universities of Paris, Montpellier and Louvain, the Canon was published in Europe more than thirty-five times during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Interestingly, a recently discovered manuscript authored by Ibn Sina – entitled Kitab al-Adawiyyah al-Qalbi (Treatise on Cardiac Drugs) and kept at Jamia Millia library in New Delhi – shows that he was not only an undisputed master and synthesiser of Greco-Islamic medicine, but also proves that he made remarkable and original contributions in the field of medicine in his own right. He was rated so highly by the celebrated Italian poet Dante Alighieri that he placed Ibn Sina on par with Galen and Hippocrates in medicine, and considered him to be far superior to both of them in philosophy. If Ibn Sina was a great physician, then he must be considered one of the most eminent philosophers of all time; indeed, his voluminous Kitab al-Shifa is widely considered to be a philosophical masterpiece.
Focusing on four main topics, namely logic, physics, mathematics and metaphysics, in this encyclopaedic work he provided a detailed exposition of his entire philosophy. Nevertheless, his al-Isharat wa’l Tanbihat, which focuses mainly on logic, physics and metaphysics, is generally considered to be his most complex and sophisticated philosophical work.
As a Neoplatonist, Ibn Sina’s philosophical views proved to be highly controversial, to say the least. Influenced by the ikhwan al-safa (The Brethren of Purity), al-Farabi and others, he argued that the purpose of philosophy was to determine the true nature and reality of things to the best of one’s ability. Thus, he was of the opinion that theoretical philosophy seeks the knowledge of truth by perfecting the soul through the pursuit of knowledge alone, while practical philosophy seeks goodness through assimilation of knowledge of things that must be done. As a philosopher, he was fiercely independently-minded and developed his own views and thoughts on the subject, and also wrote prolifically on it. Though some of his ideas and thoughts concerning the nature of God, His Attributes and the concept of the eternity of the cosmos were considered heretical by his critics (such as al-Ghazali, al-Shahrastani and Ibn Rushd), he was far from being an unbeliever. Like his medical theories, Ibn Sina’s philosophy became hugely influential both in the East and the West. Not surprisingly, his philosophical ideas and thoughts influenced some of the greatest thinkers of the Muslim world, including Ibn al-Nafis, al-Ghazali, Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, Ibn Rushd, Shihab al-Din Suhrawardi and Mulla Sadra. Likewise, influential Western thinkers like Albertus Magnus (also known as Albert the Great), William of Auvergne, St Thomas Aquinas, Roger Bacon and Immanuel Kant were influenced by his philosophy and metaphysics.
Ibn Sina was not only intimately acquainted with the theological, philosophical and scientific ideas of his day, he was also familiar with the diversity of religious thought and interpretation which existed within the Muslim world at the time. Born into an Ismaili family, his teacher Shaykh Ismail al-Zahid was a Sunni jurist and theologian, and he was also familiar with the Twelver (ithna ‘ashari) Shi’a theology. His awareness of these different Islamic groups and sects enabled him to engage in religious and philosophical discourse with scholars of all persuasions. Though it is not possible to say unequivocally whether he was a Sunni or Shi’a, there is no doubt that he considered himself to be a sincere Muslim, and he respected both points of view. Ibn Sina fell ill and died on his way to Hamadan at the age of fifty-seven. Known in the Muslim world as shaykh al-rais (or the ‘Chief of the Wise’), his imposing portrait continues to grace the Great Hall of Paris University School of Medicine to this day, in recognition of his outstanding services to medicine and philosophy.
‘BACK TO THE Qur’an and sunnah’ is a famous slogan which has been used by Muslim scholars and reformers throughout Islamic history to summon wayward Muslim rulers and the masses back to the original, pristine Islam as promulgated by the Prophet Muhammad. The call, more often than not, worked due to the Muslim belief that the Qur’an is God’s final communication to mankind, while the normative practice (sunnah) of the Prophet provides a powerful and pertinent commentary on the Divine revelation. In other words, these two sources combined to provide a potent methodology for living a truly Islamic life. For this reason, Muslim scholars and reformers have been able to repeatedly utilise this slogan with much success throughout Islamic history. Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah was one such extraordinary scholar and reformer whose religious ideas and thoughts have continued to exert a powerful influence on Muslim scholars and reformers up to the present day.
Taqi al-Din Abul Abbas Ahmad ibn Abd al-Halim ibn Taymiyyah was born in Harran, a city located on the outskirts of Damascus, into a distinguished family of writers, scholars and theologians. His father, Abd al-Halim, and grandfather, Majd al-Din, were acclaimed hanbali fuqaha (jurists) who had authored numerous books on Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) and hadith (Prophetic traditions). Brought up in an intellectually friendly environment, Ibn Taymiyyah memorised the entire Qur’an and received training in Arabic language, grammar, hadith and aspects of fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) under the guidance of his learned father. When he was barely seven, his entire family was forced to flee from Harran in the face of an imminent threat of a Mongol onslaught on the city. The Mongol hordes stormed out of Asia like a thunderbolt from the heavens, and inflicted a crushing blow on the Muslim world by invading Baghdad, the seat of the Abbasid Caliphate, and destroying everything before them with unspeakable brutality; at the time the entire Muslim world was gripped by fear and trepidation. Although the Mongol invasion of Baghdad represented one of the most destructive periods in Islamic history, it was the valiant Egyptian Mamluk soldiers who finally stopped them in 1260 at the Battle of ayn jalut (or the ‘Spring of Goliath’). The Mamluk victory at ayn jalut saved Egypt, Arabia and the neighbouring Islamic lands from Mongol invasion and pillage. Despite suffering a crushing defeat at ayn jalut, the Mongols remained a serious threat.
Not prepared to take the risk, Ibn Taymiyyah’s family moved to the safety of Damascus, which was then controlled by the victorious Mamluks. In Damascus, Ibn Taymiyyah’s family received a warm welcome from the locals as well as the city’s governor. On account of his scholarly and literary accomplishments, his father was appointed principal of a local Islamic seminary (dar al-uloom), where he delivered regular lectures on traditional Islamic sciences. When his name and fame began to spread across Damascus, he was invited to deliver regular sermons (kutbah) at the city’s historic Umayyad mosque. Like his father and grandfather, young Ibn Taymiyyah was an exceptionally bright student who was blessed with a sharp intellect and retentive memory. Not surprisingly, he committed vast quantities of information (including the whole Qur’an, large collections of hadith, juristic rulings (fatawa), poetry and books on philosophy and logic) to memory with ease. His remarkable retentive power aside, Ibn Taymiyyah was a wide-ranging reader who studied books on Qur’anic exegesis (tafsir), theology (kalam), Islamic jurisprudence and philosophy quicker than an average person could eat their dinner. His thirst for knowledge was such that he claimed to have studied under no fewer than two hundred eminent Islamic scholars of his day, including Shaykh Ahmad ibn Abu al-Khair, Yahya ibn al-Sairafi, Ibn Abu al-Yusr and Shams al-Din al-Maqdisi, who was the Chief Justice of Damascus. Along with his father, Abd al-Halim, and uncle, Fakhr al-Din, these were some of the most reputed scholars of tafsir, hadith and fiqh in Damascus at the time. He sat at the feet of these luminaries and thoroughly mastered traditional Islamic sciences. So much so that Shams al-Din, the Chief Justice, considered Ibn Taymiyyah to be competent enough to issue juristic rulings (fatawa) when he was barely seventeen years old.