Tradition of Knowledge in the Mamluk Period (13th-14th Centuries)

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DOI :10.26650/B/AA07AA25.2023.010.09   IUP :10.26650/B/AA07AA25.2023.010.09    Full Text (PDF)

Islamic Theology in the Mamluk Period: Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya and the Divine Attributes

Miriam Ovadia

Among the scholarly circles of 8th/14th century Mamluk Damascus, the majority of the theological activity involved controversies between two trends of Islamic traditionalists, the Ḥanbalites and the Ashʿarites. These controversies were not always purely theological; they were also shaped by the power relations between the religious scholars (ʽulamāʼ) in the city. The highbrow religious establishment in Mamluk Damascus held Ashʿarite theological stances and promoted the speculative or dialectical theology known as Kalām. The elitist Ashʿarites were the ones to set the norms of the religious discourse, as they followed the philosophical theology of the later-Ashʿarite scholar Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 606/1209). In this scholarly setting, the renowned activist, Taqi ‘l-Dīn Aḥmad Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328), and his devoted disciple, Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (d. 751/1350; henceforth Ibn al-Qayyim), advocated a unique version of Ḥanbalism, while openly denouncing the hegemonic Ashʿarite theology. Both the master and his disciple confronted the most powerful among their contemporary Damascene ʿulamāʾ and rattled the socio-political conditions in the city. Whereas Ibn Taymiyya’s theology has been the focus of numerous studies, Western research on the thought of Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya―who systemized, popularized and spread his master’s teachings―has gained considerable momentum only in the past few decades. 



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