even have to be seen; it could be “read” accurately from the tables and maps in the forester’s office.

How much easier it was to manage the new, stripped-down forest. With stands of same-age trees arranged in linear alleys, clearing the underbrush, felling, extraction, and new planting became a far more routine process. Increasing order in the forest made it possible for forest workers to use written training protocols that could be widely applied. A relatively unskilled and inexperienced labor crew could adequately carry out its tasks by following a few standard rules in the new forest environment. Harvesting logs of relatively uniform width and length not only made it possible to forecast yields successfully but also to market homogeneous product units to logging contractors and timber merchants. Commercial logic and bureaucratic logic were, in this instance, synonymous; it was a system that promised to maximize the return of a single commodity over the long haul and at the same time lent itself to a centralized scheme of management.

The new legible forest was also easier to manipulate experimentally. Now that the more complex old-growth forest had been replaced by a forest in which many variables were held constant, it was a far simpler matter to examine the effects of such variables as fertilizer applications, rainfall, and weeding, on same-age, single-species stands. It was the closest thing to a forest laboratory one could imagine at the time. The very simplicity of the forest made it possible, for the first time, to assess novel regimens of forest management under nearly experimental conditions.

Although the geometric, uniform forest was intended to facilitate management and extraction, it quickly became a powerful aesthetic as well. The visual sign of the well-managed forest, in Germany and in the many settings where German scientific forestry took hold, came to be the regularity and neatness of its appearance. Forests might be in spected in much the same way as a commanding officer might review his troops on parade, and woe to the forest guard whose “beat” was not sufficiently trim or “dressed.” This aboveground order required that underbrush be removed and that fallen trees and branches be gathered and hauled off. Unauthorized disturbances—whether by fire or by local populations—were seen as implicit threats to management routines. The more uniform the forest, the greater the possibilities for centralized management; the routines that could be applied minimized the need for the discretion necessary in the management of diverse old-growth forests.

The controlled environment of the redesigned, scientific forest promised many striking advantages. It could be synoptically surveyed by the chief forester; it could be more easily supervised and harvested ac cording to centralized, long-range plans; it provided a steady, uniform commodity, thereby eliminating one major source of revenue fluctuation; and it created a legible natural terrain that facilitated manipulation and experimentation.

This utopian dream of scientific forestry was, of course, only the immanent logic of its techniques. It was not and could not ever be realized in practice. Both nature and the human factor intervened. The existing topography of the landscape and the vagaries of fire, storms, blights, climatic changes, insect populations, and disease conspired to thwart foresters and to shape the actual forest. Also, given the insurmountable difficulties of policing large forests, people living nearby typically continued to graze animals, poach firewood and kindling, make charcoal, and use the forest in other ways that prevented the foresters’ management plan from being fully realized. Although, like all utopian schemes, it fell well short of attaining its goal, the critical fact is that it did partly succeed in stamping the actual forest with the imprint of its designs.

The principles of scientific forestry were applied as rigorously as was practicable to most large German forests throughout much of the nineteenth century. The Norway spruce, known for its hardiness, rapid growth, and valuable wood, became the bread-and-butter tree of commercial forestry. Originally, the Norway spruce was seen as a restoration crop that might revive overexploited mixed forests, but the commercial profits from the first rotation were so stunning that there was little effort to return to mixed forests. The monocropped forest was a disaster for peasants who were now deprived of all the grazing, food, raw materials, and medicines that the earlier forest ecology had afforded. Diverse old-growth forests, about three-fourths of which were broadleaf (deciduous) species, were replaced by largely coniferous forests in which Norway spruce or Scotch pine were the dominant or often only species.

In the short run, this experiment in the radical simplification of the forest to a single commodity was a resounding success. It was a rather long short run, in the sense that a single crop rotation of trees might take eighty years to mature. The productivity of the new forests re versed the decline in the domestic wood supply/provided more uni form stands and more usable wood fiber, raised the economic return of forest land, and appreciably shortened rotation times (the time it took to harvest a stand and plant another).18 Like row crops in a field, the new softwood forests were prodigious producers of a single commodity. Little wonder that the German model of intensive commercial forestry became standard throughout the world. Gifford Pinchot, the second chief forester of the United States, was trained at the French forestry school at Nancy, which followed a German-style curriculum, as did most U.S. and European forestry schools. The first forester hired by the British to assess and manage the great forest resources of India and Burma was Dietrich Brandes, a German. By the end of the nineteenth century, German forestry science was hegemonic.

The great simplification of the forest into a “one-commodity machine” was precisely the step that allowed German forestry science to become a rigorous technical and commercial discipline that could be codified and taught. A condition of its rigor was that it severely bracketed, or assumed to be constant, all variables except those bearing directly on the yield of the selected species and on the cost of growing and extracting them. As we shall see with urban planning, revolutionary theory, collectivization, and rural resettlement, a whole world lying “outside the brackets” returned to haunt this technical vision.

In the German case, the negative biological and ultimately commercial consequences of the stripped-down forest became painfully obvious only after the second rotation of conifers had been planted. “It took about one century for them [the negative consequences] to show up clearly. Many of the pure stands grew excellently in the first generation but already showed an amazing retrogression in the second generation. The reason for this is a very complex one and only a simplified explanation can be given… Then the whole nutrient cycle got out of order and eventually was nearly stopped… Anyway, the drop of one or two site classes [used for grading the quality of timber] during two or three generations of pure spruce is a well known and frequently ob served fact. This represents a production loss of 20 to 30 percent.”

A new term, Waldsterben (forest death), entered the German vocabulary to describe the worst cases. An exceptionally complex process involving soil building, nutrient uptake, and symbiotic relations among fungi, insects, mammals, and flora—which were, and still are, not entirely understood—was apparently disrupted, with serious consequences. Most of these consequences can be traced to the radical simplicity of the scientific forest.

Only an elaborate treatise in ecology could do justice to the subject of what went wrong, but mentioning a few of the major effects of simplification will illustrate how vital many of the factors bracketed by scientific forestry turned out to be. German forestry’s attention to formal order and ease of access for management and extraction led to the clearing of underbrush, deadfalls, and snags (standing dead trees), greatly reducing the diversity of insect, mammal, and bird populations so essential to soil-building processes. The absence of litter and woody biomass on the new forest floor is now seen as a major factor leading to thinner and less nutritious soils. Same-age, same-species forests not only created a far less diverse habitat but were also more vulnerable to massive storm-felling. The very uniformity of species and age among, say, Norway spruce also provided a favorable habitat to all the “pests” which were specialized to that species. Populations of these pests built up to epidemic proportions, inflicting losses in yields and large outlays for fertilizers, insecticides, fungicides, or rodenticides. Apparently the first rotation of Norway spruce had grown exceptionally well in large part because it was living off (or mining) the long-accumulated soil capital of the diverse old-growth forest that it had replaced. Once that capital was depleted, the steep decline in growth rates began.

As pioneers in scientific forestry, the Germans also became pioneers in recognizing and attempting to remedy many of its undesirable consequences. To this end, they invented the science of what they called “forest hygiene.” In place of hollow trees that had been home to woodpeckers, owls, and other tree-nesting birds, the foresters provided specially designed boxes. Ant colonies were artificially raised and implanted in the forest, their nests tended by local schoolchildren. Several species of spiders, which had disappeared from the mono cropped forest, were reintroduced. What is striking about these endeavors is that they are attempts to work around an impoverished habitat still planted with a single species of conifers for production purposes. In this case, “restoration forestry” attempted with mixed results to create a virtual ecology, while denying its chief sustaining condition: diversity.

The metaphorical value of this brief account of scientific production forestry is that it illustrates the dangers of dismembering an exception ally complex and poorly understood set of relations and processes in order to isolate a single element of instrumental value. The instrument, the knife, that carved out the new, rudimentary forest was the razor- sharp interest in the production of a single commodity. Everything that interfered with the efficient production of the key commodity was implacably eliminated. Everything that seemed unrelated to efficient production was ignored. Having come to see the forest as a commodity, scientific forestry set about refashioning it as a commodity machine. Utilitarian simplification in the forest was an effective way of maximizing wood production in the short and intermediate term. Ultimately, however, its emphasis on yield and paper profits, its relatively short time horizon, and, above all, the vast array of consequences it had resolutely bracketed came back to haunt it.

Even in the realm of greatest interest—namely, the production of wood fiber—the consequences of not seeing the forest for the trees sooner or later became glaring. Many were directly traceable to the basic simplification imposed in the interest of ease of management and economic return: monoculture. Monocultures are, as a rule, more fragile and hence more vulnerable to the stress of disease and weather than polycultures are. As Richard Plochmann expresses it, “One further drawback, which is typical of all pure plantations, is that the ecology of the natural plant associations became unbalanced. Outside of the natural habitat, and when planted in pure stands, the physical condition of the single tree weakens and resistance against enemies decreases.” Any unmanaged forest may experience stress from storms, disease, drought, fragile soil, or severe cold. A diverse, complex forest, however, with its many species of trees, its full complement of birds, insects, and mammals, is far more resilient—far more able to withstand and recover from such injuries—than pure stands. Its very diversity and complexity help to inoculate it against devastation: a windstorm that fells large, old trees of one species will typically spare large trees of other species as well as small trees of the same species; a blight or in sect attack that threatens, say, oaks may leave lindens and hornbeams unscathed. Just as a merchant who, not knowing what conditions her ships will face at sea, sends out scores of vessels with different designs, weights, sails, and navigational aids stands a better chance of having much of her fleet make it to port, while a merchant who stakes every thing on a single ship design and size runs a higher risk of losing everything, forest biodiversity acts like an insurance policy. Like the enterprise run by the second merchant, the simplified forest is a more vulnerable system, especially over the long haul, as its effects on soil, water, and “pest” populations become manifest. Such dangers can only partly be checked by the use of artificial fertilizers, insecticides, and fungicides. Given the fragility of the simplified production forest, the massive outside intervention that was required to establish it—we might call it the administrators’ forest—is increasingly necessary in order to sustain it as well.

Though the believer affirms Divine Providence, he does not mistake collective life as the result of mere spontaneity, nor as existing without sustained structure. The communal need for leadership (wilāyah) is therefore recognized not only as a practical necessity affirmed by sound reason, but as a Divine mandate ordained by the Sacred Law.

“Indeed, Allah commands you to deliver trusts to their rightful owners, and when you judge between people, to judge with justice.” (Q4:58)

Although the united community (jamāʿah) and its individual members are morally equal in shared dignity and obligation, the believer acknowledges that mankind is not without differentiation in condition and function.

As Allāh, the Most High, says:

“He is the One Who has placed you as caretakers on earth and elevated some of you in rank over others, so He may test you with what He has given you.” (Q6:165)

Equality, in this sense—pertaining to moral worth rather than social condition—does not negate structured leadership, but necessitates it. For if human diversity is to become mutually reinforcing and interdependent, it must also be organized.

Leadership and authority, then, are not claims to personal superiority, but responses to the practical demands of collective life, without which objectives (maqāṣid) remain scattered, social cohesion (ukhuwwah) becomes disjointed, and the common good (maṣlaḥah) is left unguarded.

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It is for this reason that the Prophet ﷺ did not confine wilāyah to moments of political sovereignty or large-scale governance, but extended it even to the smallest human associations. This is exemplified in his saying ﷺ:

“If three set out on a journey, let them appoint one among them as their leader (amīr).” (Sunan Abī Dāwūd 2608)

This Prophetic directive establishes a general principle for collective action: wherever people act together, leadership must be identified and designated. Only through such designation may responsibility be properly distributed, allowing for the structure of the jamāʿah to be sustained.

Such distribution is essential—as seen in the example of Prophet Mūsā—upon him be peace—who, despite his individual strength, recognized that leadership is ultimately untenable without proper delegation:

“[O Lord:] appoint for me a helper from my family—Hārūn, my brother. Strengthen me through him and let him share my task…” (Q20:29–32)

This same principle is also reflected with particular clarity in the appointment of the Companion, Muṣʿab ibn ʿUmayr—may God be pleased with him—to the people of Yathrib (later Madīnah).

Once among the most privileged youth of Makkah, Muṣʿab lost virtually all social standing and financial backing after embracing the dīn of Islam. Yet when the Prophet ﷺ was asked to send a Companion to Yathrib to teach and organize its people, he selected the young and steadfast Muṣʿab.

What distinguished the Companion, therefore, was not wealth or prestige—for he had long lost both—but his moral commitment, social soundness, and competence in conveying the message. These qualities reveal the underlying traits by which leadership is recognized and entrusted, allowing us to identify a set of defining features in those who merit delegation:1

1. Moral commitment (al-amānah): a deep, personal investment in the mission at hand, grounded in moral integrity—marked by truthfulness, trustworthiness, restraint, and discipline in both intention and action.

2. Social soundness (al-salāmah): the ability to communicate with clarity and purpose, faithfully convey what is entrusted, and engage others in a manner marked by fairness and balance—free from personal enmity or factional hostility—thereby enabling trust and durable support.

3. Prudence (al-ḥinkah): the ability to perceive matters clearly, discern between what is sound and unsound, and act with proper judgment—drawing upon lived experience to arrive at informed and measured decisions.

Through these qualities, the foundations of a burgeoning community were laid, and a succession of new leaders were brought forth. Among them a young Muʿādh ibn Jabal, who would later be entrusted with authority as a delegate himself.

Thus, just as true leadership is exercised, it is also identified, cultivated, and nurtured. Rather than consolidate absolute authority in a single individual or in a narrow elite class, the Prophetic leader strives to extend it—forming others who are capable of carrying responsibility in turn.

Through this distribution, distinct yet interrelated modes of leadership take shape. Among them are:

1. Leaders entrusted with broad, discretionary authority to direct, decide, and organize collective efforts (tafwīḍ)

2. Leaders formally vested with responsibility over defined roles or domains within the broader structure (taqlīd)

3. Leaders who act on behalf of others in carrying out and implementing entrusted responsibilities (niyābah)

All of whom remain bound by a shared trust: the preservation of the united community.

This measured and principled populism—a vision of leadership driven by the welfare of the people—is observed in the Prophet’s ﷺ statement:

“The leader of a people is their servant.” (Sunan Abī Dāwūd 2858)

The structure of leadership alone, however, is not sufficient for such preservation. Of equal importance are the qualities that inhere in the one who leads; qualities that are formed across both private and public domains.

In the private domain: the Prophetic leader maintains deliberate order, with equal time apportioned between worship, family, and personal reflection. This also includes remaining attentive to the needs of particular community members, prioritizing one-to-one interactions and social maintenance. This internal structure of time, attention, and intention forms the basis upon which outward leadership rests.

In the public domain: the Prophetic leader embodies restraint, attentiveness, and balance. Speech is measured, people are brought together rather than driven apart, and individuals are honored without allowing status to override accountability. Central to this mode of leadership is a constant awareness of the condition of the community as a whole—strengthening what is good and addressing what is harmful. Leadership in this domain manifests as the ability to guide without domination and to correct without alienation.

From this paradigm, wilāyah is understood as a coherent and structured trust, sustained not merely by identifying leaders, but by rightly understanding the nature of leadership itself. When it is recognized as such, it is cultivated with care and delegated with precision—such that both the integrity of the individual and the common good of the united community are preserved.

Part 1: Moral Responsibility and the Architecture of Power

Part 2: The Foundations of Community: Rights, Obligations and the Moral Order of the Jamāʿah

Part 3: Human Interests and the Higher Objectives of the Sacred Law

Part 4: Maʿrifah and the Formation of Human Connection: An Epistemology of Familiarity

[Ibn Taymiyyah] clarifies that idealist doctrines clash with the doctrines of Ahl al-Ḥadīth—those [idealist] doctrines that originate from the non-perceptible, such as the doctrine of Jahm ibn Ṣafwān, which is based on abstract ideas and intelligibles that precede objective reality. This stands in opposition to the doctrines that start from the tangible, from its attributes, from its perceptibility, and from the fact that its reality includes all its attributes within objective reality.

Despite attempts to reconcile and mediate between the doctrines of Ahl al-Ḥadīth and their opponents from the Jahmiyyah and idealist philosophers, these attempts were neither solid nor coherent but were ultimately compelled to align with one side or the other. This is evident in issues such as the Beatific Vision (ruʾyah), the uncreated nature of God’s speech, the hearing of His speech, and other related matters as previously discussed.

For this reason, Ibn Taymiyyah reiterates the statement: “There are only two doctrines: the doctrine of Ahl al-Ḥadīth or the doctrine of the philosophers.”

The “doctrine of the philosophers” referred to here, however, does not encompass all philosophers but specifically the doctrine of idealistic philosophers—those who adhered to Plato and Aristotle and reiterated their doctrines in various forms by affirming the existence of abstract entities within objective reality. Therefore, Ibn Taymiyyah’s conflict with idealism was not merely a repetition of arguments already addressed by others; rather, he extended the principles of Ahl al-Ḥadīth so that they became a true counterpart to idealist philosophical doctrines. It was a philosophical edifice opposing idealism, and this time, it was not only against the Jahmiyyah but also against idealistic philosophers of all types—whether ancient or contemporary.

[Ibn Taymiyyah observed that these] idealists “confused mental existence with external reality. This mistake frequently appeared in the sayings of philosophers. The earliest among them, such as the followers of Pythagoras, claimed the existence of numbers independent of counted objects in external reality. The followers of Plato argued for the existence of Platonic Forms—absolute realities detached from particular entities in the external world.”

Through his study of the philosophers’ arguments, Ibn Taymiyyah noticed the differences between idealist frameworks and recognized that some contained valid critical aspects.

He states:

“The foundation of their philosophy was laid by Pythagoras, and they were called the ‘people of numbers.’ They believed that abstract numbers existed independently outside the mind. Then Plato and his followers demonstrated the fallacy of this claim but assumed instead that abstract essences—such as the universal concept of ‘man’ and ‘horse’—existed independently outside the mind and were eternal. Then Aristotle and his followers demonstrated the error in that assumption, arguing instead that these universal essences exist externally but only in conjunction with particular instances. Many later followers of Aristotle adopted this view, but it too is mistaken, for what exists externally is never universal at all; nothing exists outside except what is particular and specific.”

He elaborates on this in another passage, explaining his epistemological foundation and ontological view, which rejects all forms of idealism:

“They speak of ‘intelligibles’ and claim that certain conceptual entities exist outside the intellect, even though these cannot be pointed to, sensed in any way, or described as existing within or outside the world, or as being separate from or inherent within it. It is well known that ‘intelligibles’ are simply what the intellect comprehends. The clearest example of this is abstract universals, such as ‘absolute humanity,’ ‘absolute animality,’ ‘absolute body,’ and ‘absolute existence.’ These exist only in the mind; in external reality, nothing exists as an undefined universal—only specific, concrete entities exist, which can be sensed.”

“Only mistaken philosophers affirm the existence of abstract intellectual entities in reality. The Pythagoreans posited abstract numbers, the Platonists posited Platonic Forms—pure essences independent of particulars—along with an abstract hype (i.e., prime matter), an abstract duration, and an abstract void.”

“As for Aristotle and his followers—such as al-Fārābī and Ibn Sīnā—they rejected their predecessors’ claim of independent abstract entities in reality but instead affirmed their existence in conjunction with physical objects. They postulated ‘intelligible substances’ alongside tangible bodies, such as ‘matter’ and ‘form.’ However, when scrutinized, it becomes clear that nothing exists in external reality except bodies and their attributes. They also affirmed the existence of universals in external reality, but when further examined, it turns out that only particular entities with their specific attributes exist externally.”

At this point, idealists disguised as religious scholars accused Ibn Taymiyyah of heresy and disbelief. They labeled him among “the ignorant anthropomorphists,” which led to his trial and subsequent imprisonment.

A royal decree stated: “Whoever follows Ibn Taymiyyah in this doctrine, listens to these expressions, speaks of anthropomorphism (tajsīm), or deviates from the straight path—his only fate is the sword! Let all abide by their limits!”

Thus, it was proclaimed in Damascus: “Whoever adheres to Ibn Taymiyyah’s doctrine, his life and wealth are forfeit—especially the Ḥanābilah.”

This obsession with verbal disputes consumed vast amounts of ink. The issue was the attachment to specific terminologies that served the idealist propaganda, directed against anyone affirming objective, perceptible reality. Even materialists—who denied the existence of an idealist god but stopped at mere negation without affirming a real, objectively existent God—avoided such verbal disputes. They would simply say: “For us, the essential issue is not the specific formulation of materialism but rather its opposition to idealism—whether we start from things and move to sensation and thought, or from thought and sensation to things?”

Thus, when Jahm ibn Ṣafwān understood from the term shayʾ (“thing”) that it implied perceptibility, contradicting his doctrine, he denied that Allah was a ‘thing.’ However, these later idealists clung to the term jism (“body”), to which Ibn Taymiyyah responded:

“In summary, words are of two types:

1. Words found in the Qurʾān, Sunnah, or consensus—these must be affirmed accordingly.

2. Words that lack any scriptural basis, such as those disputed among the theologians and philosophers—like saying ‘God is a body’ or ‘God is not a body or a substance.’ These terms are not required to be affirmed or denied until their intent is clarified. If one affirms a truth, it is accepted; if he affirms a falsehood, it is rejected.”

“The term tajsīm (anthropomorphism) is ambiguous and has no basis in the sharīʿah. Affirming or denying it requires clarification and proof.”

This term is neither forbidden to be spoken nor exempt from philosophical discourse simply because idealists find its presence unsettling. Rather, its validity depends on its meaning and the speaker’s intent. If in another language, one were to use it to mean “existent,” would the idealist reject translating it simply because the letters jīm, sīn, and mīm offend his idealist sensibilities?

If meaning is the focus, then attaching undue importance to words—without scriptural affirmation or negation—is nothing but verbal quibbling and empty rhetoric. True debate must engage with the actual meaning, not stigmatize words or vilify letters. Ibn Taymiyyah dismissed the dictatorship of terminology and the intellectual terrorism imposed by idealist theologians.

He declared:

“If you mean by ‘body’ that it is something that can be pointed to with sensory perception, then this is not impossible to affirm—rather, it is necessary. For anything that cannot be pointed to does not exist.”

As it is said: In matters of pure reason, terminology is irrelevant. If something is known to be true rationally, it should not be denied based on how someone expresses it.

While the jamāʿah may be conceived as a global ideal, its reality cannot exist without concrete expression rooted in person-to-person, intimate familiarity.

As the Prophet ﷺ said:

“Indeed, the most beloved of you to Allāh… are those who cultivate familiarity with others and with whom others feel familiarity.” (al-Mu’jam al-Awsaṭ 7697)

The believer therefore recognizes that such familiarity forms the basis of all sound judgment, for valid judgment extends only from properly perceiving a thing as it truly is.

This has been the case since the genesis of mankind, as seen in the example of the Prophet Ādam—upon him be peace—who, prior to being entrusted with stewardship over the earth, was first taught the names and realities of all things in existence. Authority, therefore, was not grounded in mere power or might, but in knowledge of realities, through which familiarity is formed.

As Allāh, the Most High, says:

“And how can you have patience for what you do not encompass in knowledge?” (Q18:68)

It is for this reason that many distinguish between two primary forms of knowledge:

1. Propositional / procedural knowledge (ʿilm): Knowledge pertaining to information, concepts, and judgments.

2. Experiential knowledge (maʿrifah): Knowledge that is relational in nature, cultivated through direct engagement and sustained familiarity.

In clarifying this distinction, Imām Ibn al-Qayyim writes:

“Maʿrifah is self-evident: it is of the rank of experiential realities—such that the one who attains it cannot doubt it, nor can he rid himself of it. Thus, the unveiling of maʿrifah is more complete than the unveiling of ʿilm.”

While ʿilm provides knowledge of facts and outward details, maʿrifah yields direct experience. Through it, one moves beyond merely knowing who a person is toward understanding what they truly care about, what they yearn for, and even what they fear. This forms the essential basis of true brother/sisterhood (ukhuwwah) and lived companionship (ṣuḥbah).

For the believer, no one embodied this reality more completely than the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, whose attentiveness to people was marked not only by profound awareness, but by a depth of relational understanding. His familiarity ﷺ was unfailingly precise, personal, and enduring.

This is seen in the example of Abū ʿUmayr, a young child known for his affection for a pet nightingale. Despite his role as the leader of an entire society, the Prophet ﷺ would regularly engage him with gentle humor, asking: “O Abū ʿUmayr, what has the nightingale done?”

Upon one day learning that the nightingale had passed, the Prophet ﷺ returned to the child—not with abstract or generic counsel, but with the same familiar and gentle expression—consoling him through the very relationship that had long been cultivated: “O Abū ʿUmayr, what has the nightingale done?”

This account reflects not only the grounding of human relationships in familiarity, but also the subtle nature of experiential knowledge itself. Unlike propositional knowledge, experience cannot be acquired through instruction or rational inference alone. It is cultivated gradually, through presence, attentiveness, and sustained interaction.

For this reason, prior to the formation of any durable organized capacity (quwwah), the believer first invests in the meaningful relationships that make such capacity possible. As experiential knowledge deepens and shared interests are recognized, individual capacities—or qudar (pl. qudrah)—begin to align, giving rise to organized strength and solidarity.

Human relationships, therefore, are not merely instrumental or transactional; they are the connective fabric of the jamāʿah itself, without which the jamāʿah cannot be said to meaningfully exist. It is only through sustained, lived relationships that individual qudar are gathered and transformed into collective quwwah, such that the united community takes form not as a theoretical construct, but as a concrete lived reality.

Part 1: Moral Responsibility and the Architecture of Power

Part 2: The Foundations of Community: Rights, Obligations and the Moral Order of the Jamāʿah

Part 3: Human Interests and the Higher Objectives of the Sacred Law

A foundational principle of the Sacred Law is that no human act occurs without an internal motivation (qaṣd). Human beings do not act in a vacuum; every action proceeds from a perceived interest that moves the individual toward action.

Although the morally responsible person (mukallaf) is not held accountable for every outcome that may follow from their actions, the Sacred Law does hold them accountable for the internal motivations that direct those actions, referred to as maqāṣid al-mukallaf—the objectives of the morally responsible actor. For the believer, such motivations are not treated as signs of selfishness or moral deficiency; rather, they are recognized as the neutral basis of human action. People act precisely because they are moved by motivations and the interests they seek to preserve.

Far from functioning as a set of arbitrary commands and prohibitions divorced from the realities of human life, the Sacred Law corresponds directly with these human interests. At its core, the higher objectives of the Sacred Law (maqāṣid al-sharīʿah) exist to safeguard and preserve those interests, both in this world and the Hereafter, thereby protecting the conditions necessary for human flourishing.

As Allāh, the Most High, says:

“Allāh does not intend to place upon you any hardship, but He intends to purify you and to complete His favor upon you.” (Q5:6)

These human interests—which shape the motivations that give rise to human action—operate across three distinct levels of necessity:

1. Essentials (ḍarūriyyāt): Necessities without which human life collapses entirely. These include the preservation of faith, life, intellect, family, wealth, and dignity. When these essential interests are systematically undermined, social order itself deteriorates.

2. Needs (ḥājiyyāt): Interests that relieve hardship and allow life to proceed with stability and relative ease. Without these interests, life becomes burdensome and strained—though it may still continue.

3. Refinements (taḥsīniyyāt): Social virtues, moral habits, and material comforts that beautify human life and elevate society toward excellence.

Recognizing this hierarchy is critical for understanding human motivation, since not all human interests command the same level of commitment. A person may tolerate inconvenience in matters of comfort and may compromise in matters of convenience. However, when essential interests are threatened—when faith, life, family, dignity, or livelihood are placed at risk—human beings become far more willing to struggle, sacrifice, and mobilize in their defense.

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Though distinct in their degree of necessity, these three categories—essentials, needs, and refinements—together form a structured landscape for the pursuit of the common good. This structure allows us to map internal motivation along two dimensions:

1. Horizontally, it identifies the core domains of life that people seek to protect—faith, life, knowledge, family, wealth, and dignity.

2. Vertically, it reflects the depth of importance attached to each of these interests.

When these dimensions are properly aligned, the conditions that give rise to social action begin to take shape.

Given the shared nature of human rights and moral obligations, the believer recognizes that human interests are inherently interdependent. Essential institutions and social functions—such as the preservation of knowledge, family stability, and economic security—cannot emerge in isolation, nor can core needs or refinements be fully realized without cooperation.

It is for this reason that Imām Ibn Taymiyyah observed:

“The welfare of human beings cannot be realized—neither in this world nor in the Hereafter—except through collective gathering, mutual aid, and mutual defense.” (Al-Ḥisbah fi’l-Islām, p. 7)

Human welfare (maṣlaḥah) is therefore realized only when the preservation of life’s essential foundations ceases to be treated as a personal or private concern and instead becomes a shared trust upheld by the united community. Within the jamāʿah, individual operative capacities are gathered together to form the basis of a collective organized capacity (quwwah), enabling society to protect the interests upon which human flourishing depends.

Social corruption (mafsadah), by contrast, arises when human beings become fragmented and socially atomized—unable or unwilling to cooperate in safeguarding the interests that sustain their collective life. Under such conditions, the very foundations that the Sacred Law seeks to preserve become vulnerable to exploitation, oppression, and injustice.

Within this framework, a distinction emerges between:

1. The objectives of the morally responsible actor (maqāṣid al-mukallaf).

2. The higher objectives of the Sacred Law (maqāṣid al-sharīʿah).

This distinction recognizes that human beings naturally act from their own motivations and interests, seeking to preserve what they believe benefits them. The Sacred Law, however, orders those motivations by directing them toward the preservation of the essential interests that sustain both individual and communal life.

When the objectives of the actor align with the higher objectives of the Sacred Law, human interests become oriented toward justice, stability, and human flourishing. When they diverge—when individuals pursue their interests in ways that undermine the welfare of others—corruption takes root.

The task of the believer, therefore, is not to deny human interests, but to understand them correctly and to align them with the moral purposes for which the Sacred Law was revealed. Through this alignment, the pursuit of human interest becomes a force for the preservation of justice, the protection of dignity, and the flourishing of the united community as a whole.

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For the believer, the preservation of moral order in society is sustained through the sacred institution of the united community (jamāʿah). Though the dignity of each individual human life is acknowledged and fervently protected, moral responsibility is expressed through one’s relationship with the Divine and one’s corresponding obligations toward mankind. Rights (ḥuqūq), therefore, are not merely individual claims, but shared obligations.

For the believer, rights are understood through two key domains:

1. Rights owed to the Divine (ḥuqūq Allāh).

2. Rights owed to mankind (ḥuqūq al-ʿibād).

Rights owed to the Divine encompass matters of worship and the acknowledgment of a singular Sacred Order. This includes the testimony of faith, the preservation of one’s prayer, the ritual fast, and the giving of alms, among others. These rights shape the soul and moral ecology of the jamāʿah.

Mu’adh bin Jabal reported: “The Prophet ﷺ said, ‘O Mu’adh, do you know what the right of Allah is upon His servants?’ I said, ‘Allah and His Messenger know best.’ The Prophet ﷺ said, ‘To worship Him alone and to associate none in worship with Him.’ (Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 7373)

Rights owed to mankind, however, pertain to the preservation of social order—a sacred system deeply concerned with upholding justice, mercy, wisdom, and the common good. As the Prophet ﷺ said:

“The most beloved of people to Allah are those who are most beneficial to mankind.” (al-Mu’jam al-Awsaṭ 6026)

These interdependent rights are best understood as shared moral responsibilities through which the individual, the family, and the community are protected. They include caring for the most vulnerable, ensuring economic sufficiency, establishing public justice, and preserving the transmission of knowledge, among others.

Imām Ibn al-Qayyim writes in I’lām al-Muwaqqi’īn:

“Indeed, the Divine Law is founded upon wisdom and the common good of the servants in this life and in the Hereafter. In its totality, it is justice, mercy, benefit, and wisdom. Every issue which abandons justice for tyranny, mercy for cruelty, benefit for corruption, and wisdom for foolishness is not a part of the Divine Law.”

Accordingly, both the rights of the Divine and the rights of mankind operate within two layers of obligation:

1. Individual obligation (farḍ al-ʿayn).

2. Communal obligation (farḍ al-kifāyah).

Individual obligations are rights for which one is uniquely held accountable, such that they cannot be discharged or bypassed without the individual failing to uphold their own moral responsibility. These personal obligations—whether owed to God or to mankind—are morally and legally binding upon the individual. Examples include establishing the prayer, caring for one’s relatives, honoring contracts, and more.

Communal obligations are rights for which the broader community is collectively responsible, such that if the shared obligation were to be unfulfilled, every member of the community would bear liability for its neglect. These communal obligations—whether owed to God or to mankind—are morally and legally binding upon the jamāʿah as a whole. Examples include preserving Divine revelation, providing proper rites for the deceased, maintaining systems of mutual aid, and more.

“Let there arise among you a community calling to goodness, commanding what is good and forbidding what is evil—it is they who will be successful.” (Q3:104)

Failure to uphold the rights of the Divine or the rights of mankind—whether through neglecting one’s individual or communal obligations or through acts of transgression—forms the basis of oppression and injustice. Oppression (ẓulm), therefore, exists both as an internal, personal evil and as an external, systemic one.

As Allah, the Most High, says:

“Indeed, Allah commands justice, goodness, as well as to give close relatives [their due rights]. He forbids all that is shameful, evil, and oppressive. He instructs you so perhaps you will be mindful.” (Q16:90)

While individual obligations depend upon the operative capacity (qudrah) as part of one’s moral responsibility, communal obligations—upon which the foundation of social order rests—depend upon the organized capacity (quwwah) of the community to uphold its shared rights.

The jamāʿah thus becomes the vessel through which moral responsibility is upheld and through which justice, mercy, wisdom, and the common good are preserved.

In a noted refrain from his Futūḥ al-Ghayb, Shaykh ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlānī writes:

Every believer, in all of his states, must have three things: a command that he carries out, a prohibition that he avoids, and a decree that he is content with. There is no state in which the believer is free from one of these three things. So he ought to bind his heart to them, speak to himself with them, and act upon them with his limbs in all of his states.

For the believer, morality is inextricable from the Divine discourse (al-khiṭāb). Though the human heart is endowed with moral sensibility, the ethical framework of the believer—and the obligations that follow from it—are shaped entirely by revelation.

Rather than shy away from what may seem like a legalistic paradigm, the faith tradition of the believer—a tradition of prophetic continuity reaching back to the primordial covenant—is one that encompasses the totality of human experience. For the believer, who is granted the unique capacity to reason with and understand the Divine discourse, every action becomes an expression of beautiful obedience—or its absence.

“Indeed, We offered the Sacred Trust to the heavens and the earth and the mountains, but they declined to bear it and feared it; yet man undertook it…” (Q33:72)

This moral responsibility, referred to as taklīf, is both legal and ethical in nature, as the two are indistinguishable for the believer. As reason and understanding mature at the onset of adulthood, the believer transitions into a stage of moral responsibility, effectively becoming a mukallaf—one upon whom the Divine discourse is binding.

Reward and punishment, both in this worldly realm and in the Hereafter, thus become concrete realities for the mukallaf, who is held liable for the nature of his conduct—of course, only to the extent of his operative capacity.

“Allah does not burden a soul beyond its capacity.” (Q2:286)

At the foundation of all moral responsibility is one’s qudrah—the operative physical, financial, and circumstantial ability to act in accordance with the Divine mandate. When this base-level ability is absent, the mukallaf—who is not held liable for what is rationally or customarily impossible—bears no responsibility in that particular matter. Among those for whom moral responsibility is lifted are the child and the physically or mentally incapacitated. For all others who retain the ability to act, moral responsibility remains.

Qudrah, or the individual ability to act, however, does not guarantee structural power. The Prophet ﷺ warned of this condition:

The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “Soon the nations will be summoned to you just like one is invited to a feast.” It was said, “Will we be few in that day?” The Prophet said, “No, rather you will be many in that day, but you will be scum like such flowing down a torrent. Allah will remove your esteem from the chests of your enemies, and Allah will insert feebleness in your own hearts.”

Individual actors, even if large in number, do not automatically yield solidarity. Such is the downfall of modernity’s rugged individualism. For the believer, true power is located in the collective and organized body of the united community (al-jamāʿah), as the Prophet ﷺ noted:

“Indeed, the Hand of God is over the united community.”

As individual actors consolidate their respective capacities, once-isolated individuals become like an edifice standing on firm ground—unshakeable and fortified by the diverse strength of many.

“A believer to another believer is like a building whose different parts reinforce each other.”

Human power, therefore, may be understood through two capacities:

1. The operative capacity (qudrah)

2. The organized capacity (quwwah).

As Allah, the Most High, says:

“Prepare against them whatever you are able of quwwah…” (Q8:60)

Though neither qudrah nor quwwah are inherently restricted to the individual or the collective—as one person may wield considerable strength and a collective may still retain disconnected, independent abilities—the two are best understood through their normative expressions.

Qudrah, capacity possessed independently, is distributable. One person may have qudrah, just as ten people—even within the same arena—may each possess it. When these capacities are organized and consolidated within a framework of collective solidarity, however, they become cumulative. It is there, in the jamāʿah, that quwwah emerges.

This paradigm of power through organized capacity, or quwwah, also reframes a creedal phrase we often repeat: lā ḥawla wa lā quwwata illā bi’llāh—there is no might and no power except through Allah. Ontologically, the meaning is clear: nothing in existence unfolds outside the universal will and power of God. But the statement also carries a normative weight: no power is truly enduring, no strength truly stable, unless it is aligned with the singular Divine order—the moral basis of our tawḥīd.

And Allah knows best.

Contemporary models of addiction have largely preserved the historical framing of theology contra biology, a perspective that fundamentally pits religion and scientific observation in direct opposition.1

In a study on the history of addiction, Nathan et al.2 conclude:

“For most of recorded history, human beings viewed alcohol and drug addiction / dependence largely as actions of the gods, often as a consequence of immoral acts committed against their wishes… It was not until the beginning of the scientific revolution in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that psychiatrists Pinel, Rush, Kraepelin, Bleuler, and Freud began to offer evidence from clinical observations that biological factors also play a role in the addiction process.”

This characterization, however, is ultimately untenable.3 Grounded in a distinctly idealist reconstruction of religious thought, the portrayal of addiction as a purely spiritual malady, located within metaphysical forces such as an immaterial soul entirely divorced from material causation, fails to capture the intellectual diversity of premodern theological traditions, let alone the Islamic view.

For the anti-idealist Muslim theologian Ibn Taymiyyah, the human self or soul (al-nafs)—distinguished from the animating spirit (al-rūḥ)—is not conceived as an entity operating independently of secondary material causes. Rather, it functions through biological and physiological mechanisms encompassing the human brain and the body’s complex internal processes.4 In a discussion on compulsive behavior and habituation, Ibn Taymiyyah explicitly characterizes addiction as a physical, bodily disease while simultaneously acknowledging its profound effects upon the individual’s internal and moral state.5

As such, the harmful worldly effects of substance use disorders—such as problematic alcohol consumption—are understood to manifest through distinctly physical mechanisms, including neuroadaptations, diminished inhibitory neurotransmission, and dysregulation of both central and autonomic nervous system activity.6 These dysfunctions constitute only one dimension within a broader and dynamically interacting network of biological, psychological, and social factors operating cyclically and in mutually reinforcing ways, encompassing core belief systems, environmental influences, sensory processing, and behavioral patterns.

The key distinction between the Taymiyyan framework and the contemporary biopsychosocial model of addiction therefore lies not in the recognition of material causation, but in the interpretation of causality itself—namely, whether addiction emerges solely from naturalistic processes or unfolds within a framework ordered by divine wisdom.

This distinction can be most prominently observed in Ibn Taymiyyah’s quasi-consequentialist ethical reasoning. For the Imām, the moral value of acts (i.e., good and evil deeds) are not merely metaphysical abstractions imposed through divine legislation without purpose. Rather, moral judgments are intrinsically linked to achieving the most comprehensive benefit for humanity.7 Although divine legislation ultimately serves as the definitive arbiter of moral objectivity, the practical nature of God’s mandates can be deduced by the natural consequences of their outcomes.8 Human beings may therefore empirically recognize the objective harm of alcohol consumption, not solely in the act itself, but in the cumulative effects it produces for both individuals and societies.9

Within this framework, biological and psychological factors are not separate from or parallel to spiritual constructs; instead, they themselves are the material mechanisms through which God instills objective moral sensibilities in humanity, naturally aligning with the directives of divine revelation unless disrupted by external influences.10 Therefore, the harms of intoxicants are evident both religiously, as prescribed in divine legislation, and rationally, as discerned through sensory experience and sound reasoning.11

Although articulated within a moral vocabulary of good and evil, these processes remain mediated through biological systems.12 Such a perspective challenges the enduring assumption that religious interpretations of addiction rely exclusively upon metaphysical accounts of the soul or moral judgments detached from practical utility. Rather, it demonstrates the possibility of a theological anthropology in which spiritual, psychological, and biological explanations operate as mutually intelligible dimensions of a unified account of human behavior.

I mention this not as confession for its own sake, but because it has left me with a lasting sympathy for those who encounter Islam through a similar pathway. Many aspiring believers first approach the religion through the moral legacy of towering figures such as Malcolm X—may God be pleased with him—seeing in Islam a tradition capable of sustaining a powerful ethic of liberation and resistance against systemic injustice. That instinct is neither irrational nor historically unfounded. What concerns me, however, is what often follows.

There arrives a moment—sometimes gradual, sometimes abrupt—when one realizes that Islam’s conception of liberation differs fundamentally from modern political assumptions regarding freedom. The Islamic intellectual tradition tends toward what might be called a classical understanding of liberation: freedom achieved through disciplined submission to God and moral restraint. In essence, we free ourselves from our own worst impulses. By contrast, much of the contemporary conception of liberty—shaped profoundly by thinkers such as John Stuart Mill—frames the ideal primarily as an individual right: the right to act according to personal will, limited chiefly by the prevention of harm to others. We are free insofar as we are not impeded by others.

One locates freedom in self-mastery; the other in self-expression.

•••

When I returned to Islam as an adult, my circumstances were markedly different. I was emerging from a year-long existential crisis, profoundly isolated from nearly every social anchor upon which I had previously relied, and standing on the fragile cusp of newfound sobriety. What I then perceived as rock bottom—a moment approaching absolute ego death—gradually gave way to an uncomfortable clarity: when everything else falls away, what remains is the mercy of a Sustainer who has not abandoned you, even when you have abandoned yourself.

It was a painful recognition, but also an unmistakably beautiful one.

As a young convert, I had imagined myself as Liberator, Islam serving as the ideological steed upon which I would ride toward social justice. Upon returning to faith as a broken adult, however, I encountered Islam as liberation from myself—from the grand illusions I had enthroned as an internal deity. The shift radically reordered the entire moral orientation through which faith became intelligible.

For this reason, I do not attempt to reject the language of liberation in relation to Islam. On the contrary, it is inconceivable to read the life of the Prophet ﷺ and conclude that religion demands withdrawal from public life or moral struggle. The Prophetic biography resists any interpretation that confines faith to private spirituality divorced from social reality. Islam has always possessed ethical, legal, and political implications that necessarily enter the public domain.

What I do reject is the attempt to appropriate revelation as a flexible cultural vocabulary onto which pre-existing ideological commitments are projected. When Islam becomes merely a symbolic framework—an aesthetic or moral language used to sanctify conclusions already reached—the relationship reverses. Rather than submitting to truth, one recruits religion in service of oneself.

For a time, this arrangement may appear stable to the ideologue. The moral energy feels authentic and the commitment feels sincere. Yet eventually the strain reveals itself. With the theological foundations required to sustain the project never fully embraced, the structure begins to give way. When it collapses, the individual is often left confused, unsure why the vision that once felt so compelling can no longer bear weight—unaware that the steed had long been buckling at the ground beneath them.

While the nation applauded the architectural marvels that rose from the ashes of the Great Chicago Fire in the late nineteenth century, Louis H. Sullivan balked in disgust: “The damage wrought by the World’s Fair will last for half a century from its date, if not longer.”

It was not haphazardness or incompetence that earned Sullivan’s distaste; on the contrary, the gargantuan marble columns and flawless symmetry unveiled at the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893 reeked of perfection. Greek revivalist, unnatural perfection. The aesthetic coherence of the so-called White City struck Sullivan not as an organic expression of American life, but as a fraudulent, imported ideal imposed upon it.

For Sullivan, sensation and lived experience superseded a priori assumptions of what defined beauty. Where neoclassicism strangled urban planning with Neoplatonic ideals of an abstract Great City, Sullivan posed a more fundamental question: Why? What purpose does this edifice serve? What function does this structure fulfill? It was this relentless, though practical, teleology that informed Sullivan’s enduring mantra: form must always follow function.

The phrase is often reduced as some minimalist maxim. In truth, it represents a deeper epistemic commitment. Function, for Sullivan, was not merely utility; it was the lived, embodied purpose arising from concrete human experience. Form that preceded function—form dictated by abstract ideals rather than emerging from use—was, in Sullivan’s view, a kind of architectural falsehood:

“The power of intellect is valid beyond a doubt, but folly comes when it is allowed to usurp dominion over instinct… The chief exhibit of Intellect is called Logic; but the processes of Instinct involve a logic infinitely more subtle, much more powerful—because [it is] primordial.”

This reorientation of reason is easily misunderstood as anti-intellectual. Sullivan did not reject reason; he rejected its disconnected absolutization. Intellect detached from instinct—by which he meant the cultivated sensibility born of immersion in lived reality—produced rationalist structures coherent in theory yet cold and artificial in practice. The danger lies not in thought, then, but in thought unmoored from experience.

It was this sensory instinct—the natural, unmediated desire produced only through experience—that unified man as a “physical, emotional, intellectual, moral, and spiritual” being. Human beings are not reducible to rational calculators; they are integrated, dynamic and organic wholes whose faculties operate in concert. When one faculty is elevated at the expense of the others, distortion follows. In turn, the city becomes a diagram; the abstract individual, a nameless unit.

This distortion occurs when human faculties are reduced to reason alone. “[I]n pursuing such method,” Sullivan warns, “it is to be borne in mind that a living power, not an idealistic abstraction, or nonentity, is to be dealt with.”

Sullivan’s critique therefore extends beyond the stylistic quarrels of architecture. It represents a broader refutation of abstraction untethered from reality. His protest against Greek revivalism was, at its core, a protest against the substitution of a priori rationalism for attentive engagement with the world as it is. In this sense, “form follows function” names not only a design principle but an epistemology: existence precedes thought; experience tethers theory; life resists reduction.

Ibn Taymiyyah’s theory of knowledge begins from a simple premise: truth is grounded in the concrete and the sensible. Knowledge, therefore, moves from the ground up — from independent particulars that exist in reality, rather than from abstract universals posited in the mind.

For Ibn Taymiyyah, universals have a derivative status. They are intellectually useful, but only insofar as they remain tethered to actual, lived experience. When severed from the concrete realities from which they are abstracted, they risk becoming instruments of distortion rather than primary bearers of certainty.

The Imām writes (Al-Radd ʿalā al-manṭiqiyyīn, pp. 303–317):

“It has thus become clear that the universal demonstrative propositions whose universality they insist upon... are not used with respect to anything among existent things; rather, they are used only with respect to mental suppositions… When the intellect’s familiarity with particular instantiations becomes remote, it may err greatly by making judgments either too general or too specific. This happens frequently: people suppose the universal propositions they claim are correct, though upon investigation they are not.”

The force of this critique lies in its refusal to grant epistemic primacy to abstract form over embodied reality. Universal propositions, in the Imām’s account, do not hover above the world as self-sufficient guarantors of truth. They are secondary operations of the mind, dependent upon prior acquaintance with particulars. The further one drifts from concrete instantiations, the more fragile one’s claims to certainty become. Error emerges not merely from faulty reasoning, but from distance; from the attenuation of contact between intellect and world.

Although articulated within a polemic against Aristotelian logic, this epistemic orientation has implications that extend well beyond formal logic or speculative theology. It gestures toward a broader intellectual posture: a suspicion of systems constructed upon abstract premises detached from revelation and lived reality, and a corresponding emphasis on attentive engagement with the concrete conditions in which human beings actually find themselves.

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In contemporary terms, this bears directly upon fields such as urban planning, governance, and community building. Modern technocratic frameworks often proceed by way of generalizable models — scalable solutions designed to address “universal” problems presumed to manifest uniformly across contexts. Yet Ibn Taymiyyah’s insistence on the primacy of particulars calls such approaches into question. To what extent do these models genuinely arise from careful observation of independent realities, and to what extent do they impose prefabricated categories upon them?

Consider, for the sake of practicality, the example of community care. How does one broach the complications that arise in any given community? How does a leader diagnose a problem and develop a solution? Do we begin from abstract notions of universal communal problems assumed to affect all people and places equally, or do we assess problems — and their remedies — through sustained attention to the particularities of a given context?

Many institutions falter precisely at this juncture. Solutions are frequently deferred to distant “experts” who operate from universalized assumptions about people, places, and situations. Independent particulars, each with their own defining characteristics, are flattened into imagined categories, as though reality could be adequately grasped through calculated formulas alone. The complexity of lived experience is reduced to variables within a model.

It is this cold and mechanical calculus that Edmund Burke spoke to when he famously declared: “The Age of Chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded.”