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Authority of the text and the limits of religious tolerance in Islamic political thought: The case of Ahmad Ibn Taymiyah

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Authority of the text and the limits of religious tolerance in Islamic political thought: The case of Ahmad Ibn Taymiyah

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AUTHORITY OF THE TEXT AND
THE LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS TOLERATION IN ISLAMIC
POLITICAL THOUGHT: THE CASE OF AHMAD IBN TAYMIYAH
by
Abdullah Alkomaid
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
Doctor of Philosophy
(Political Science)
May 1996
Copyright 1996 Abdullah Alhomaid
UMI Number: 9636689
Copyright 1996 by
Alhomaid, Abdullah
All rights reserved.
UMI Microform 9636689
Copyright 1996, by UMI Company. All rights reserved.
This microform edition is protected against unauthorized
copying under Title 17, United States Code.
300 North Zeeb Road
Ann Arbor, MI 48103
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY PARK
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90007
This dissertation, written by
A&P.UW.Lft.H AV.H0HAXD
under the direction of hJ.Jf. Dissertation
Committee, and approved by all its members,
has been presented to and accepted by The
Graduate School, in partial fulfillment of re
quirements for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Dean of Graduate Studies
Date ...May...9.,...1996.
DISSERTATION COMMITTEE
Mntffi 6^^_ .
ii
DEDICATION
To the one who made my life worth living,
my son Asim
To the memory of J^ i U-» (Sana al-Mhaidli),
a remarkable Arab woman who died for an honorable cause
iii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The completion of this dissertation gives me the opportunity to thank
many of the people who have contributed to it at different stages of its evolution.
Professor Judith Grant, my advisor, deserves my deepest gratitude for being very
supportive and accommodating throughout the process of writing this dissertation.
Her guidance and constructive comments have invariably contributed to the quality of
my work. Thank you, Judith. My most enduring debt is to Professor R. Hrair
Dekmejian who overwhelmed me with his generosity, kindness, and boundless
support, which extended beyond the writing of this dissertation. I am indebted to
Professor Dekmejian for his critical comments on my work, which I found to be very
helpful and valuable. Certainly, expressing my gratitude to Professor Dekmejian does
not mean that I will ever be able to repay him. I should also thank Professor Donald
Miller for kindly agreeing to serve as an outside member of the dissertation
committee. I am also grateful to Dee Pulliam for typing this dissertation and, above
all, for being a kind and sincere human being.
Personal thanks are due to my brother Khalid and to my dear and loyal
friend Yazeed al-Assaf. To my friends, Mansour al-Johar, Sami Ofeish, Adel al-
Abdulkarim, Saud al-Sati, and Hamoud Salhi, I owe a debt of gratitude I can never
repay; their company has always been a remarkable source of comfort and intellectual
iv
energy. Special thanks go to Fahad al-Husain and Maher al-Laham who made my life
in southern California very joyful and interesting.
Last, but certainly not least, I am indebted to my son Asim. The writing
of this dissertation has definitely interfered with my performing my moral obligations
toward him. This dissertation is partially dedicated to him, by way of a very small
return for what I owe him.
V
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Dedication ii
Acknowledgements iii
Abstract ix
Preface xi
Page
Chapter One. Introduction
Statement of Purpose 1
The Research Problem 2
The Idea of Religious Toleration in the
History of Political Thought 2
Toleration and Persecution in
Islamic History 7
ReUgious Toleration in Islamic
Political Thought 21
The Research Questions 26
Conceptual Considerations 26
ReUgious Toleration 27
ReUgious Persecution 36
Limitations of the Study 40
Organization of the Study 47
vi
A Note on Translations and Transliteration 48
Chapter Two. Methodological Considerations
Religious Toleration and the Problem of
Interpretation in the History of PoUtical Ideas:
A Review of the Relevant Literature 51
Contextualism 52
Textualism 60
The New History of PoUtical Theory 71
The Methodological Orientation of the Study 85
The Concept of the Frame of Reference
of PoUtical Thought 88
The Frame of Reference of the Idea
of ReUgious Toleration 101
Skepticism: The Epistemological Dimension 104
Relativism: The Moral Dimension 122
Secularism: The PoUtical Dimension 130
The Interpertive Approach of the Study 144
Al-Jabiri's Contribution 145
Authority of the Text and the Limits of ReUgious
Toleration in Islamic PoUtical Thought 159
vii
Chapter Three. Ibn Taymiyah on the Question of Rehgious
Dissent: Preliminary Remarks
Biographical Note 182
Ibn Taymiyah's Frame of Reference: Al-Bayan 190
Epistemological and Theological Assumptions 191
Methodology 201
Heresy and Society 206
The Nature and Functions of the State 212
Implications on the Idea of Rehgious Toleration 220
Chapter Four. Ibn Taymiyah on Rehgious Dissent:
The Case for Toleration
The People of the Book as a Textual Category 228
The People of the Book as Rehgious Dissenters 231
Sources of Ibn Taymiyah's Justification of
Rehgious Toleration 238
The Meaning and the Scope
of Rehgious Toleration 250
The Limits of Rehgious Toleration 267
Chapter Five. Ibn Taymiyah on Rehgious Dissent:
The Case for Persecution
Ibn Taymiyah's Conception of Rehgious Dissent 286
Forms of Rehgious Dissent 296
viii
Ibn Taymiyah's Justification
of ReUgious Persecution 310
Truth vs. Error: The Epistemological
Dimension 312
ReUgious Dissent and the Cohesion of
the Community: The Moral Dimension 322
The Ruler as the Guardian of Faith:
The PoUtical Dimension 329
Forms of ReUgious Persecution 339
The Limits of ReUgious Persecution 344
Chapter Six. CONCLUSION
Summary and Findings 359
Methodological ImpUcations 370
Suggestions for Future Research 375
REFERENCES 379
ix
ABSTRACT
In an apparent divergence from the historicist thesis, the Islamic political
thinkers articulated a response to the problem of rehgious dissent that was remarkably
detached from their conflictive rehgious environment. These thinkers always
advocated toleration for the Scripturaries and persecution for the pagans and the
Muslim religious dissenters, regardless of the requirements of their historical milieu. As
an alternative to the textualist and the contextualist methods of studying past political
ideas, the author developed an interpretive method that emphasized the role of frame o f
reference of political thought as a tool for recovering the meaning and explaining the
structure of past political texts. Based on M. A. al-Jabiri's analysis of the formation
and structure of Arab-Islamic thought, Ibn Taymiyah was placed within al-Bayan
epistemic tradition. Ibn Taymiyah constructed his political thought within a textual
universe of discourse in which the textual categories of the Islamic revelation assumed
primacy over the historical milieu in determining the substance and formal structure of
his political doctrines. Ibn Taymiyah's reliance on the categories of al-Bayan and its
epistemological assumptions resulted in the formation of a peculiar style of political
thought that was essentially textual and ahistorical. This dissertation found that Ibn
Taymiyah's textual frame of reference authoritatively determined his response to the
problem of rehgious dissent within the Islamic polity. His defense of toleration for the
Scripturaries was exclusively derived from and limited by the authoritative texts of the
X
Quran, the Prophetic traditions, and the covenant of 'Umar. Ibn Taymiyah's advocacy
of persecuting Muslim religious dissenters was an inevitable consequence of the totality
of his frame o f reference. He approached the problem of religious dissent within Islam
with epistemological, moral, and political assumptions that were antagonistic to the
idea of rehgious diversity and very receptive to the principle of suppressing heterodoxy.
Because of the predominance of the textual categories in his discursive universe, the
substance and formal sructure of Ibn Taymiyah's response to the problem of rehgious
dissent was found to be conventional Bayanist and abstract, where the impact of his
historical environment on his views was minimal.
xi
PREFACE
In 1969, Quentin Skinner published his monumental essay Meaning and
Understanding in the History of Political Ideas. In that essay, which became a classic
statement of the basic doctrines of the New History of Political Theory, Skinner
mounted a devastating critique of the dominant methods of studying past political
ideas. At the time of the publication of Skinner's essay the American political
theorists were recovering from the Behavioral attack on their field of study, and were
preoccupied with "reforming" their field by disassociating themselves from historical
method of studying political thought. While the American political theorists were
trying to accommodate the Behavioralists by accusing past studies on political theory
of being too historical , the New Historians who were, curiously, all British, thought
that these studies were not historical enough. The New Historians' critique of the
past scholarship on history of political thought triggered a controversy among political
theorists on how to interpret the political texts of the past, a controversy that has
continued until the present day. Consequently, the question of interpretation was
brought to the center of the sub-field of political theory.
The contemporary political theorists' preoccupation with the question of
method is an indication of two main trends. First, it is a reflection of the political
theorists' awareness of the autonomy and the distinctiveness of the field of their
intellectual activities. Second, the current debate on method signifies the demise of
the doubts that some political scientists have expressed about the value of having the
XII
history of political thought as a sub-field within the discipline of political science.
During the fifties and sixties, political theorists were occupied with the questions of
why and what political classics should be studied. Now, these questions have been
relegated to a peripheral status and replaced by the question of how to study the
political classics and to recover their historical meanings.
This dissertation is about the problem of interpretation in the history of
political thought. While its main concerns are the views of Ibn Taymiyah on religious
dissent, the present study is also about interpreting the history of Islamic political
thought. The novelty of this dissertation springs from its attempt to examine the
notion of religious toleration in Islamic political thought within the context of the
ongoing scholarly debate on method in the history of political thought in general.
Certainly, there are a reasonable number of competent works on the history of Islamic
political thought in general and on the idea of toleration in Islamic political theory in
particular. However, these studies gave very little emphasis, or no emphasis at all, to
the question of method in the study of past political texts. This dissertation, therefore,
is the first study that attempts to give a systematic account of the evaluation of the idea
of religious toleration in Islamic political theory within the context of the broader
debate on interpretation in the history of political ideas.
The author of this study has developed an interpretive approach that is
presumed to be an original method which reflects the uniqueness of Islamic political
thinking. However, this assertion must be qualified by expressing my indebtedness to
xiii
the achievements of some Western and Arab scholars. The concept of the frame of
reference, a central component in the interpretive method of this study, is inspired by
the writings of the New Historians of Political Theory who emphasized the role of the
broader discoursive language in determining the historical meaning of past political
ideas. In reference to the style and mechanisms of Ibn Taymiyah's political discourse,
this study is indebted to M. A. al-Jabiri's remarkable analysis of al-Bayan
epistemological tradition within the Islamic discourse. Combining the views of al-
Jabiri with that of the New Historians in one single interpretive approach has not been
an easy task. Furthermore, because of its association with the views of al-Jabiri and
the New Historians, my interpretive method, admittedly, inherited the limitations and
deficiencies of these approaches. However, judgments about the originality and merit
of this study's interpretive method and the validity of its findings ought to be left to
the thoughtful reader to make.
1
Chapter One
Introduction
Statement of Purpose
The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the notion of reUgious
toleration in Islamic pohtical thought. This study will attempt to explain the apparent
discrepancy between the idea of reUgious toleration as articulated by Islamic poUtical
thinkers and the actual practices of reUgious toleration and persecution in their
historical environment. The focus is mainly on the textual frame of reference of Islamic
poUtical thinkers and how it determined the structure of their poUtical ideas and
especially their views on the problem of reUgious diversity. This study will investigate
how Muslim thinkers' reUance on the textual categories of the divine revelation as the
ultimate source of the truth has given rise to moral and poUtical doctrines that, in turn,
have operated to shape their response to the problem of reUgious dissent in the Islamic
state. The methods as weU as the findings o f this research have been presented within
the context of the recent scholarly debate on the problem of interpretation in the history
of poUtical thought. The thirteenth century Muslim jurist, theologian, and poUtical
thinker Ahmad Ibn Taymiyah is taken as a case study.
2
The Research Problem
The subject of this dissertation started with a methodological problematic.
That problematic was the apparent detachment of the Islamic political thinkers' views
on religious toleration and persecution from their historical milieu. The research
problem will be delineated at two levels. The first section will give a general account
of how the historians of pohtical ideas explained the development of the idea religious
toleration in pohtical theory. In section two, it will be shown how the development of
the idea of religious toleration in Islamic pohtical thought represented a divergence
from the generally accepted views on the subject.
The Idea of Religious Toleration in th History of Political Thought
The researh problem may be best illustrated in reference to the historicist
thesis in the history of pohtical thought. The thrust of the historicist approach is that
past pohtical ideas are essentially responses to some immediate historical
circumstances. Based on this premise, these ideas must be explained in reference to the
socio-economic and cultural settings that gave rise t o them in the first place. For these
scholars, it is the historical context of pohtical theorists that shapes the structure and,
more important, the content of their political thinking. The historical milieu of the
political thinkers, the proponents of historicism contend, is the primary source of the
major themes of their pohtical arguments. Thus, the major works in the history of
pohtical theory are perceived as mere reflections of their historical environments.
3
With regard to the issue of toleration, the overwhelming majority of the
historicists agree with the idea that only within the context of reUgious diversity and
conflict does the question of reUgious toleration becomes a central issue of pohtical
theory. ReUgious controversies become relevant to poUtical thought when the parties
involved do not limit their disputes to the intellectual realm but attempt to use the
power of the state to settle their theological differences. Such attempts to get the
government involved in reUgion touches one of the most important issues in poUtical
philosophy, that is, the question of the proper function of the state in society. And this
question, in turn, has brought the idea of toleration to the center of poUtical theorizing.
1
Thus, the historicist thesis, when it is taken to its logical end, can be summarized in the
foUowing hypothesis: the higher the intensity of reUgious diversity and persecution in
the society, the more likely that the question of reUgious toleration becomes a central
theme of poUtical theorizing.
There are two traditions of poUtical thought, one of which confirms the
historicist hypothesis; the other refutes it. These two traditions are Western European
thought and Islamic poUtical thought. Although the present study concerns Islamic
poUtical theory, a brief discussion of the historical experience of European thought was
1
The assertion can be found in most books on the history of poUtical thought. See for
example, John W. AUen, A History of PoUtical Thought in the Sixteenth Century, 2nd
ed. (London: Methuen and Company, Ltd., 1941), 73-76; Robert Blakey, The History
of PoUtical Literature. 2 vols. (London: Richard Bentley, n. d.) 1: 4-10; and George
Sabine, A History of PoUtical Theory. 4th ed. ( Hinsdale: Dryden Press, 1973), 332-
333.
4
deemed necessary for two main reasons. First, it will help in clarifying the central
theme of the study. Second, considering the experience of European political thought
will place this research within its broader methodological context, that is, the problem
of interpretation in the history of political ideas.
In Western Europe, the question of rehgious toleration was not a
significant issue prior to the Protestant Reformation. The idea of suppressing heresy by
force became widely accepted, since it was consistent not only with the world view but
also with the political and social arrangements of the time. In addition, because the
policies of rehgious persecution were largely successful, the question of rehgious
toleration was only a marginal issue. The ideas of great Christian thinkers, such as St.
Augustine and St. Thomas, on persecution had assumed a great deal of acceptance
among churchmen and political leaders during most of the Middle Ages. This is not to
suggest, however, that the notion of rehgious toleration had never existed during that
era. But advocating toleration as a moral and theological ideal was unpopular and
limited to a few political thinkers like Marssilio of Padua.
2
With the rehgious and spiritual upheavals that followed Luther's declaration
of his ninety-five theses at Wittenburg in 1517, the situation was radically changed.
The rise of Protestantism marked, among other things, the end of the idea a unified
Western Christianity under the leadership of the Catholic Church. However, as Lecler
2
For more data on the question of toleration prior to the Reformation, see Joseph
Lecler, Toleration and the Reformation, 2 vols., trans. T.L. Westow (New York:
Association Press, I960?), 65-106.
5
and Lambert observed, both the Protestant and Catholic leaders continued to uphold
such medieval ideas such as the unity of faith as the sole foundation of the state, the
heretic as the destroyer of the faith, and repression as an appropriate way to uproot
heresy and preserve the purity of Christian doctrine.
3
Consequently, Europe was
thrown into sectarian controversies and bloody religious wars which extended into the
seventeenth century. Appeals to secular authority, by both Protestants and Catholics to
suppress their respective sectarian adversaries, had forced Western political thinkers in
their writings to confront the question of religious toleration. For these thinkers, the
pressing question was: How should the magistrate deal with those who manifest
heterodox views within his own state? It is not surprising, therefore, that there was an
explosion of works on religious toleration and persecution from 1520 to the end of the
seventeenth century. It was during that period that major works on toleration and
persecution were published: Luther's On Secular Authority (1523), Castellion's
Concerning Heretics (1554,), T. Beza's Concerning the Duty of Punishing Heretics by
the Civil Magistrate (1554), Bayle's Philosophical Commentary (1686), and Locke's
Letter Concerning Toleration (1689).
4
Thus, considering the experience of Western
3
Lecler, 1:101; Molcolm Lambert, Medieval Heresy: Popular Movements from
Gregorian Reform to the Reformation. 2nd ed. (Oxford: BlackwelL 1992), 395-396.
4
For a more comprehensive list of works on toleration that appeared during this
period, see Henry Kamen, The Rise of Toleration. (New York: Mcgraw-Hill Book
Company, 1967), 246-248; and R.H. Murray, The Political Consequences of the
Reformation. (New York: Russell and Russell, 1960), 285-286.
6
Europe, the historians of political ideas with a historicist orientation should find
support for the notion that the question of toleration becomes a major theme in political
thought during the periods of religious conflict and upheaval.
However, when the same proposition is taken to the context of Islamic
political thought, it loses its validity and universality. The Islamic political thinkers'
notion of religious toleration and persecution deviated significantly from the historicist
proposition. The historical environment of Islamic political thought typically was
characterized by rehgious diversity and persecution. In fact, one can not find a period
of Islamic history where rehgious conformity was actually achieved. Also, the Islamic
state's intervention to punish sectarian dissenters has occurred frequently in Islamic
history. However, there is no correlation between the intensity of rehgious diversity
and persecution in Islamic history and the inclusion of the question of toleration in
writings of Islamic political thinkers. This is not to say that Muslim thinkers never held
any notion of rehgious toleration. But instead, they maintained the same response to
the question of rehgious dissent, irrespective of their historical context.
It might be argued that the reason for the peripheral position of the idea of
toleration in Islamic pohtical thought is that rehgious persecution in Islamic history was
not so severe as in Europe during the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries. While
the difference between the Islamic experience and that of Western Europe in regard to
rehgious persecution is undeniable, this explanation is not totally accurate. Rehgious
persecution had occurred frequently in Islamic history, and it was quite severe and
7
intense. Thus, to substantiate this claim, the following section will provide a selective
description of the phenomena of reUgious diversity and persecution in the history of
Islam. The intensity of reUgious persecution in Islam wiU be iUustrated not only by
citing some incidents of reUgious persecution from Islamic history but also by showing
how these events have become reflected on the Arabic language and the discourse of
the sectarian minorities of Islam.
Toleration and Persecution in Islamic History
ReUgious diversity in Islamic history can be viewed from two angles: the
broader reUgious miUeu, which consists of Islam and other reUgions; and the reUgious
diversity within Islam which manifested itself in the existence of different sects within
the Islamic faith.
When Islam appeared in 610 A.D., it was not the only reUgion in Mecca
and the surrounding areas. Judaism, Christianity, Hanifism and Paganism had always
existed in Mecca and in different parts of Arabia before the advent of Islam. Paganism,
the reUgion of the majority of the tribe of Muhammad, Quraysh, was the most popular
creed in Mecca and the most antagonistic to the new reUgion. After a series of wars
between Islam and Paganism, the former came out victorious in 630 A.D., and
Paganism vanished forever. Judaism and Christianity survived the rise of Islam and
have always been present in Islamic history. With the expansion of the Islamic empire
during the eighth and the ninth centuries, other reUgions such as Zoroastrianism and
8
different Christian sects came under Islamic rule; both have managed to survive until
the present day.
5
Religious diversity is more apparent and intense within Islam itself. Before
the end of the first Islamic century, Islam was already divided among four major sects:
Shi'ites, Murji'ites, Mu'tazilites, and Kharijites (Sunnism did not appear as an Islamic
sect until the fourth Islamic century, although its genesis could be traced back to an
earlier time). Later, these major sects became divided into smaller sects with distinct
theological and political views. There is no consensus among historians on the exact
number of Muslim sects. The classical Muslim heresiographers, like al-Baghdadi, al-
Shahrstani, Ibn Hazm, and others, have put the number of Islamic sects at seventy-
three. The reason for this agreement is that these heresiographers wanted the number
of sects to be consistent with an oral tradition, attributed to the Prophet, according to
which Islam would be divided into seventy-three sects. But the contemporary Arab
writer Muhammad 'Umarah, who questions the authenticity of that tradition, puts the
number of Islamic sects at one hundred and ninety-six.
6
Considering the historical facts,
5
See W. Montgomery Watt, Muhammad of Mecca. (Oxford: The Clarendon Press,
1953), 23-29; and Philip Hitti, History of Arabs. 10th edition. (London: Macmillan
and Company, Ltd., 1970), 98-102, 106-108, 233-234.
6
An example of the classical heresiographers is Abd al-Kahir al-Baghdadi, Moslem
Schisms and Sects (al-Fark Bain al-Firak). trans. Kate Chambers Seclye (New York:
AMS Press, Inc., 1966), 27-30. The claim of Muhammad 'Umarah appeared in his
essay "al-Firaq al-Islamiyah," (the Islamic sects), in Mwsu'at al-Hadarah al-Arabiyyah
al-Islamiyyah. 2 vols. (Beirut: al-Mu'ssasah al-'Arabiyyah Lil-Dirasat wa al-Nashr,
1986), 2: 547-573.
9
the number of Muslim sects appears to be much higher than seventy-three, and thus,
'Umarah's figure is more accurate than that of the classical heresiographers.
The historical milieu of Islamic political thought was not limited to the
existence of religious and sectarian diversity. But such multiplicity of sects and
religions was also associated with the use of violent means to settle the theological
differences among these sects and religions. While violent conflict between Muslims
and the non-Muslim subjects of the Islamic state was very rare in Islamic history, the
same can not be said about the relations among the Muslim sects. The appeal to the
power of the state by the partisans of each religious sect to suppress their sectarian
enemies was not unusual in Islamic history. Such action by the Muslim theologians led
to the frequent intervention by Islamic rulers in the theological disputes among the
competing Muslim sects. Consequently, religious persecution was usually conducted
by the Islamic state against heterodoxy at both the individual and the mass levels.
Incidents of punishment of individual Muslim heretics by the Islamic state
have appeared frequently in Islamic history. History books reveal a significant number
of instances where some individual heretics were subjected to different kinds of
religious persecution, such as imprisonment, exile, or death. For example, between the
years 742 to 746, individuals like Ghaylan al-Dimashqi, Ja'd Ibn Dirham, and Jahm Ibn
Safwan were condemned to death as heretics.
7
In 922, Husain Ibn Mansur al-Hallaj
7
For more information concerning views of these individuals and the circumstances
surrounding their executions, see Montgomery Watt, The Formation Period of Islamic
10
was tried and executed in Baghdad because his mystical views were considered
heretical.
8
Abdullah Ibn al-Muqaffa' was put to death as a Zatidiq
9
by the 'Abbasid
Caliph al-Mansur in 762. Also, in 1072, Hatim al-Tulaytali was executed for heresy.
10
These are only a few examples of those who were executed by the Islamic state as
heretics. The writings of each individual Islamic sect about its own martyrs may reveal
many more cases of persecution.
Other forms of religious persecution, such as imprisonment or interrogation
of individual heretics, appeared more frequently than the death penalty in the history of
Islam. The most common form of this kind of religious persecution was to summon the
individual 'Alim (Muslim scholar) suspected of holding heterodox beliefs to appear
before the Muslim prince or his representative to be questioned about his theological
views. The questioning usually took place in the presence of other theologians, the
sectarian opponents of the 'Alim under questioning and, in most cases, the ones who
provoked the ruler to take action against that 'Alim. If the Muslim prince, usually with
Thought. (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1973), 87, 143, 242; and Husain
'Atwa, al-Firq al-Islamiyyah fi Bilad al-Sham fi al-'Asr al-'Umawi. (Amman: Dar al-JiL,
1986), 34-40, 83-90.
8
See Louis Massignon, The Passion of al-Hallaj: Mystic and Martyr of Islam, trans.
Herbert Mason (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), 1:454-636.
9
The term zatidiq was given different meanings by various Muslim theologians. It can
mean atheist, hypocrite, or a follower of one of the old Persian religions. All these
meanings denote extreme forms of religious dissent. This form of religious dissent will
be examined in more details in chapter five.
10
Ahmad al-Wansharisi, al-Mi
c
yar al-Mu'rb. (Cairo: Maktabat Mustafa al-Halbi,
1968), 260.
11
the assistance of other theologians, found the 'Alim 's views to be objectionable, he
would ask the 'Alim to abandon his theological views and adopt what was considered
to be the right doctrines. The 'AUm's refusal to recant would result in his
imprisonment, physical torture, and the banning of his books. This form of religious
persecution was universal in Islamic history in the sense that it was not limited just to
members of the minority sects but was also extended to the 'Ulama of the Sunni sect,
who represented the overwhelming majority of Muslims throughout history. The great
minds of the Sunni tradition, like Abu Hanifah, al-Shafi'i, Anas Ibn Malik, Ibn HanbaL,
al-bukhari, Ibn Taymiyah, and many others, were questioned by the Muslim rulers,
some being imprisoned and physically tortured because of their theological and political
views. Other thinkers who belonged to other religious sects were subjected to the
same kinds of persecution by the Muslim rulers.
11
Mass persecution in Islamic history was not so frequent as the persecution
of individual heretics, nor was it so intense as that of Europe during the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries. However, this kind of persecution was practiced by some
Muslim rulers. The history of Islam also records instances where some Islamic sects
were subjected to policies of elimination by the state.
11
A full account of what happened to dissenting thinkers can be found in their
indrvidaul biographies. For a brief description of how the major Sunni 'Ulama suffered
this kind of persecution, see 'Abd al-'Aziz al-Badri, al-Islam Bavn al-
c
Ulama
wa al-Hukkam. (al-Madinah al-Munawarah: al-Maktbah al-'Ilmiyyah, 1966), 129-215,
218-219
12
The Shi'ite sect, the largest minority sect in Islam, endured policies of mass
persecution at least twice in Islamic history. The Muslim historian Ibn al-Athir
reported that in 1022, all the Shi'ites of the north African city of al-Qayrawan were
massacred for insulting the companions of the Prophet
12
. The second massacre of the
Shi'ites took place during the reign of the Ottoman Sultan Selim I. In 1514, about
70,000 Shi'ites Irving in southeastern Iraq (near the borders with the Safavid state)
were arrested and about 40,000 of them were eventually executed.
13
These two events
are only examples of reUgious persecution at the mass level in Islamic history. Further
historical inquiry should reveal more cases of mass reUgious persecution in Islamic
history.
Mass persecution was mutual among the Islamic sects. Although the
minority sects were in most cases the victims of mass persecution, these sects also took
advantage of their opportunities to subject their opponents to ruthless persecution. The
members of the majority Sunni sect have suffered considerable reUgious persecution
inflicted on them by some minority sects. The chief example of mass persecution
conducted by leaders of minority sects was the action of al-Qaramitah. The members
12
'Izz al-Din Ibn al-Athir, al-Kamil fi al-Tarikh. 12 vols. (Beirut: Dar al-Siyyad,
1966), 9: 294-295.
13
Muhammad Farid, Tarikh al-Dulah al-'AUyyah al-
c
Uthmaniyyah. (Beirut: Dar al-Jil,
1977), 73-74; Edward S. Creasy, History of the Ottoman Turks. (Beirut: Khayats,
1961), 131-132.
13
of this Batini (esoteric) Isma'ili sect
14
were persecuted by the Sunni Caliphs of the
'Abbasid dynasty during the early years of their movement. But as soon as the
Qaramith established their own state in al-Bahrain (now eastern Saudi Arabia) in 899,
they started to use violent measures against their opponents. These extremist
Qaramitah conducted a series of raids on cities in Yemen, Central and Eastern Arabia,
southern Iraq, and Syria. During these raids, thousands of civilians, the majority of
whom were Sunnis, were massacred and thousands were taken hostage by the
Qaramitah.
15
In addition, Islamic history has witnessed other episodes of mass
persecution that were less extreme than the instances mentioned above. The 'Abbasid
Caliph al-Mahdi (r. 775-785) was the first Muslim Caliph to adopt a systematic policy
of inquisition to suppress heterodoxy. In 783, al-Mahdi created an institution which
had the function of suppressing heresy within the empire. The primary task of the head
of that institution, who was called Sahib al-Zanadiqah, was to hunt those individuals
suspected of being Zanidiqs. As a result of that inquisition, many people were arrested
or questioned about their religious beliefs, and a considerable number of them were
imprisoned or executed. Even though al-Mahdi's inquisition targeted mainly those who
14
For an account of the origin and the doctrines of al-Qaramitah see Bernard Lewis,
Origin of Isma'ilism. (New York: AMS Press, 1975), 76-89.
15
More details about the atrocities of the Qaramitah can be found in Sabir Tu'imah, at
'Aqa'id al-Batinivah. 2nd edition. (Beirut: al-Maktabah al-Thaqafiyyah, 1991), 205-
220; Hitti, History of the Arabs. 445-446.
14
were suspected of following the old Persian religion of Manichaism, who were also the
political enemies of the Empire, a large number of other Muslims lost their lives
because of that policy.
16
The same anti-heretical policy continued under al-Hadi, al-
Mahdi's son, but with less intensity.
However, the most famous case of mass persecution in Islamic history
occurred during the reign of the 'Abbasid Caliph al-Ma'mun (r. 813-833). This Caliph
initiated an inquisitional policy to enforce acceptance of the Mu'tazilite doctrine of the
Created Qur'an.
17
To assure the implementation of the policy, al-Ma'mun ordered the
local governors throughout the empire to summon all the judges, theologians and
jurists and to obtain from each one of them an explicit acceptance of the doctrine of the
Created Qur'an. Those who showed reluctance were imprisoned and subjected to
various sorts of physical torture. As a result of that inquisition, a large number of
Muslim theologians who refused to compromise their position, especially among AM
al-Hadith,
18
were jailed and tortured ,and some of them died in prison, though no one
16
See al-Tabari, al-Mansur and al-Mahdi trans. Hugh Kennedy, vol. 29 of The History
of al-Tabart ed. E. Yar-Shater (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990),
237.
17
On the doctrine of the Created Qur'an and the opposing views against it, see Harry
A. Wolfson. The Philosophy of The Kalam. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1976), Chapter HI.
18
Ahl al-hadith are those Sunni scholars who give primacy to the sayings of the
T*ro\)hQt(ctl-Hadith) not to independent reasoning (r 'ai) as a reliable source of their
theological and juridical views.
15
was officially executed. Among those who suffered because of al-Ma'mun's inquisition
was the prominent Muslim jurist and theologian Ahmad Ibn Hanbal. al-Ma'mun's
inquisition was largely successful, and it continued under the two other 'Abbasid
Caliphs, that is. al-Mu'tasim (r. 833-842) and al-Wathiq (r. 842-847).
19
The
significance of this inquisition lay in the fact that most of its victims were among the
forerunners of Sunnism to which Ibn Taymiyah belonged.
However, when the 'Abbasid Caliph al-Mutawakkil (r. 847-861) assumed
power, he made a policy reversal and started persecuting the Mu'tazihtes and releasing
their opponents from prison. Under al-Mutawakkil, the Mu'tazihtes were imprisoned,
their books were banned, and their testimonies were rejected in the courts. But the
persecution of the Mu'tazihtes reached its zenith during the reign of the 'Abbasid
Caliph al-Qadir (991-1031). Al-Qadir issued a decree, later known as al-Mu'taqad al-
Qadiri (the Qadrian creed or dogma), which contained written instructions to suppress
the Mu'tazihtes. Consequently, the Mu'tazihtes were harassed, imprisoned, and
banned from teachin g or preaching in public.
20
The thoughtful reader might argue that these cases of persecution were
mainly political rather than religious. This is a very powerful and well founded critique
that cannot be ignored. This author does not dispute the fact that some of these
19
For a full account of al-Ma'mun's inquisition, see al-Tabari, The Reunification of the
'Abbasid Caliphate, trans. C. E. Bosworth, Vol. XXXH of The History of al-Tabari ed.
E. Yar-Shater (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1987), 198-223.
20
See, 'Umarah, 360-364.
16
individuals and groups who were subjected to persecution were also engaged in anti-
government activities. Nor is he unaware that other heretics who held similar views
and lived during the same period and under the same political rule were never
questioned or persecuted. But to adopt this sort of historical revisionism, which
emphasizes the primacy of pohtical factors over other considerations, is to reduce the
number of cases of rehgious persecution in human history to a handful of cases. While
it would be absurd to ignore the pohtical considerations in instances of rehgious
persecution, it is equally absurd to dismiss all cases of rehgious persecution as merely
incidents of pohtical oppression simply because these pohcies were carried out by the
state.
The most obvious deficiency of this objection is that it confuses the
motives with the targets of persecution. Rehgious persecution is always conducted by
various actors who have varying pohtical, economic or theological motives.
21
Pohtical
leaders are usually motivated by their fear of rehgious dissent as a source of civil strife
and disorder within their own states. Theologians, on the one hand, support the
persecution of heresy not because of its undesirable pohtical consequences but because
21
F. Pollock classifies the motives of persecution as theological, pohtical or civil, and
tribal. A. A. Seaton classifies the motives of persecution as rehgious, theological,
doctrinal, ecclesiastical and politico-social. See Frederick Pollock, "The Theory of
Persecution," in Essays in Jurisprudence and Ethics. (London: Macmillan and Co.,
1882), 144-175 and A. A. Seaton, The Theory of Toleration Under the Later Stuarts.
(1910; reprint, New York: Octagon Books, 1972), 9-12.
17
they perceive heresy as doctrinal error which poses a threat to the existing orthodoxy.
But with the various agents of persecution and with all their different motives, the
target of persecution remains the same: reUgious dissenters. Thus, the motives of
reUgious persecution are not the same as its target. To speak of the motives of
persecution is to focus on the persecutors, and to speak of its target is to emphasize the
persecuted. What makes an event a reUgious persecution is mainly the use of force
against reUgious dissenters as such, regardless of the identity or the actual motives of
the persecutors. In aU the cases cited here, aU of these individuals or groups were
declared, officiaUy at least, as heretics and were punished as reUgious dissenters, not as
poUtical opponents. In addition, Muslim theologians supported these policies and gave
them moral and doctrinal justification, because they were perceived as actions against
heretics, not poUtical opponents. Had these theologians considered the dissenters as
rebels, they would have included them in the category of Ahl al-Baghi (the
Transgressors), a term in Islamic jurisprudence that refers to Muslims who revolt
against the Muslim ruler.
The intensity of reUgious persecution became reflected in the discourse of
various reUgious minorities in Islam. The most obvious instance is the concept of
taqiyyah in the theology of the Shi'ite sects. Taqiyyah Uterally means "caution,"
"concealment," or "dissimulation." But the word was used as a technical term for the
concealment of one's true theological views under the threat of persecution. The
concept of taqiyyah was not limited to the Shi'ite sect, for it was practiced by the early
18
Muslims and other Muslim sects, like the Kharijites. But in the discourse of Shi'ism,
"the idea of taqiyyah was developed into a fundamental doctrine, and observance of it
was made, for the good of the community, an essential duty of each member."
22
The
transformation of the concept of taqiyyah into a central doctrine in the Shi'ite theology
should not be surprising. In comparison with other Islamic sects, the Shi'itas have
suffered the most from religious persecution by various Muslim rulers. Had the Shi'ites
been tolerated or less persecuted by the Islamic state, the idea of taqiyyah, the author
would argue, would have never evolved into a religious doctrine in Shi'ism.
The Arabic language, which is the mirror of Islamic thought, is another
indication of the prevalence of religious persecution in Islamic history. The major
dictionaries of the Arabic language list four words that mean "religious persecution."
Those words are: fitnah, mihnah, ibtila', and idtihad. All refer to the process of
subjecting an individual to emotional or physical pressure in order to force that
individual to abandon his/her religious views.
23
Muslim theologians, historians, and
22
Ignaz Goldziher, Introduction to Islamic Theology and Law, trans. Andras and Ruth
Hamori (Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1981), 180-181. For general survey of
the concept of taqiyyah in Islamic history and theology, see R. Strothmann, "Takiya," in
Encyclopaedia of Islam, ed. M. Th. Houtsma etal. ( Leiden: E. Brill, 1987).
23
See "fatana", "mahana", "bald", and "dahada" in Mjid al-Din al-Fayruz Abadi, aj-
Oamus al-Muhit (Cairo: Maktabat Mustafa al-Halabi, 1952).
23 Ibn Hisham, al-Sirah al-Nabawiyah (The Biography of the Prophet). 2nd ed. (Cairo:
Munsh'at Mustafa al-Halabi, 1955), 1:317-321; also see Watt, Muhammad at Mecca.
117-119.
19
jurists have used these concepts interchangeably in their writings when describing
events of religious persecution and inquisition. Since the words fitnah and mihnah
have appeared more frequently in the classical texts of Islam than the other two words,
the present discussion will be limited to these two concepts.
The word fitnah literally means "test," "temptation," or "seduction." But
the concept of fitnah was given a specific technical meaning. It was used in special
context by the classical Muslim writers, who employed the term fitnah to designate the
events involving the use of force in religious and sectarian disputes, that is, religious
persecution. For example, the primary biographer of the Prophet, Ibn Hisham (d. 833),
used the word fitnah to describe the emotional and physical pressure that the Mecca
tribes placed on the early Muslim converts. According to Ibn Hisham, these Muslims
were subjected to imprisonment and physical torture, which included burning and
beating by the clans of Quraysh, to force them to abandon their new religion.
24
Furthermore, Ibn Hisham asserts that the early Muslims had to emigrate to Abyssinia
because of their "fear offitnah."
25
Other Islamic historians and jurists have also used
the term fitnah to describe instances of the use of coercive means against religious
dissenters. Thus, the classical Islamic thinkers detached the word fitnah from its literal
24
Ibn Hisham, al-Sirah al-Nabawiyah (The Biography of the Prophet). 2nd ed. (Cairo:
Munsh'at Mustafa al-Halabi, 1955), 1:317-321; also see Watt, Muhammad at Mecca,
117-119.
25
Ibn Hisham, 322.
20
meaning and used it as a technical term referring to the suffering of Muslims in the
hands of authorities because of their dissenting religious views.
The other term that was used by the Muslim thinkers with reference to
instances of religious persecution was mihnah. The word mihnah is derived from the
Arabic verb mahana which literally means "to test." But, as in the case of the concept
of fitnah, Muslim thinkers employed the word mihnah to denote religious persecution.
More specifically, they applied the concept oimihnah in situations where the Muslim
rulers subjected a theologian to severe trial or physical torture because of his or her
heretical views. The most widely known case oimihnah in Islamic history was that of
Ahamed Ibn Hanbal during the previously mentioned al-Ma'mun's inquisition. Ibn
Hanbal was one of the theologians who were imprisoned and tortured because of their
refusal to accept the doctrine of the Created Qur'an, which al-Ma'mun attempted to
impose by force. The term mihtmh was not restricted to the case of Ibn Hanbal, but
was used by Muslim writers to describe other instances of the use of coercive means,
mostly by the state, against religious dissenters. Thus, the concept of mihnah has
appeared frequently in the biographies of major Muslim theologians and jurists to
describe their suffering at the hands of those in authority.
Closer scrutiny of the events described as fitnah and mihnah show that all
have the ingredients of religious persecution. In each instance, the victims of
persecution were accused by their persecutors of believing in or advocating reUgious
views considered morally objectionable and threating to the existing order. Further, the
21
declared motives of the persecutors were to protect both a given body of rehgious
truths and the cohesion of the community against the doctrinal errors of dissenters.
Finally, different forms of emotional and physical pressure were used to force the
persecuted individuals to abandon their rehgious convictions. It is interesting to note
that these two concepts were always interpreted pejoratively by the Muslim thinkers.
They used mihnah or fittiah to refer to what they perceived as unjust use of force
against members of their own sect. However, these same authors would not use the
same terms to describe the persecution of their own sectarian adversaries.
Religious Toleration in Islamic Political Thought
Unlike developments in European pohtical theory, the presence of rehgious
diversity and of rehgious persecution in Islamic history did not bring the question of
rehgious toleration to the core of Islamic pohtical thought. Instead, the response of
Islamic pohtical thinkers to the problem of rehgious diversity has remained structurally
the same throughout history. The Islamic thinkers
1
solution to the problem of rehgious
diversity was neither persecution for all nor toleration for all. Instead, these pohtical
thinkers recommended toleration for some rehgious dissenters and persecution for
others. Rehgious toleration was granted to the People of the Book (Jews, Christians,
and others) with some conditions and restrictions. But the notion of toleration was
never extended to other rehgious dissenters who were not included in the categories of
the People of the Book. Islamic thinkers contended that Pagans were not to be
22
tolerated and the Islamic ruler must force them to choose between accepting Islam and
the sword. With regard to heresy, Islamic thinkers have always advocated the use of
some kind of coercion against heterodoxy. Such coercion could take varying forms
ranging from execution of the heretic to imprisonment or exile. These measures
against Muslim heretics have always been enforced by the Muslim ruler or his
representatives. This response to the question of rehgious dissent was not influenced
by the occurrence of episodes of rehgious persecution or toleration in Islamic history.
What inspired the present research is that, despite the intensity of rehgious
diversity and persecution, one cannot find in the literature of Islamic political thought a
single argument for tolerating rehgious dissent within Islam, that is, heresy. What we
mean by argument is the intentional and logically coherent moral defense of the
principle of rehgious toleration, not some scattered or accidental remarks by an Islamic
thinker on the subject. In the whole body of writings on the subject of rehgious
diversity within Islam, the question of rehgious toleration is largely neglected by Islamic
thinkers. This omission is especially true of the question concerning the duty of the
Muslim prince towards heterodoxy within the Islamic faith. As previously mentioned,
Muslim political thinkers were not only aware of the existence of rehgious persecution,
but also, some of them were among its victims. Even suffering from rehgious
persecution at the personal level was not sufficient reason to persuade some Islamic
thinkers to develop a cogent argument for rehgious toleration. Interestingly, Muslim
thinkers were exposed to examples of rehgious toleration in the early stages of Islam.
23
The most conspicuous example of religious toleration was the conduct of Abu Tahb,
the Prophet's uncle, toward the new religion of Islam. Abu Tahb never accepted or
converted to Islam and was deeply committed to the Paganism of Quraysh. However,
Abu Talib's disapproval of Islam and his nephew's attack on the gods of the tribe of
Quraysh did not prevent him from defending Muhammad unconditionally against the
leaders of Quraysh, even if the cost was the creation of division and animosities within
his own tribe.
26
It is true that Abu Tahb was motivated primarily by his kinship to
Muhammad and not by bis commitment to the ideal of rehgious toleration. But the fact
remained that he did not think that his nephew ought to be persecuted because of his
rehgious belief Muslim thinkers have always admired Abu Talib's conduct as much as
they resented the behavior of other leaders of Quraysh who persecuted the early
Muslims. But these thinkers' admiration for Abu Talib's toleration was never
translated into a defensible moral ideal in Islamic political thought.
Yet, the same political thinkers developed a relatively coherent and
systematic argument for rehgious persecution which is quite visible in the literature of
Islamic jurisprudence. Also, these writers devoted considerable space in their works
for examining both rehgious dissent within Islam and the proper course of action that
the Muslim ruler should follow to deal with it. One has no difficulty in finding the
different categories of rehgious dissenters, that is, heretics, infidels, apostates, and the
26
IbnHisham, 265-270.
24
assigned punishment for each type in Islamic jurisprudence. Also, Muslim thinkers
developed a well-defined moral and theological justification for intervention by the
Islamic state to enforce conformity and to suppress hetrodoxy.
One need look no further than the Arabic language itself to realize the
unfavorable position that the concept of toleration occupies in Islamic pohtical
discourse. Whereas the classical dictionaries of Arabic contain four words for religious
persecution, these dictionaries do not list a single word that has the meaning of
religious toleration. The word tasamuh, which is now used to mean religious
toleration, does not actually have this meaning in the classical dictionaries. For this
reason, classical Islamic pohtical thinkers never used the word tasamuh to mean
religious toleration. Instead, they used the term tasamuh to denote generosity or
flexibility, but not tolerating dissenting religious views.
This point can be illustrated more clearly by drawing a comparison between
the development of the word "toleration" in the English language and the word
tasamuh in Arabic. According to The Oxford English Dictionary, the word toleration
started to be associated with religious diversity and moral disapproval during the late
sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.
27
It was during that period of Western
European history that religious conflicts reached their zenith. By contrast, when the
meaning of tasamuh is discussed, whether in the classical Arabic dictionaries or the
27
'Toleration," The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd edition.
25
writings of Islamic thinkers, the issue of religious or moral diversity is not considered.
The rise of sectarian and reUgious controversies in Islam did not force Islamic thinkers
to add a new technical meaning to the word tasamuh or to coin a new word to refer to
the practice of reUgious toleration. So, to use tne language of the New Historians of
Political Theory, this meaning of tasamuh, that is reUgious toleration, was not available
to the classical thinkers of Islam. Even when some Islamic thinkers have discussed the
idea of tolerating the People of the Book, they have used the word 'iqrar from th e verb
'aqrra which means to admit or to recognize, but not to tolerate what is moraUy
objectionable. Even the word 'iqrar totaUy disappears when the same thinkers are
dealing with the question of reUgious dissent in Islam.
In summary, the Islamic pohtical thinkers' views on the question of
toleration do not correspond with their historical environment that was characterized
intense reUgious diversity and conflict. Unlike their Western European counterparts,
the Muslim poUtical theorists' response to the question of reUgious dissent remained
generaUy the same throughout history and was never influenced by the intensity of the
sectarian diversity or the severity of reUgious persecution in Islamic history. For that
reason, Islamic thinkers' treatment of the issue of toleration diverges significantly from
the historicist thesis, which associates the inclusion of the question of toleration in
poUtical thinking with the rise of reUgious controversies in society. The primary task of
this dissertation is to identify the main factors that have contributed to such divergence.
26
The Research Questions
This dissertation will attempt to answer the following question:
• Why have the Islamic political thinkers' views on religious toleration and
persecution remained structurally the same despite the changes in their
historical milieu?
To provide an answer to this general question, it must be divided into more specific
sub-questions:
o Why did Islamic political thinkers, when confronted with the problem of
rehgious diversity, grant limited toleration to some non-Muslims and
persecution to all other rehgious dissenters?
• Why did Islamic political theorists not extend the notion of tolerating the
People the Book to the Muslim heretics and the Pagans, considering that
all of them were classified by these thinkers as religious dissenters?
Conceptual Considerations
This study is centered around two historically and conceptually related
concepts: rehgious toleration and rehgious persecution. Like other concepts in
political theory, the concepts of toleration and persecution are not sharply defined or
clearly differentiated from related concepts, such as liberty and oppression. This
section of the study is devoted to a discussion of these two concepts in terms of their
meanings, context, and scope. In the discussion of each concept, I will draw upon the
27
existing literature on religious toleration. Following that, I will construct working
definitions of toleration and persecution that will be adhered to throughout the study.
Religious Toleration
The overwhelming majority of scholars define the concept of toleration in a
negative sense. For these scholars, toleration is the abstention from using coercion to
change what is considered morally objectionable. J. Horton defines toleration as ". . .
the deliberate choice not to prohibit, hinder or interfere with conduct of which one
disapproves, when one has both the requisite power and knowledge."
28
For Susan
Mendus, ". . . toleration consists in refraining from preventing that of which one
morally disapproves."
29
In similar fashion, D.D. Raphael views toleration as ". . . the
practice of deliberately allowing or permitting a thing of which one disapproves."
30
Also, Joseph Raz takes "toleration" to refer to ". . . the curbing of an activity likely to
be unwelcome to its recipient or of an inclination so to act which is in itself morally
valuable and which is based on dislike or an antagonism of that person or of features of
his life."
31
Other writers, like W. K Jordan, A. Seaton, P. King, and C. Kardig, have
28
[J]ohn [Ffjorton, 'Toleration," in The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Political Thought,
ed. David Miller (1987; reprint, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991).
29
Susan Mendus, ed. Justifying Toleration: Conceptual and Historical Perspectives
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 6.
30
D. D. Raphael. "The Intolerable," in Justifying Toleration, ed. Susan Mendus, 139.
28
defined "toleration" in similar terms.
32
But scholars like Arthur Klein, though they are
in the minority, define "toleration" in the positive sense to include not only refraining
from using force but also "a willingness to adopt ideas if they prove or seem likely to
prove good."
33
These definitions reveal the different dimensions of the idea of
toleration that distinguish it from other related concepts. These dimensions are the
conditions, scope, and nature of toleration.
The conditions of toleration are diversity, disapproval, and the capacity of
the tolerator to use coercion. The question of toleration, as Susan Mendus points out,
"arises in circumstances of diversity."
34
When one says diversity, he/she is not referring
to any kind of diversity, but diversity that emerges out of the choices that the members
of a given community have made concerning different, or competing, moral alternatives
and belief systems. Other forms of diversity that are based on ethnicity or gender are
31
Joseph Rax, "Autonomy, Toleration, and the Harm Principle," in Justifying
Toleration, ed. Susan Mendus, 163.
32
See W.K. Jodran, The Development of Religious Toleration in England from the
Beginning of the English Reformation to the Death of Queen Elizabeth. 4 vols., (1932;
reprint, Gloucester: Peter Smith, 1965), 1: 17, A. A. Seaton, The Theory of Toleration
Under the Later Stuarts. (1910; reprint, New York: Octagon Books, 1972), 1; Preston
King, Toleration. (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1976), 21; Carl Koridig, "Concepts
of Toleration." Journal of Value Inquiry 16 (1982): 59.
33
Arthur Klein, Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth (1917; reprint, Port Washington:
Kennikat Press, 1968), 5.
34
Susan Mendus, Toleration and the Limits of Liberalism (Atlantic Highlands:
Humanities Press International, 1989), 8.
29
not, by themselves, conceptually relevant to the issue of toleration. Such types of
diversity become relevant to toleration when they generate moral statements
concerning the relationships between these ethnic or gender groups. One, for example,
cannot be tolerant towards an individual from another ethnic group, but the same
individual could be tolerant or intolerant towards that person's views concerning the
issue of inter-ethnic marriage. Therefore, toleration applies only to those instances
where the person has more than one alternative idea or conduct to voluntarily choose
from.
In connection with the condition of diversity, there is the second condition
of toleration, that is disapproval.
35
The existence of diversity has to be associated with
disapproval or dislike, in order for toleration to be considered. While those who have
written on the subject agree on the component of disapproval as a necessary condition
for toleration, they disagree on what constitutes such disapproval. Some authors draw
the distinction between morally-based objection and simple dislike, which is not a
criterion for determining the scope of toleration. For some scholars, toleration should
be limited only to issues that give rise to morally justified disapproval. Therefore, P.
Nicholson asserts that
We must see the moral idea of toleration solely in terms of
disapproval, i.e., of the making of judgment s and the holding of
reasons over which argument is possible. Toleration is a
matter of moral choice, and our tastes and inclinations are
35
See Mendus, Toleration and the Limits of Liberalism. 8; Jordan, 1: 17; King,
Toleration, 41.
30
irrelevant. No doubt, people's prejudices, their contingent
feelings of liking and disliking, have to be taken into account
when one is trying to explain why they are tolerant or not; but
such feelings are not morally grounded, and cannot be the
ground of moral position.
36
Mary Warnock, on the other hand, rejects Nicholson's narrow perception
of the scope of toleration. Instead, she extends the subject of toleration to include
instances of simple dislike or disgust. Thus, Warnock insists that the person is tolerant
if he or she "refrained from criticizing something that one disliked, hated, or regarded
with varying degrees of distaste."
37
To accommodate her wider perception of the
scope of toleration, Warnock distinguishes between toleration in the strong sense and
toleration in the weak sense. Toleration in the strong sense is the refraining from
preventing an idea or action that is considered to be immoral. By contrast, toleration in
the weak sense refers to refraining from changing what the person dislikes or considers
to be a distasteful thing.
38
Warnock's proposal to extend the scope of toleration to include issues of
simple dislike or distaste raises some conceptual problems. Such a definition could
confuse toleration with other concepts such as racism or prejudice. The person's
feeling of dislike of certain ethnic or gender groups is not conceptually relevant to the
36
Peter Nicholson, 'Toleration as a Moral Ideal," in Aspects of Toleration eds. J.
Horton and S. Mendus,. (London: Methuen, 1985), 160-61.
37
Mary Wamock, "The Limits of Toleration," in On Toleration, ed. Susan Mendus and
David Edwards (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), 125.
38
Ibid., 126-127.
31
question of toleration. The reason for this is simple. The idea of toleration is based on
the assumption that the tolerated person has the freedom t o choose among a number of
alternative ideas or behaviors. In addition, the making of such choices involves varying
degrees of reasoning, that is, moral judgments concerning the value of each alternative.
So there is the component of voluntarism which means that the tolerated have control
over the characteristics being objected to. But in the case of the simple dislike of
members of an ethnic group, the elements of voluntarism and moral reasoning do not
exist. Therefore, this researcher rejects Warnock's definition of toleration and adopts
Nicholson's approach of limiting toleration to issues involving morally grounded
disapproval.
The third condition for toleration is the possibility of using force to
influence the views or the conduct of the tolerated. As Mendus and King have pointed
out, the existence of diversity and disapproval has to be associated with the tolerator's
capacity to use coercion to force the tolerated to act or think in a certain way.
39
Without the possibility of the use of force, talking about toleration becomes
meaningless. It is this component of coercion that brings the question of toleration to
the center of political theory. The use of force could take varying forms and could be
carried out by different agents. But it is the appeal to the power of political authority
to solve religious and philosophical disputes that has produced the greatest tragedies in
39
King, Toleration. 22-24; Mendus, Toleration and the Limits of Liberalism. 9.
32
history. This is especially true of the use of the arm of the state by theologians to
suppress what they consider to be theologically and morally objectionable. So, without
the use or the capacity to use the power of the state to remove what is morally
objectionable, the conditions of diversity and disapproval are not sufficient to give rise
to the question of tolerance.
Finally, no discussion of the concept of toleration can be complete without
mentioning its paradoxical nature. Toleration, unlike other concepts of political theory,
has an inherent paradox in it. Some scholars, like S. Mendus, P. King, and D. Raphael,
have realized that the idea of toleration is founded on a paradoxical argument.
40
The
defense of the principle of toleration requires the political thinker to show that it is
morally justifiable to not remove what is morally disapproved. The thinker must first
prove that a certain idea or conduct is morally objectionable and the community might
gain a lot or not lose anything if that idea or conduct were abolished. Then, the same
thinker must show that to take any coercive action to suppress these ideas or behaviors
is morally wrong. This paradox is especially obvious in religious toleration where the
thinker argues that it is morally acceptable not to use force against those who deviate
from or distort the Word of God. As will be shown in chapter two, this element of
paradox will be a constant threat to the logical coherence and consistency of any
argument for tolerance in general and religious toleration in particular.
40
Susan Mendus, Toleration and the Limits of Liberalism. 18-20, King, Toleration. 29-
33; D. D. Raphale, "The Intolerable," 139.
33
The conceptual difficulties concerning the idea of toleration arise, not in
connection with its definition but with the possibility of confusing toleration with other
related concepts. Liberty and indifference, because of their historical association with
toleration, are the two concepts that have been confused most with the notion of
toleration. The idea of indifference refers to the state of mind of suspending judgment
in regard to different moral choices. Thus, the person is said to be indifferent if that
person has no opinion on different or competing moral choices. By suspending moral
judgment, the condition of disapproval logically becomes irrelevant. Equally true, the
suspension of judgment and the absence of moral disapproval make the question of the
use of force in moral and religious disputes irrelevant. Therefore, the concept of
indifference is different from toleration in the sense that it does not have the
components of the disapproval and the possibility of the use of force. Thus, the
indifferent person is not advocating tolerance or persecution, although he or she could
easily move in either direction, but has no moral judgment on the issue.
However, the concept of liberty, unlike indifference, is not easily
distinguished from the concept of toleration. Some scholars, such as H. Kamen,
consider toleration to be some kind of liberty with some limitations.
41
But, although
the act of tolerance presupposes some kind of freedom, the two concepts describe two
different things. The basic difference between these two concepts is that tolerance is a
41
See Kamen, 7.
34
negative action and limited to the domain of morally disapproved acts or views.
Therefore, liberty is the right which gives the individual the power to act in certain
ways within certain limitations without any reference to the content of the choices
being made. By contrast, tolerance refers to the withdrawal of authority from control
over those views or acts that are morally disapproved. The distinction between liberty
and tolerance is best articulated by Maurice Cranston, who writes
Toleration must be distinguished from freedom or Uberty
precisely because it implies the existence of something believed
to be disagreeable or evil. When freedom or Uberty is said to
prevail, no criticism, moral or otherwise, is entaUed of the
people who are said to be free or of the use to which such
people put their freedom. . . Toleration on the other hand, has
an element of condemnation buUt into its meaning. We do not
tolerate what we enjoy or what is generaUy liked or approved
of. We speak of freedom of speech, of worship, and of
movement - speech, worship, and movement being good or
ethicaUy neutral things. But when we speak of toleration, we
speak of the toleration of the heretics, dissenters or atheists, aU
of whom were once thought to be wrongdoers.
42
W. K. Jordan focuses on the possibiUty of the use of coercion as a criterion
to distinguish between Uberty and toleration. He asserted that toleration is different
from Uberty because "[I]t presumes an authority which has been and which again may
become coercive; an authority which for subjective reasons is not brought to bear upon
the dissenting group."
43
42
Maurice Cransont, 'Toleration," The Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Ed. Paul Edwards
(New York: Macmillan PubUshing Co., Inc., 1967).
43
W. K. Jordan, 1: 17; also see simUar remarks by King, Toleration. 25.
35
Having defined the concept of toleration in terms of its essence and
conditions and distinguishing it from other concepts, the author of this study has
constructed a working and more precise definition of toleration that is appropriate to
the purpose of this study. The most appropriate approach to this task is to focus on the
conditions of toleration, that is, diversity, disapproval, and the use of force. The
context of diversity refers to the religious and sectarian diversity that emerges from th e
disputes between Muslims and non-Muslims, and among different Islamic sects. With
regard to the element of disapproval, it refers to what a thinker considers to be
objectionable on the basis of a certain theological justification. In other words,
disapproval is limited to what the political thinker perceives to be doctrinal errors.
Further, limiting the scope of disapproval to theological or doctrinal errors entails the
distinction between tolerance and toleration. Although toleration and tolerance have
been used interchangeably in most of the literature, the concept of tolerance has wider
meanings than toleration. As G. Tinder has observed, the concept of tolerance includes
all aspects of morally disapproved views or behavior, and toleration is used only in
reference to religious diversity.
44
The condition of the use of coercion refers to such
coercion that is conducted by those who claim monopoly over the legitimate use of
force in the community, that is, the prince or the state. This limitation is suggested not
44
Glen Tinder, Tolerance: Toward a New Civility (Amherst: University of
Massachusetts Press, 1976), 3.
36
only by the historical fact that coercion was often carried out by the state but also by
the main focus of this dissertation, which is Islamic political thought.
Therefore, the political thinker is said to be "tolerant" when he or she
deliberately constructs an argument against the intervention of the political authority to
punish or to coerce those who hold rehgious views which the thinker considers to be
doctrinal errors.
Religious Persecution
Despite the conceptual and historical connection between the concepts of
toleration and persecution, scholars have given the concept of persecution less
attention than the concept of toleration. The underlying assumption behind this
phenomenon seems to be the belief that persecution is the opposite of or the alternative
to toleration. This assertion is historically true since in most cases of religious or moral
diversity, the absence of toleration signified the occurrence of persecution. But, while
this assertion has some historical validity, one cannot make the same assertion at the
conceptual level. The reason is that the political thinker's response to diversity could
take the forms of not only toleration or persecution but also indifference. Therefore,
we cannot automatically assume that persecution is the opposite of toleration; thus,
persecution has to be clarified and differentiated from other concepts. This section of
the study has been devoted to outlining the different denominators of the concept of
rehgious persecution. The discussion has been focused mainly on the meaning of
37
religious persecution and how it is distinguished from other concepts, especially the
concept of oppression.
While toleration is essentially a negative concept, persecution is a positive
one. In general terms, persecution refers to the process of using coercion to remove
what is morally objectionable. John Horton, for example, defines persecution as "the
deliberate attempt to eliminate disapproved conduct by coercive means, usually
vigorously, perhaps even ruthlessly."
45
As in the case of toleration, the question of
persecution arises in the circumstances of diversity that is coupled with moral
disapproval. Since diversity and moral disapproval were examined in the preceding
section, it would be unnecessary repetition to discuss the nature and the scope of these
two conditions here. Also, the possibility of the use of force is a prerequisite for
persecution. It is this component of the potential use of coercion that distinguishes
toleration from persecution . Where coercion is suspended in the case of toleration, it is
utilized in the case of persecution. Such positive use of force to remove or punish
morally objectionable acts makes the argument for persecution avoid the paradox of
toleration, that is, it is morally right not to change or remove what is morally wrong.
the concept of oppression. This confusion appears to spring from the
existence of the element The concept that has been most commonly confused with
persecution is of coercion or physical violence in both persecution and oppression.
45
Horton, 'Toleration,".
38
Although religious persecution is a species of oppression, it has more limited scope and
objectives than those of oppression. Persecution is limited to these instances where
coercion is used, mostly by the political authorities, in the context of diversity, religious
or otherwise, which gives rise to moral disapproval. The main objective of persecution
is conversion or simply the punishment of the dissenting groups or individuals.
Persecution, therefore, is associated with diversity and has particular targets and
specific objectives. Oppression, on the other hand, has a wider scope since it refers to
any policy that involves the use of coercive means in a way that is contrary to the
ethical norms of the society. So, unlike persecution, in the case of oppression, the
ingredients of diversity or difference and the objectives of punishment or conversion are
not conceptually relevant. Such a distinction can also be seen in how the dictionary
defines oppression and persecution. In the Webster's Third New International
Dictionary, for example, persecution is defined as "the infliction of suffering, harm, or
death on those who differ (as in origin, religion, or social outlook) in a way regarded as
offensive or meriting extirpation." But the same dictionary
defines oppression, without reference to diversity, as "unjust or cruel exercise of
authority or power."
46
46
See " Persecution" and " Oppression", Webster's Third International New
Dictionary.
39
Furthermore, the existence of the presumption of voluntarism in
persecution makes it distinctive from other forms of oppression. Since persecution and
toleration are limited to matters of moral disapproval, the persecuted person is assumed
to have made a willful decision to adopt one theological or moral world view and to
reject others. This element of voluntarism has two consequences. First, it means that
the persecuted agent can avoid persecution, theoretically at least, by conversion, that is,
abandoning his or her theological or moral views and adopting those of his or her
persecutor. Second, viewing the persecuted individual as being a dissenter by choice
implies that the persecutor has control over the persecuted and can force him or her to
reverse the conviction. Thus, the notion of persecution refers only to those instances
where there is the possibility of conversion, that is, the persecuted has the capacity to
choose between different religious or moral alternatives. Thus, other instances of
mistreatment of some individuals who are different from the rest of the society by
nature, that is, physical appearance, or ethnic background, and not by choice, cannot be
considered liable to persecution because the component of voluntarism is missing. The
unjust measures taken against certain ethnic, racial, or gender groups are instances of
discrimination, oppression, or exclusion but not persecution.
This study has restricted the term persecution to its narrow and specific
meaning. Exactly as in the case of religious toleration, the concept of persecution
applies only to matters of moral disapproval arising out of sectarian and religious
disputes. Furthermore, the element of the potential use of coercion is restricted to legal
40
coercion; that is, coercion carried out by the authoritative entity in the community: the
prince, the monarch, or the state. Accordingly, the political thinker is said to be a
supporter of religious persecution when he or she deliberately advocates the use of the
power of the poUtical authority to punish as criminals those who hold theological or
rehgious views different from his or her own, in order to convert them or simply to
punish them.
Limitations of the Study
The present study is limited in respect to its scope and to what it intends to
explain. As its subtitle suggests, this dissertation focuses mainly on the views of the
Muslim poUtical thinker Taqi al-Din Ahmad Ibn Taymiyah. Although the
methodological orientation of the study is intended to apply in general to aU Islamic
poUtical thinkers, its actual apphcation in this research is confined to the writings of Ibn
Taymiyah. There is but Uttle originaUty in Ibn Taymiyah's theology, his jurisprudence,
or even his poUtical ideas. His writings on theology, jurisprudence, and poUtics cannot
be compared to those of the masters of Islamic thought such as al-Shafi'i in
jurisprudence, al-BaqiUani and al-GhazaU in theology, or al-Mawardi in poUtical
thought. But it is this lack of originaUty that makes Ibn Taymiyah an ideal candidate
for a case study. Ibn Taymiyah's prominence in Islamic thought came mainly from hi s
abiUties to systemize and articulate the already existing, but fragmented, Sunn i dogma.
As an activist reformer, Ibn Taymiyah, in his polemical exchanges with members of
41
other Muslim sects and with non-Muslims, defended the Sunni orthodoxy by making
frequent appeals to the pronouncements of past Muslim scholars concerning the
theological or judicial issues under dispute. However, this is not to say that he was
passively quoting past Muslim authors without formulating his own theological or
political views. Instead, Ibn Taymiyah adopted this method to persuade his audience
that his views were in harmony with those of the authoritative figures of Islam and that
his opponents' views were inconsistent with the estabhshed teachings of Islam In
addition, Ibn Taymiyah considered himself a defender of an existing tradition, which in
his view had been neglected or distorted by heretics, rather than as a founder of a new
theological or judicial movement. Ibn Taymiyah's reliance on the teachings of the
major figures of Muslim thought makes his thought a true embodiment of mainstream
Sunni political thought and theology. Therefore, his views on toleration can be
considered an accurate representation of the opinions of the majority of political
thinkers who have subscribed to the world view of Sunni Islam.
With reference to the idea of religious toleration, Ibn Taymiyah has been
selected for study for three main reasons. The first and the most important reason is
that he wrote extensively on the problem of religious diversity within the Islamic polity.
Unlike any Islamic thinker, Ibn Taymiyah has dealt with all kinds of religious dissenters
in Islam: heretics, apostates, and zandiqs. He engaged in heated disputes with his
sectarian or religious opponents; also he constructed a relatively coherent argument
concerning how the Muslim rulers ought to treat religious dissenters. Ibn Taymiyah
42
has also written a number of major works on other religions, particularly Christianity.
He expressed his views on these religions and touched upon the matter of how their
members should be treated by Muslim rulers.
The second reason for considering Ibn Taymiyah as a representative figure
is related to the nature of his theological and pohtical doctrines in general. In contrast
to other Islam thinkers, Ibn Taymiyah took a moderate position on most of the
theological and pohtical issues of his day. For instance, he forcefully condemned the
extremism of the militant Islamic sect of the Kharijites, who used to rush in,
denouncing as an infidel or unbeliever any Muslim who committed a minor sin. But
also, he rejected as too lenient and too passive the views of the sect of Murji'ites, who
refused to pass judgment on any dissenter, including those who violated the
fundamentals of Islam. This moderate tone was also characteristic of his other
theological and pohtical views. Because of the moderate nature of his thought in
general, Ibn Taymiyah's views on toleration and persecution should be a fair, middle-
of-the-road representation of the mainstream Sunni tradition.
The third consideration is that, although Ibn Taymiyah lived in the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the immense impact that his teachings have had on
present-day Islamic thought makes him a contemporary thinker. It is no exaggeration
to state that Ibn Taymiyah has more influence on the Islamic discourse of today than he
had during his lifetime. There is a considerable consensus among leading Islamists of
today that Ibn Taymiyah is among the most influential forerunners of contemporary
43
Islamic movements in the Islamic and Arab worlds. R. Hrair Dekmejian, for example,
considers Ibn Taymiyah to be "the most prominent precursor of present-day Sunni
fundamentalism after Ibn Hanbal."
47
Thus, focusing on Ibn Taymiyah's thought could
facilitate some understanding of the intellectual origins of today's Islamism and, hence,
make the present research more relevant to the scholarly interests of today.
Implicit in the selection of Ibn Taymiyah is the restricting of this work to
Sunni political thought. Thus the generalizations based on the analysis of the works of
Ibn Taymiyah can be extended only to the Islamic political thinkers who adhere to the
Sunni interpretation of Islam. Consequently, the views of Islamic thinkers belonging to
other sects on the question of toleration are outside the scope of this dissertation.
Finally, for the purpose of this study, the methodological distinction
between toleration as a political idea and toleration as a policy has been maintained.
Rehgious toleration as a policy refers to the actual conduct of the Muslim rulers
towards religious and sectarian dissenters within their own states. Toleration as a
question of political thought, on the other hand, refers to the thinker's views on the
problem of religious dissent in Islam in terms of its nature, sources and treatment by the
community. To study toleration as a policy is to deal with empirical questions such as:
Who were involved in these events? What were the motives for their policies? and
What were the implications of these policies on other events? But to examine the idea
47
R. Hrair Dekmejian, Islam in Revolution: Fundamentalism in the Arab World, 2nd
edition. (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1994), 39.
44
of religious toleration is to deal essentially with arguments containing theological or
philosophical justification of toleration or persecution embodied in linguistic entities:
the texts. The aim of studying toleration as a historical event is essentially to explain
such an event in reference to certain theoretical formulations and to arrive at some
empirical generalizations. By contrast, the primary task of the historian of political
thought is to recover and to explain the meaning of the thinker's argument for
toleration as it appears in the text and to evaluate its logical coherence and consistency.
In other words, where the goal of examining toleration as a policy is explanation, the
objective of studying the argument for toleration is interpretation. This study has
concerned itself only with toleration as a political theory issue as articulated in the
writings of Ibn Tamiyyah.
This distinction between these two concepts of toleration is necessitated by
the tendency among some of the contemprary scholars, those who have written on the
subject, to equate the views of Muslim theologians on toleration with the policies of the
Islamic state. Those authors have carelessly moved from the theoretical statements of
the Islamic thinkers on toleration to the actual practices of the Muslim rulers, under the
assumption that they were conceptually connected. The presumption is reflected in the
structure of their writings. To assess the nature of the idea of toleration in Islam, these
authors usually start with an introductory section on the teachings of Islam on
toleration and, based on that information, their discussion examines some historical
45
examples of how the Muslim rulers treated religious minorities within their states.
48
This method of approaching the problem of toleration in Islam seems to be founded on
the premise that the Muslim rulers had formulated their policies towards religious
dissent in accordance with the theoretical teachings of Islam. Nothing is further from
the truth. Islamic history shows that Muslim rulers have deviated from the teachings of
Islam more than they have adhered to them. And to view their policies as pure
enforcement of the teachings of Islam as interpreted by the Islamic thinkers is not only
to deny the Muslim rulers most of the autonomy which they actually had, but also to
grossly exaggerate the influence of the Islamic thinkers and their views on the major
events in Islamic history. The Islamic rulers, like all political leaders, were conducting
the affairs of their states according to the universal principle of "pohtics as the art of
the possible" and were concerned with their political survival rather than with the ideas
of Muslim theologians. The relationship between political thinkers and statesmen in
general is best articulated by George M. Dutcher who points out that "monarchs and
ministers are accustomed to looking for guidance in the formulation and elaboration of
their policies more to the precedents in their own state than to the writings of
philosophical thinkers among their own people."
49
Although Dutcher was writing on
48
See, for example, Adolph L. Wismar, A Study in Tolerance as Practiced by
Muhammad and His Immediate Successors (1927; reprint, New York: AMS Press
Inc., 1966); and Muhammad Yusufuddin, " The Islamic State and its Non-Muslim
Population." The Islamic Review (Nov. 1950): 16-20.
46
the "Enlightened Despotism" in Europe, his remarks accurately describe the
relationship between Islamic rulers and political thinkers.
This is especially true in reference to the question of religious toleration.
In general, Muslim rulers, motivated by considerations of political stability and the
accumulation of wealth and power, have been more tolerant than the Muslim
theologians and political thinkers. Had these rulers followed the recommendations of
the Islamic political thinkers, the situation of the religious dissenters in the Islamic state
would have been much worse than it actually was. Islamic history records a
considerable number of cases where not only non-Muslims but also Muslim heretics
occupied very sensitive positions in the institutions of Islamic polity. Some of these
individuals served as close advisors, clerks, and physicians in the courts of the Muslim
rulers. The writings of Islamic theologians and jurists in fact were highly critical of
these lenient policies. For instance, al-Qurtubi, a prominent Muslim jurist and the
author of a voluminous commentary on the Qur'an, expressed his resentment over the
practice of giving the People of the Book and Muslim heretics sensitive positions in the
cabinets of the Muslim princes during his time. Such policies of accommodating non-
Muslims and deviant Muslims were, in al-Qurtubi's view, a clear violation of the basic
teachings of Islam concerning the proper treatment of religious heterodoxy.
50
But
49
George M. Dutcher, "Further Considerations on the Origin and the Nature of the
Enlightened Despotism" in Persecution and Liberty (1931; reprint, Freeport: Books
for Libraries Press, 1968), 376.
50
al-Qurtubi made these remarks in the context of his interpretation of the Qur'anic
verse "O ye who believe! Take not into your intimacy those outside your ranks. They
47
there is little evidence that the Muslim princes were committed to the teachings of the
Muslim political thinkers; and when they were, they were essentially motivated by
political considerations rather than by their reUgious convictions.
Accordingly, this dissertation focuses exclusively on reUgious toleration
and persecution as poUtical ideas articulated by Ahmad Ibn Taymiyah. The actual
practice of the Muslim rulers during Ibn Taymiyah's time, with reference to reUgious
toleration, have been excluded from the scope of this study. But since the distinction
between the idea and the poUcy of toleration is mainly conceptual rather than actual or
historical, some incidents of reUgious toleration or persecution are considered when
they are textually relevant. These events become textually relevant when Ibn
Taymiyah is aware of their occurrence and makes clear textual reference to them.
What has guided this research is Ibn Taymiyah's attempt to interpret these events of
toleration or persecution and try to give them meaning according to his theological and
moral assumptions. Other events of this sort that Ibn Taymiyah might have been aware
of, but made no textual reference to, were excluded from the focus of this work.
Organization of the Study
This study is divided into five chapters. The first chapter deals with some
introductory issues which include the outlining of the research problem and its
will not fail to corrupt you ... (3: 118). See 'Abi 'Abd 'Allah Muhammad al-Qurtubi,
al-Jami' U-'Hkam al-Our'an, 20 vols. 2nd edition. (Cairo: Dar al-Kutb al-Misriyyah,
1966), 4: 178-190.
48
background, the focus and the limitations of the study, and the definitions of the
concepts of toleration and persecution. In chapter two, the methodological orientation
of the study is outlined. It starts with a brief discussion of the relevant literature in the
field of interpretation in the history of poUtical thought, then moves to the discussion of
the structure of the idea of toleration in terms of its epistemological, ethical and
political dimensions by focusing on the European experience. This chapter ends with a
general discussion of how the idea of toleration in Islamic political thought was limited
by the textual frame of reference of that tradition . Chapter three is devoted to the
study of Ibn Taymiyah and his basic epistemological assumptions and their implications
on his political thought and his response to the question of religious diversity. Ibn
Taymiyah's views on toleration and its theological justification and limits are explored
in chapter four. Chapter five will present Ibn Taymiyah's theory of persecution in
terms of its targets, theological justification, and limits.
A Note on Translations and Transliteration:
Unless otherwise indicated, all the translations from the Arabic sources are
by the author of the present study. The Qur'anic verses are taken from Abdullah Yusuf
Ali's The Holy Qu-ran: English Translation of the Meanings and Commentary. The
system adopted in this dissertation for transliterating Arabic words is that of the
International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies. The exceptions to this rule are the
common names of persons, sects, and places that have gained considerable usage in
49
secondary sources. The common spellings of these names have been maintained in
order to avoid any confusion. For instance, the reader will find Mecca instead of
Makkah or Kharijites instead of Khawarij.
50
Chapter Two
Methodological Considerations
As its title suggests, the main theme of this chapter is to explore the
methodological settings of the study. It is my intention here to introduce the reader to
the interpretive approach that I have adopted to answer the research questions stated in
the previous chapter. In order to achieve the purpose which the present chapter is
intended to serve, I have divided it into two main parts. The first part examines the
relevant insights that the different schools of interpretations in the field o f the history of
political ideas have to offer concerning the question of religious toleration in political
thought. The purpose of this part is to place the present study within its academic and
scholarly context, that is, the problem of interpretation in the history of political ideas.
The second part is intended to outline the methodological orientation of this study in
respect to its main assumptions, propositions, and sources. The methodological
orientation of the study is outlined in three steps which correspond with the three sub
sections of this part. The first section deals with the concept of the frame o f reference
of political thinking as a conceptual device of recovering the meaning and explaining
the structure of past political ideas. The frame of reference of the idea of religious
toleration with its three dimensions, skepticism, relativism, and secularism, is explored
in section two. The chapter concludes with a discussion of how the textual frame of
51
reference of Islamic political thought had determined the substance and the form of
Islamic political theorists' response to the problem of religious diversity.
Religious Toleration and the Problem of Interpretation in the History
of Political Ideas: A Review of the Relevant Literature
The literature on the history of political thought could be classified into
three main categories: ContextuaUsm, TextuaUsm, and the New History of PoUtical
Theory. In the foUowing sections, each one of these approaches wiU be explored in
terms of its basic assumptions and techniques. It is not my intention, however, to give
a detailed and comprehensive review of the hterature on the problem of interpretation
in the history of poUtical ideas. Rather, the goal of this endeavor is to determine the
relevance of the major pronouncements of these schools of interpretation to the
question of toleration in the history of poUtical theory in general and in Islamic poUtical
thinking in particular. To put it differently, the purpose of reviewing the hterature on
interpretation is to see how these approaches could contribute to explaining why the
Muslim poUtical thinkers had treated the question of reUgious toleration the way they
did.
Before I move to the discussion of these schools, a word of caution
concerning the topology of the different schools of interpretation is in order. There is
an element of oversimplification or distortion in classifying the works on the history of
poUtical ideas into three approaches. These schools of interpretation are not mutually
52
exclusive and they overlap with one another. In their actual practice, the historians of
poUtical theory usually do not restrict themselves to one approach; but rather, they
make use of all techniques that these schools have to offer. In fact, one can find a
historian of poUtical thought who advocates two approaches of interpretation at the
same time. For example, Sprangens, who is considered a contextuaUst for his
emphasis on the historical setting of poUtical ideas, also beUeves that poUtical thinkers
address some perennial problems, which places him within the textuaUst school.
Another example is Sheldon Wolin who was criticized by Q. Skinner as a textuaUst,
but who also emphasized the role of the crisis environment in shaping poUtical ideas.
So, the concepts of ContextuaUsm, TextuaUsm, and the New History of PoUtical
Thought should be conceived of as "ideal types" that serve to clarify our discussion of
the Uterature on interpretation, rather than as clear-cut schools of interpellation.
ContextuaUsm
ContextuaUsm is the oldest school of interpretation in the sub-field of the
history of poUtical thought. It was the dominant paradigm in the works of the early
historians of poUtical thought like Sabine, Dunning, J. AUen and many others. But
despite its prominence in the early writings on poUtical theory, ContextuaUsm is poorly
articulated by its proponents. What is caUed the contextuaUst method of interpretation
1
Thamos Spragens, Understanding PoUtical Theory (New York: St. Martine's Press,
1976), 20, 21.
53
is nothing more than some fragmented an d sometimes accidental remarks by historians
of political thought on the significance of the historical settings in understanding past
political ideas. Contextualism in the history of political thought can be viewed as a
distorted or amateur representation of the methods and techniques used by the
sociologists of knowledge. In fact, the basic tenets of Contextualism were articulated
more by its critics such as Easton, Skinner, and Strauss than by its advocates. The
exceptions to this are the Marxist historians who, because of their well-developed
world view, have manifested a great deal of sophistication and rigor in their
interpretation of past political theories.
The main thrust of the contextualist approach is that past political ideas
must be understood within their historical or contextual locations. Political ideas, the
contextualists contended, are the product of the institutional and cultural arrangements
of their societies. G. Sabine suggested that political theories "are produced as a normal
part of the social milieu in which politics itself has its being."
2
In similar fashion,
Sheldon Wolin contended that "the boundaries and substance of the subject matter of
political philosophy are determined to a large extent by the practices of existing
societies."
3
It is presumed that every political thinker "even the most abstract, is deeply
2
Sabine, Preface to the first edition .
3
Sheldon Wolin, Politics and Vision: Continuity and Innovation in Western Political
Thought (Boston: Little Brown and Co., 1960), 6.
54
influenced by the circumstances of his day"
4
and by the "economical, social and
political events of the time."
5
For the proponents of Contextualism, the poUtical
theorist ought to be seen as writing "out of compelling practical necessity"
6
and
responding to "times of crisis."
7
Hence, those who deal with past political thought
must have "a thorough knowledge of the conditions, social, political and economical,
under which that thought was developed."
8
And to recover the meanings of past
poUtical texts, the historians of poUtical thought must know something about their
social and economical conditions
9
, and "systematicaUy relate them to their social
contexts."
10
So one cannot understand the ideas of Plato without considering the crisis
of fourth-century Athens and the execution of his master Socrates. Nor can one
understand MachiaveUi'sPr/wce without referring to the poUtical fragmentation of Italy
4
John Plamenatz, Man and Society: PoUtical and Social Theory: MachiaveUi Through
Roussean 2 vols. (New York: McGraw-HiU Book Company, Inc., 1963), I:ix.
5
Jean Hampton, Hobbes and the Social Contract Tradtion (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1986), 5.
6
Spragens, Understanding PoUtical Theory. 20.
7
Wolin, 8.
8
AUen, xviii.
9
Plamenatz, ix.
10
EUen M. Wood and Neal Wood, Class. Idealogy. and Ancient PoUtical Theory:
Socrates. Plato, and Aristotle in Social Context (New York: Oxford University Press,
55
during the sixteenth century, or Locke's doctrines of rights and private property
without reference to the rise of the new bourgeois class in seventeenth-century
England, and so on.
Consequently, every political theorist is seen not as a mere intellectual who
deals with abstract ideas but as an individual who performs definite ideological and
political tasks. For example, the political ideas of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle "can be
conceived of as the supreme intellectual expression of the increasing class
consciousness of the aristocracy of the fourth century, consciousness that seems to
become more pronounced as the class was progressively threatened with extinction."
11
And John Locke was the "theorist of early agrarian capitalism" in seventeenth-century
England.
12
In sum, for contextualists, past political thought must be perceived as an
integral part of and an immediate response to the institutional and cultural
arrangements of the time.
As stated in the previous chapter, the development and structure of the
idea of religious toleration in Islamic political thought represent a diversion from the
contextualist thesis. Neither the presence of rehgious diversity nor the occurrence of
incidents of rehgious persecution in Islamic history seemed to provoke Muslim thinkers
1978), ix; also see John Bowie, Politics and Opinion in the Nineteenth Century (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1954), 13.
11
Wood and Wood, Class, Idealogv, and Ancient Political Theory. 3.
12
Neal Wood, John Locke and Agrarian Capitahsm (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1984), 13.
56
to consider toleration as a remedy for religious dissent within Islam. But since the
contextualist proposition concerning toleration was stated in general terms in chapter
one, it will be explored more specifically here. The contextualist might argue that the
difference between the notions of toleration in European and in Islamic political
thought could be explained with reference to different historical circumstances in which
the thinkers from thes e two traditions confronted the problem of religious heterodoxy.
The reference might be made primarily to two factors, ecclesiastical and economic, that
did not exist in the historical context of Islamic political thought.
The ecclesiastical dimension refers to the fact that heresy in Western
Europe was against an institutionalized orthodoxy in the form of an estabUshed
Catholic Church. In the case of Islam, orthodoxy was never institutionalized, and there
had never been an estabUshed church in the history of Islam. The lack of an
institutionalized orthodoxy in Islam made orthodoxy and heresy overlap and the
distinction between the two was blurred.
u
Where sectarian conflict in Western Europe
took the form of confrontation between the CathoUc church and the dissenting groups
or individuals, in Islam it took the form of disputes among individual theologians who
were, theoreticaUy, of equal status. So, the sectarian conflicts in Western Europe,
though they appeared later than the sectarian conflicts in Islam and were shorter in
13
An interesting discussion of the nature of heresy and orthodoxy in Islam is found in
Alexander Knysh, "Orthodoxy" and "Heresy" in Medieval Islam: An Essay in
Reassessment," The Muslim World. LXXXITI. no. 1(1993): 48-67.
57
duration, were very visible and took a more violent form. Consequently, the
institutionalization of orthodoxy and the severity of the suppression of heresy in
Western Europe had made the problem of heterodoxy an urgent concern, and hence, it
was forcefully reflected in the works of Western political theorists.
It would be unreasonable to deny the difference between the nature of
rehgious dissent in the Western European and the Islamic contexts, or to dispute the
impact of such difference on how the political thinkers from both traditions had
formulated their ideas on the question of rehgious toleration. One ought to look no
further than how heresy was defined by the major thinkers of both traditions. St.
Thomas Aquinas, for example, defined heresy in institutional terms as the denial of
matters of faith "after they have been defined by the authority of the universal
church."
14
By cantrast, the Muslim thinkers defined heresy with no reference to any
kind of institutionalized orthodoxy. For example, the fifteenth-century Musli m jurist
Abu Ishaq al-Shatibi, the author of the classic text on heresy in Islam, defined heresy as
an invented method of worship which resembles the original teachings of Islam and the
purpose of acting upon it is the exaggeration of worshipping God.
15
14
St. Thomas Aquinas. Summa Theologica trans. Fathers of the English Dominican
Province. 20 vols. (London: R. and T. Washbourne, Ltd., 1917), II-II, 153. Other
Christian theologians defined heresy in similar terms; see Walter Wakefield and Austin
Evans, Heresies of the High Middle Ages: Selected Sources (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1969), 1-3.
15
Abu Ishaq al-Shatibi, al-I'tisam 2 vols. (al-Khubar: Dar Ibn 'Affan, 1992), I: 50.
58
But still, the lack of institutionalized heresy in Islam did not prevent the
occurrence of episodes of religious persecution in Islamic history. And even if religious
persecution in Islamic history was less severe than religious persecution in Europe, a
reference to such historical fact cannot provide a satisfactory answer to the research
questions. It does not explain, for example, the variations within the Islamic political
thinkers' response to the problem of religious diversity. As a matter of historical fact,
the conflicts between the Muslims and the Pagans and among the different Muslims
sects were more severe and bloodier than the conflict between the Muslims and the
People of the Book. So, if the criterion of considering toleration as a remedy for
religious dissent was the severity of religious persecution, then the Muslim political
theorists would propose religious toleration as a solution for the sectarian and
Muslims-Pagans conflicts and persecution for the disputes among Muslims and
Christians and Jews. But in Islamic political thought, the case was totally the reverse.
These thinkers recommended religious toleration as a solution for the mild and
infrequent conflicts between the Muslims and the People of the Book. However, the
same thinkers proposed religious persecution as a solution for the sectarian and the
Muslim-Pagan conflicts which were expressed in very violent and severe forms. So, it
would be safe to conclude that the institutionalization of orthodoxy in Western Europe
and its absence in the Islamic context cannot explain why the Islamic political thinkers
responded to the problem of religious diversity the way they did.
59
The economic factor refers to the rise of capitalism in Western Europe
during the sixteenth century. The genesis of capitalism in Western Europe was seen in
the transformation of the agricultural sector from subsistence fanning to market-
oriented (capitalist) farming. Such economic transition had generated significant
structural changes in European societies which received their clearest expression in the
rise of the agrarian bourgeoisie class.
16
This new capitalist class was, or it was
assumed to be, very antagonistic to religious restrictions on trade, and it perceived
sectarian conflicts to be economically costly. Thus, the rise of the idea of the market
and the commercial capitalist class had provided the economic and social need for civil
peace which, in turn, made defending toleration at the intellectual level not only feasible
but also desirable.
17
In the case of Islam such economic transition and the rise of the
capitalist class had never occurred, hence, the idea of religious toleration did not have
the necessary economic and social basis to make it a defensible principle at the
intellectual and practical levels.
For more details, see H. Koenigsherger and George Mosses, Europe in the Sixteenth
Century (New York: Longman, 1968), 21-53.
17
A good summary and an empirical critique of the role of capitalism in the
development of toleration is found in Iain Hampsher-Monk, "The Market for
Toleration: A Case Study in an Aspect of the Ambiguity of Positive Economics,"
British Journal of Political Science. 21- part I (1991): 29-44. For a discussion of the
economic motives for religious toleration in Western Europe, see Jordan, 1:22; Kamen,
224-27; Richard Tawney, Religion and the Rise of Capitalism: A Historical Study
(New York: Harcout, Brace and Company, 1937), 206-207; and Steve Bruce and
Chris Wright "Law, Social Change, and Religious Toleration," Journal of Church and
State. 37 no. 1 (Win. 1995): 193-120.
60
The main problem with this explanation is that it does not explain what this
study intends to explain. The rise of capitahsm in Western Europe could explain why
some policies of rehgious toleration were adopted. But it does not explain why certain
thinkers advocated the idea of rehgious toleration as a moral ideal. It is true that some
of the defenders of rehgious toleration, like John Locke, were associated with the
emerging bourgeois class in Europe, but other thinkers like Erasmus and Castillion
defended toleration although they had lived in societies which were hardly capitalist.
Furthermore, associating the idea of rehgious toleration with capitahsm is a highly
questionable premise. Theoretically, capitahsm could be served by either toleration or
persecution, as was historically the case when capitahsm gave rise to liberalism in
England and the United States and to fascism in Germany, Italy, and Japan. However,
even if the development of capitahsm could partially explain the rise of rehgious
toleration as a policy in Europe, because the scope of this study is limited to the idea of
rehgious toleration as an issue of pohtical thought and not as an empirical question, the
role of the rise of capitahsm and its relation to rehgious toleration is considered
irrelevant to this study.
Textualism
It is not an exaggeration to say that Textualism has been the dominant
interpretative approach in the field of the history of pohtical thought since the 1950s.
Until recently, the pronouncements of Textualism acquired prominence among the
61
majority of the historians of pohtical theory to the degree where Textualism became
some sort of an established orthodoxy in the field. In the following, I will attempt to
delineate the main features of the textuahst school of interpretation. After a brief
assessment of the basic tenets of Textualism, the discussion will focus exclusively on
Leo Strauss's method of textual interpretation and its relevance to the main theme of
this study. But before proceeding with the discussion of these issues, a comment on
the intellectual context in which Textualism had emerged is required.
The textuahst approach did not initially emerge as a response to the need
for the development of more rigorous methodology in the history of pohtical thought
or as a reaction to Contextualism. But rather, Textualism in its premises and
techniques has evolved as an integral part of the evolution of the discipline of pohtical
science in the United States. Instead of being a reaction to the contextualist school,
Textualism was primarily a response to the assault on pohtical theory which was waged
mainly by those who championed the behavioral movement within American pohtical
science during the early 1950's. In the 1950s, the notion of the "decline" of pohtical
theory had gained currency among the majority of American pohtical scientists who
embraced the notion of modeling the methods of studying politics after those applied by
the practitioners of the natural sciences. These scholars believed that what they
considered to be the tradition of Western pohtical thought was in a state of decline.
David Easton attributed the decline of modern pohtical theory to its reliance on
historicism, which was concerned exclusively with the "relation of values to the milieu
62
in which they appeared"
18
instead of "analyzing and formulating new value theory."
19
For Alfred Cobban, political theory has declined because it "has become generally
disengaged from practical facts. . . [and] the academic political theorist of today may
study the great political thinkers of the past, but in the name of academic impartiality he
must carefully abstain from doing the kind of thing that they did."
20
Other poUtical
scientists like Robert Dahl went further than Easton and Cobban by considering
political theory to be not in a state of decline, but due to its reliance on historicism, was
actually dead.
21
The political theorists of the time, who never attempted to verify the
accuracy or the validity of these charges, responded by further assault on historicism
(contextualism) and arguing for the relevance of the "Great Books" to contemporary
society and the methodological concerns of the discipline of poUtical science. These
theorists agreed with the critics on the existence of a tradition in the form of the classic
texts of Western poUtical thought and the state of decline in which that tradition was
going through. They also agreed that the prevalence of historicism in the major texts of
David Easton, The PoUtical System: An Inquiry into the State of PoUtical Science
(reprint, 1953; New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1967), 236.
19
David Easton, "The Decline of Modern PoUtical Theory," Journal of PoUtics 13
(1951): 36.
20
Alfred Cobban, "The Decline of PoUtical Theory," PoUtical Science Quarterly
LXVJJI no. 3 (1953): 331.
21
Robert Dahl, "PoUtical Theory," World PoUtics XI (1958): 89-102.
63
the history of pohtical thought was the major source of the decline of that tradition.
Thus, in order for pohtical theory to be revived, the historicist method must be
abandoned. Leo Strauss, for instance, insisted that historicism should be rejected
because "it denies the relevance of the evolutionist thesis . . . [and] rejects the question
of the good society."
22
So, the reliance on the contextualist method, the pohtical
theorists of that period contended, has reduced the study of pohtical theory to purely
antiquarian interest.
The textualist thesis is based on the premise that the classic texts of
pohtical thought are autonomous and transhistorical. Although the pohtical thinkers of
the past produced their ideas in response to their particular historical circumstances,
their writings contain timeless and universal elements which are relevant not only to the
methodological interest of today's pohtical scientists but also to the ills of
contemporary society. The underlying assumption behind this perception of the
classics is that they are "concerned with the same fundamental themes or the same
fundamental problems, and therefore, there exists an unchanging framework which
persists in all changes of human knowledge of both facts and principles."
23
It is
Leo Strauss, "What is Pohtical Philosophy," in An Introduction to Political
Philosophy: Ten Essays by Leo Strauss ed. HiLail Gildin (Detroit: Wayne State
University Press, 1989), 23.
23
Leo Strauss, "Natural Right and the Historical Approach," in Gildin, 113-114; also
Strauss makes similar remarks in his essay, "On Classical Pohtical philosophy," in
Gildin, 7.
\
64
assumed that the major contributors of the tradition of political thought were engaged
in a great dialogue on perennial problems from Plato down to Karl Marx and J.S. Mill.
Thus, the historian who deals with the works of past political thinkers must be able to
determine "the degree to which these men were engaging in the perennial conversation
of mankind."
24
The obvious implication of such a view is that the purpose of studying past
political ideas is not to recover their historical meaning but to determine their relevance
to the practical affairs of today. Therefore, W. Bluhm asserts that the student of
political thought should not be interested in the classics as "reflections of or influences
on the political ideologies of the societies in which they were created, but rather in the
universal ideas contained in the classic theories."
25
He or she must show how past
political philosophers raised questions that "are alive in our own society"
26
and provide
solutions to the ills of their societies which "may enlarge the imagination of the present
and make men enlightened in confronting contemporary crises in society."
27
The
Dante Germins, Modern Western Political Thought: Machiavelli to Marx (Chicago:
Rand McNally and Co., 1972), viii.
25
William T. Bluhm, Theories of Political System: Classics of Political Thought and
Modern Political Analysis 3rd ed. (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-HalL Inc., 1978), 15.
26
Leo Strauss and Joseph Cropsey, eds. History of Political Philosophy (Chicago:
Rand McNally and Co., 1963), preface.
27
Paul W. Ward, A Short History of Political Thinking (1939, reprint; Freeport:
Books for Libraries Press, 1971), 5.
65
proponents of Textualism contend that the classics "can go far toward explaining the
political behavior of today . . . because of their universal application."
28
Instead of
locating the meaning of what the poUtical thinkers of the past said, the task of
interpretation should be to show that these ideas "have meaning for poUtical science"
29
and are relevant to "the current methodological debate and the larger debate about
values which is going on throughout our society."
30
To view the classics of poUtical thought as transhistorical and to emphasize
their relevance to the present society is to give their historical context a minimal role in
understanding them. For the textuaUsts, the classic text is sufficient to understand its
meaning. Although the textuaUsts have not totaUy ignored the context of poUtical
thought, they considered it a marginal issue. So, while Plato's ideas were greatly
influenced by the events of his day, this fact "is of Uttle significance to the student of
poUtical philosophy [whose interest] Ues not in accounting for the origins and the
shaping of poUtical ideas, but in analyzing them and in assessing their worth."
31
Hacker
went even further to suggest that the historians of poUtical thought should study only
Andrew Hacker, "Capital and Carbuncles: the "Great Books" Reappraise,"
American PoUtical Science Review 48 (1954):783.
29
Hacker, 776.
30
Bluhm, 15.
31
F.C. White, "Plato and the Good of the Whole," in PoUtical Thinkers ed. David
Muchamp (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1986), 14.
66
the works or the parts of works that have some ethical and practical relevance to the
contemporary world.
32
Such emphasis on the relevance and timelessness of the classics
makes the issue of explaining why past political thinkers wrote the way they did, a
marginal question for the textualist. This makes the textualist approach to the political
ideas of the past essentially a philosophy of reading the classics rather than an
interpretative method with an explanatory power.
The only exception to this is Leo Strauss who has developed a well-defined
method of textual interpretation. Strauss's method of interpretation and its major
assumptions are outlined in his essay Persecution and the Art of Writing published in
1952. The underlying assumption of Strauss's method is that the political writers of
the past produced their thought under the fear of persecution by those in authority.
Such state of affairs forced these writers to conceal their heterodox views by adopting
certain ways of expressing their philosophical or theological teachings. He wrote
persecution, then, gives rise to a peculiar technique of writing,
there with a peculiar type of literature, in which the truth about
all crucial things is presented exclusively between the lines.
That literature is addressed, not to all readers, but to
trustworthy and intelligent readers only.
33
The distinction between two types of readership by Strauss corresponds to
two kinds of meanings or teachings, exoteric and esoteric, contained in the classic text
32
Hacker, 784.
33
Leo Strauss, "Persecution and the Art of Writing," in Leo Strauss, Persecution and
the Art of Writing (Glencoe: The Free Press, 1952), 25.
67
of pohtical thought. The exoteric message of the text is very explicit and accessible to
all readers. It is intended for the general and careless readers and it plays the role of
hiding or concealing the politically or socially objectionable views of the thinker. The
esoteric or hidden teachings of the text are written for the learned and sophisticated
individuals who have the will and ability to comprehend these messages by reading
between the lines.
34
So, the historian of pohtical theory should not settle for simple or
superficial reading of past pohtical texts, but ought to find the hidden or esoteric
message which the pohtical thinker intended to communicate privately only to the elect.
In addition, by considering the phenomenon of persecution, Strauss contended that the
student of pohtical thought could solve what appears to be contradictions in the
writings of the great thinkers of the past. For Strauss, such contradictions could be put
in intentionally by the author in order to oppose the established orthodoxy by distorting
its tenets. Thus, the thoughtful interpreter must attempt to overcome such
contradictions by studying the "whole book all over again, with much greater care and
much less naivete than ever before.
35
In other words, in order for the interpreter to
know the truth of the ideas of past pohtical thinkers, he or she must read between the
lines.
Strauss, Persecution. 34-36.
Strauss, Persecution. 32.
68
Before turning to the relevance of the Straussian method to the question of
toleration in Islamic political thought, I should point out an obvious inconsistency in it.
Strauss was extremely antagonistic to historicism or Contextualism and had always
insisted on the transhistorical nature of political philosophy and the autonomy of the
classic texts of political thought. But his emphasis on the phenomenon of persecution
and its impact on how the political thinkers of the past expressed their views makes the
Straussian approach essentially historical, that is, contextualist. If the exoteric writings
are "essentially related to a society which is not liberal," then the starting point of the
historian of political thought should be the description of the context in which the text
was produced and to what degree that society was liberal. Instead of focusing only on
the classic text, the interpreter must first pay attention to the restrictions placed on the
political thinkers by their respective societies and their fear of persecution if they
publicly pronounced their views. It seems that the text's exoteric meaning which was
pronounced publicly by the thinker and its esoteric meaning which the thinker decided
to conceal because of his/her fear of persecution were historically determined. Such
view of the classic texts of political thought not only places the Straussian approach
within Contextualism but also is inconsistent with his advocacy of the transhistorical
character of political philosophy and could ruin his whole method.
Even if the historian of political ideas decided to overlook this
inconsistency, she would see the Straussian method to be of little help in explaining the
question of toleration in Islamic political thought. To adopt the Straussian interpretive
69
method to explain the idea of reUgious toleration in Islamic poUtical thought would be
to focus on the esoteric meanings of writings of Islamic poUtical theorists. One would
have to assume that these thinkers beUeved that the idea of toleration was moraUy and
poUticaUy desirable, but due to their fear of persecution, they decided not to advocate it
openly. Instead, they could have communicated their approval of toleration by
adopting certain styles of writing which could be accessible only to the elect readers
who were capable of reading between the Unes.
The method of Strauss is particularly inappropriate for interpreting the
writings of the Islamic poUtical theorists within the Sunni tradition to which Ibn
Taymiyah belonged. In their historical practices and theological pronouncements, the
Sunni poUtical thinkers have always considered the concealment of one's true reUgious
views, with the intention of avoiding bodily harm, to be highly undesirable, though not
strictly forbidden. It is true that the Sunni poUtical thinkers and theologians have been
known for their willingness to interpret the poUtical teachings of Islam in certain ways
in order to accommodate the demands of those in power and because of their fear of
civil strife and instabiUty within the Islamic pohty. But these thinkers were not known
for following the techniques of writing that Strauss suggested, that is, constructing the
text to have an exoteric meaning which is expressed in expUcit terms and accessible to
alL and an esoteric or hidden meaning which is intended for the elect and written
between the Unes. Instead, they were very clear that they were compromising some of
the poUtical doctrines of Islam, which were considered to be among the secondary
70
teachings, in order to achieve higher objectives such as the preservation of the integrity
of the Islamic polity and the fundamental doctrines of Islam However, when the
dispute pertained to the basic teachings of the Muslim creed, the Muslim thinkers never
attempted to conceal their theological opinions and were always willing to express their
views in unmistakable terms even if that meant being exposed to different types of
persecution by the regime in power. La addition, had these political theorists used the
exoteric-esoteric method of expressing their ideas, later generations of political thinkers
within the Sunni tradition would have pointed to this fact and attempted to reveal the
esoteric messages contained in these writings after the fear of persecution had
disappeared. But, as far as I know, there has been no attempt by any Sunni thinker to
reinterpret the past works of other Sunni scholars with the intention of discovering
their actual esoteric teachings.
However, Strauss's methodology may be applicable to the writings of
Islamic political thinkers belonging to the Shi'ite and other esoteric {batani) sects of
Islam. Although the principal of taqiyah (the concealment of one's religious views to
avoid persecution) was universally adopted by all early Muslims; it had lost its
significance and was later abandoned by the Sunni thinkers. While the concept of
taqiyah had faded away within Sunnism, it has flourished and evolved into a
fundamental doctrine among the Shi'it sects. Thus, it was the intention of the political
thinkers of the Shi'ites and batini (esoteric) sects to conceal their true teachings by
appealing to the esoteric techniques of writing. Indeed, it is among the basic tenets of
71
the esoteric sects of Islam to view the Quran as containing two teachings or meanings:
the exoteric which is attainable by all Muslims and esoteric or hidden message, the
knowledge of which is restricted to the pure and the elect. Such perception of the
nature of the divine text of Islam was reflected in the style and content of the writings
of the esoteric writers of Islam. For example, the Brethren of Purity (Ikwan al-Safa), a
secret society which belonged to the Shi'ite subsect of Isma'ilites, appeared to focus on
combining mathematics and astronomy with mysticism, but in fact that society was
essentially political under the cover of mysticism.
36
So the Straussian approach, which
, according to Bloom, was originated in Strauss's study of the esoteric in the medieval
Jewish and Islamic traditions,
37
seems to be appropriate for interpreting past pohtical
ideas within the esoteric traditions of Islam. But considering that this study is limited
to Sunni pohtical thought, Strauss's method of textual interpretation is of little
relevance to the theme of this dissertation.
The New History of Political Theory
Unlike the textualists and the contextualists, the New Historians of Pohtical
Thought have developed a well-defined methodology of studying the history of pohtical
For more details on this movement and its doctrines, see Majid Fakhry, A History of
Islamic Philosophy 2nd ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983), chapter 5.
37
Allan Bloom, "Leo Strauss," Pohtical Theory 2 no. 4 (1974): 380.
72
ideas.
38
The development of this tradition was a reflection of the political theorists'
awareness of the autonomy and distinctiveness of their field of activities within the
discipline of political science. While the New History of Political Theory emerged as a
critical response to past works on the history of thought, its advocates have
transcended the task of criticism and focused more on the development of their own
interpretive method of studying the classics. It is not surprising, therefore, to find that
the question of "method" as a primary and independent issue in the sub-field of the
history of political ideas has been raised mainly by the New Historians of Political
Theory.
The tenets of the New History school have been associated with the works
of four British scholars: Q. Skinner. J. Pocock, J. Dunn, and W.H. Greenleaf. It is
common among commentators to treat the works of these authors as representing one
homogeneous school of interpretation. But while this classification is accurate in
respect to these authors' critique of the literature on political thought, it is nonetheless
misleading in regard to these scholars' views on how the classic text should be
interpreted. As will be shown, the proponents of the New History of Political Theory
have expressed differing, and in some cases conflicting views concerning the
Some commentators, however, have less favorable opinions about the achievments of
the New Historians. J. Gunnell, for instance, has suggested that what the New
Historians have proposed is not a method of interpretation at all, but rather "a
philosophical argument about interpretation." See John Gunnell Political Theory:
Tradition and Interpretaton (Cambridge: Winthrop Publishers, Inc., 1979), 102.
73
appropriate techniques to recover the meaning of past poUtical texts. In the following
sections, the discussion will be directed towards delineating the New History of
Political Theory in terms of its genesis, basic assumptions, and the relevance of its
methodological assertions to the question of religious toleration in Islamic poUtical
thought.
There is a consensus among the New Historians concerning the lack of
historicity or historicauy credible interpretations in the past research in the history of
poUtical ideas. In 1964, W.H. Greenleaf pubUshed his book Order, Empiricism, atid
Politics in which he criticized those historians who tended to impose their own
perception of rationaUty on past works of poUtical theory. Greenleaf was particularly
critical of those who condemned some of the arguments of past poUtical thinkers as
naive or obscured because they are not consistent with the contemporary standards of
rationaUty.
39
The lack of historicity among the historians of poUtical thought, Greenleaf
contends, has resulted in what he caUs "an unsatisfactory aUocation of attention."
40
This tendency to impose the historian's perception of rationaUty on past poUtical
theorist, who might have belonged to a different notion of rationaUty, has generated
distorted and inaccurate interpretations of the poUtical ideas of the past.
W. H. Greenleaf, Order. Empiricism, and Pohtics: Two Traditions of EngUsh
PoUtical Thought: 1500-1700 (New York: The Oxford University Press, 1964), 5-8.
Greenleaf, Order. Empiricism and Pohtics. i.
74
The New Historians' criticism of past works on poUtical thought was best
articulated by Quentin Skinner. In 1969, Skinner published his monumental and
controversial essay Meaning and Understanding the History of Ideas which since has
become a classic statement of the New Historians' dissatisfaction with the past
scholarship on the history of poUtical ideas. In that essay, Skinner attempts to reveal
the deficiencies and inadequacies of textuaUst and contextuahst methods of studying the
history of poUtical thought. He is particularly critical of the textuaUst approach which,
according to Skinner, is the main source of confusion and distortion in the history of
poUtical thought. The reUance of historians on the textuaUst methods in interpreting
past poUtical writings has given rise to "various kinds of historical absurdity.' And
instead of producing histories of poUtical thought, these textuaUst studies have
produced "mythologies."
42
The most apparent mythology is what Skinner caUs
mythology of doctrines. This mythology occurs when the historian is set to expect
every poUtical thinker to deal with some important question or idea. Then, the
interpreter may "discover" that some thinkers have held a view about some question or
doctrine by focusing on some scattered remarks that have appeared in their different
writings. For Skinner, this is a historical absurdity, since the textuaUst historian
attributed some views to the poUtical thinkers of the past which they might never have
41
Quentin Skinner, "Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas,." History and
Theory VIE (1969): 7, 13-53
Skinner. Meaningand Understanding. 7.
75
intended to say. Skinner contends that the source of this mythology is the textualists'
insistence on the timelessness and relevance of the classics of Western political thought
to the contemporary problems of society.
43
The second type of mythology that the
textualist method has given rise to is the mythology of coherence. This mythology
occurs when the interpreter assigns himself or herself the function of providing the
argument of the past political thinker with coherence that it never actually had. So, in
order to make what appears to be inconsistent or incoherent ideas in the writings of a
given political theorist more coherent, the interpreter is expected to engage in the
process of re-reading the classic text and reconstructing its argument to show that the
political thinker was actually coherent. In this case, Skinner argued that the past
political theorists were not allowed to evolve intellectually and, in the process, abandon
their old views and adopt new ones or simply advocate incoherent political doctrines.
The outcome of this is not a historically credible interpretation but, rather, a distorted
representation of the meaning of the past political texts in which the views of the author
and those of the interpreter become virtually indistinguishable.
44
J. Pocock has raised similar objections to the ways in which past historians
of political thought have studied the classics. But unlike Skinner and Greenleaf, he
does not dismiss Textualism as a totally illegitimate method of interpreting past political
Skinner, Meaning and Understanding. 5.
Ibid,7.
76
texts. Instead, Pocock draws a distinction between two ways of reading the writings of
past political thinkers: philosophical and historical. The philosophical reading of the
text is concerned with its coherence and it intends to "formalize the relations between
ideas."
45
In contrast, the historical reading of the past political work is interested in
presenting "the text as it bores meaning in the mind of the author or his contemporary
reader."
46
For Pocock, the historians of political thought have confused the
philosophical with the historical interpretation of past political ideas and, in the process,
have produced not actual histories of ideas but some abstractions with Uttle historical
validity. In Pocock's view, if the interpreter is not historically sensitive, she might
attribute coherence to the doctrines of the political thinker which they could not
actually have had.
47
Although the New Historians have expressed their dissatisfaction with
both, Textualism and Contextualism, their criticism of the latter is minimal and is
expressed with a compromising and favorable tone. After his lengthy attack on
Textualism, Skinner admits that the contextualist approach can actually overcome most
J. G. A. Pocock, Politics. Language and Time: Essays on Political Thought and
History (New York: Atheneum, 1971), 9.
46
Ibid, 6. See also, J. Pocock, "The History of Political Thought: A Methodological
Enquiry," in Philosophy. Politics, and Society eds. Peter Laslitt and W. G. Runciman
(New York: Barnes and Noble Inc., 1962), 140.
Pocock, Politics. Language, and Time. 6.
77
of the mythologies associated with the textualist method.
48
In fact, in some instances
the views of the New Historians appear to be identical with those of the contextualist
approach. Skinner, for example, suggested that "political life itself sets the main
problems for the political theorist, causing a certain range of issues to appear
problematic, and a corresponding range of questions to become the leading subjects of
debate."
49
But he dismissed the historical miheu as a tool of recovering the meaning of
past political texts since it, without considering the intention of the author, could yield
two or more conflicting interpretations or meanings of the classic text.
50
J. Pocock is
critical of the contextualists who tend to perceive language as a mere reflection of the
social experience and not part of it. Thus, Pocock is not critical of the contextualist
school as a whole or its major premises, but he is critical of those who exclude
language from th e social context.
51
The New Historians of Political Thought have developed a considerable
consensus concerning the primary function of the interpreter of past political ideas.
Such task is essentially historical and descriptive. For Skinner, Pocock, and Greenleaf,
the end of the interpreter's activities should be to recover the historical meaning of
48
Skinner, Meaning and Understand^ 40.
49
Quentin Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought. 2 vols.
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), I: xi.
50
Skinner, Meaning and Understanding 47.
51
Pocock, Politics. Language, and Time. 35-38.
78
political text as it was intended by the author and not how it appears to the interpreter.
Past political writings are treated by the New Historians as purely historical objects and
they demand that the interpretations of these texts must be historically valid and
credible. And for the interpretation to be historically credible, it must be placed within
the author's intention, his or her empirical belief system and the actual activities in
which the political thinker was involved. As a consequence of this historicist view, the
questions of relevance and coherence to these texts are considered to be illegitimate
objectives of the historians of political thought.
52
However, the New Historians have expressed different and, in some cases,
conflicting views concerning the appropriate techniques of retrieving the meaning of
the classic texts. Skinner emphasizes the authorial intention as the most suitable tool to
recover the historical meaning of the text. For J. Pocock, the historical meaning of the
text can be best achieved by focusing on the linguistic paradigm within which the text
was written. Greenleaf s method focuses on the notion of the tradition of discourse
that shapes the style of political thinking in a given age. All of these techniques will be
explored in the following sections.
When Skinner uses the phrase "meaning of the text" he is not referring to
what certain words mean in the grammatical sense or to what the text means to the
52
See Q. Skinner, 'The Limits of Historical Explanation." Philosophy 41 (1966): 215;
"Some Problems in the Analysis of Political Thought and Action," Political Theory 2
(1972): 280; Pocock, Politics, Language, and Time. 6.; Greenleaf, Order. Empiricism,
and Politics. 2.
79
interpreter. Instead, he restricts the term to "what does the writer mean by what he
says in this work", and assigns the historian of poUtical thought the task of recovering
such meaning.
53
For Skinner, the historical meaning of the text can be obtained by
focusing on the original intention of its author, which can be located within the
linguistic context in which the writing of the text had taken place. Hence, the past
poUtical text is treated as a linguistic act made by the thinker who was intentional in
uttering given utterances.
54
To recover the complex intentions of the author, the
historians of poUtical ideas must
delineate the whole range of communications which could have
been conventionaUy performed on the given occasion by the
utterance of the given utterance, and, next, to trace the
relations between the given utterance and this wider linguistic
context as a means of decoding the actual intention of the
given writer.
55
The thrust of Skinner's method is that the written work is one form of
voluntary action. This notion is derived primarily from the philosophy of action
theorists especiaUy the ideas of L. J. Austin. According to this, the past poUtical
thinkers were, in uttering or writing something, actually engaged in action or doing
something with words. To consider the written works as forms of actions is to say that
53
Quentin Skinner, "Motives, Intentions and the Interpretation of Texts," The New
Literacy History. 3 (1972): 397.
54
Skinner, Meaning and Understanding. 48; Some Problems. 283.
55
Skinner. Meaning and Understanding. 49.
80
they have motives and more importantly intentions without which such acts can not be
explained. In unmistakable appeal to Austin's approach, Skinner argues that all speech
acts are conventional acts. Therefore, to discover the meaning of a given text, the
interpreters must appeal to the linguistic and social conventions of the time. Since the
pohtical thinker, in writing the text, must have intended to communicate a message to
an audience, he or she must appeal to the conventions available to the thinker and the
audience, and without doing so, the communication would be interrupted. Thus,
analyzing the prevalent styles of thinking and the vocabulary used to express pohtical
views is of primary importance for the historian's endeavor to recover the original
intention of the author, and then, the meaning of text.
56
J. Pocock's technique for recovering the meaning of past pohtical texts is
not the intention of the author, but instead, the language within which the pohtical
argument is carried out. The concept of language in Pocock's method refers to "sub
languages; idioms, rhetorics, distinguishable language games of which each may have
its own vocabularies, rules, preconditions and implications, tone and style."
57
For this
reason, Pocock uses the concept of paradigm or "universe of discourse"
See Skinner, "On Performing and Explaining Linguistic Actions," Philosophical
Quarterly 21 (1971): 1; "Conventions and the Understanding of Speech Acts,"
Philosophy 20 (1970): 134.
57
Pocock, The Pohtical Language in Early Modren Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1978), 21.
81
interchangeably with the concept of language.
58
For Pocock, the function of paradigm
or language is that "it invokes values; it summarizes information; it suppresses the
inconvenient; it makes many kinds of statement."
59
The political theorists of the past
are viewed as members of a given community who were manipulating and modifying
the public language of that community. By doing so, the meanings of their written
works should be located within the boundaries of the political language of their
respective communities.
60
Therefore, if the interpreter is to discover the historical meaning of the text,
he or she must identify the 'language" or "vocabulary" with and within which "the
author operated, and to show how it functions paradigmatically to prescribe what he
might say and how he might say it."
61
By identifying the paradigm within which the
political thinker constructed his or her political argument, the historian establishes limits
on the possible meanings which the classic texts might contain. Also, Pocock contends
that the historian must be aware of the transformations that paradigm or public
language might undergo. Such transformations usually bring about changes in the
vocabulary and style of the political language of the time. As an illustration of this,
See Pocock, Politics. Language, and Time. 10.
Pocock, Politics. Language, and Time. 18.
Pocock. Politics. Language, and Time. 15-17.
Pocock, Politics. Language, and Time. 25, 35.
82
Pocock cited the examples of how the political thinkers of early modern Europe,
especially Machiavilli, abandoned the concepts of grace and custom and replaced them
with the concept of fortune to explain the realities of the secular politics of the time.
62
For Greenleaf, the meaning of the political texts of the past can be attained
by relating them to a certain tradition of thought. The starting point of Greenleaf s
strategy is the notion that political thinking is an integral part of the larger intellectual
climate of the age. "Any mode of reasoning", Greenleaf contends, "presupposes
certain criteria of significance and relevance, and these standards depend on the
ultimate picture an age forms of the world, a world view which is the final controlling
factor in all branches of the thought of the age."
63
Central to Greenleaf s interpretive
method is the concept of tradition which refers to a pattern of discourse that has
manifested considerable persistence over a given period of time and has exercised an
authoritative role in shaping the style of reasoning of certain generations of thinkers. It
is the primary source of the axioms and assumptions which were frequently appealed
to, by a collectivity of political thinkers during a given age.
64
To illustrate his method,
Greenleaf uses the debate between the proponents of absolutist monarchy and the
advocates of mixed government within the British political thought of the sixteenth and
See Pocock, The Machiavillian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the
Atlantic Republican Tradition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975), 114.
63
Greenleaf, Order, Empiricism, and Politics. 1.
64
Greenleaf. Order. Empiricism, and Politics. 10.
83
seventeenth centuries. He suggests that the debate was essentially connected with two
traditions: Order and Empiricism. The supporters of monarchical absolutism and the
divine right of the kings invoked the premises of order to support their argument.
Empiricism, Greenleaf claims, was appealed to mainly by the poUtical theorists who
advocated the notion of mixed government and limited monarchy.
65
Thus, without
considering these two traditions or world views, the meaning of the ideas produced by
either side of the debate would be unattainable.
In order for the interpreter of past poUtical ideas to recover their meaning,
she must discern the tradition in which they evolved. The historian should 'look at the
text and know the context - know in particular the tradition of the style of thought in
which the text is cast, especially the particular mode of reasoning it uses."
66
For
Greenleaf, there are two types of tradition that the interpreter is required to discover:
expUcit and impUcit. The expUcit tradition refers to the assumptions and style of
thought which the poUtical thinkers of a given age appeal to purposefully and
consciously. The impUcit tradition, on the other hand, refers to the "affinities between
writers [which] are recognized by the historian when the writers concerned did not
themselves recognize or stress such similarities."
67
If the historian succeeded in
Greenleaf, Order. Empiricism, and PoUtics. 8-9.
66
Greenleaf, Order. Empiricism, and PoUtics. 2.
67
Greenleaf, "Hume, Burke and The General Will," PoUtical Studies XX no. 2
(1972): 140.
84
discovering these types of tradition he or she would grasp the notion of rationality
according to past political thinkers and, eventually, would be able to construct a
historically credible interpretation of their works.
Having outlined the interpretative approaches of the New Historians of
Political Thought, I should discuss their relevance to the research question of this
study. Unlike the textualists and the contextualists, the views of the New Historians on
interpretation have a considerable relevance to the method of interpretation adopted in
this study. The basic agreement between the approach of this study and that of the
New Historians centered around the tendency of both approaches to interpret the past
pohtical text by relating it to its broader intellectual milieu. While there may be some
disagreement between the method of this study and that of the New History of Pohtical
Theory in respect to some specific techniques of interpretation, both approaches share
the basic assumptions and, hence, they belong to the same intellectual family. The most
relevant views of the New Historians to the methodological outlook of this work are
those made by the most obscure author among them, that is Greenleaf. There is a great
deal of resemblance between Greenleaf s emphasis on the tradition of discourse as a
determinant of the meaning of the text and this study's focus on the textual frame of
reference of Islamic pohtical theory to explain the pohtical ideas that were produced
within that tradition.
However, there are some differences between the interpretive approach
that has been advanced by the New Historians and the methodological orientation of
85
this study. The most apparent difference is that, while the method of the New
Historians is essentially descriptive, that is, the recovery of the historical meaning of the
pohtical text, the approach of this study has, besides the recovery of the meaning of the
text, an explanatory purpose. Although the retrieving of the historical meaning of what
the Muslim pohtical theorists had said about toleration is of major concern in this
research, the main objective of this study is to explain why these thinkers treated the
question the way they did. This explanatory element in my approach does not seem to
have significance for the New Historians. Further, the method of this study consciously
draws the distinction between pohtical ideas and social practices and, hence, differs
from the New Historians, especially Skinner, who has insisted on studying past pohtical
thought as a part of the social behavior. Finally, while my interpretive method shares
some of the major assumptions of the New Historians, it focuses on the textual frame
of reference, which is narrower than the concepts of the linguistic context, paradigm, or
tradition which have been utilized by those scholars. All of these similarities and
differences should become more apparent when the methodological orientation of the
study is delineated in the following section.
The Methodological Orientation of the Study
The review of the literature in the previous section has already revealed the
general structure of my interpretive approach to the question of toleration in Islamic
pohtical thought. As mentioned previously, the method of interpretation adopted here
86
shares most of the assumptions of the New Historians of Political Thought. This is
especially true in its focus on the intellectual settings in which the political thinking
takes place as a starting point of interpreting political texts of the past. But without
breaking away from the New Historians, this dissertation focuses on the frame of
reference of political thought as an interpretive tool which is more specific and more
defined than the New Historian's general concepts such as linguistic context, paradigm,
and tradition. My interpretation focuses on the textualist frame of reference of Islamic
political theory as the major factor in shaping their political ideas in general and their
views on religious dissent in particular. The methodological orientation of the study
will be delineated in three steps which correspond to the remaining three sections of
this chapter. The first section deals with the main premises underlying my interpretive
approach. In section two, the argument for religious toleration in its most general
form, that is, its epistemologicaL, moral and political dimensions, will be examined.
Section three will be devoted to examining how the textuaUst frame of reference of
Islamic political thinkers can explain the nature of their views concerning the question
of religious diversity within the Islamic polity. Before proceeding with the discussion
of these issues, however, a reminder of what needs to be explained is in order.
As I mentioned in chapter one, the primary objective of this research is to
explain why the Muslim political thinkers' response to the problem of religious dissent
has remained structurally the same despite the changes in their historical milieu. These
thinkers' reaction to the problem of religious diversity took the form of advocating
87
toleration for the category of the People of the Book, and persecution for other
religious dissenters. It was also observed that despite the occurrence of episodes of
sectarian persecution in Islamic history, Islamic political thinkers have never developed
a coherent justification for toleration of religious dissent within Islam. Thus, to provide
an explanation for the persistence of the Muslim thinkers' response to religious
diversity, the interpreter must attempt to explain the variations within that response.
What is meant here is that the interpreter should seek answers to the question of why
these political thinkers advocated toleration for People of The Book and persecution
for others. By determining the underlying assumptions of their views on toleration and
persecution, the interpreter should be able to arrive at an answer to the general
question of why the Muslim thinkers' views on the subject have persisted over time.
The interpretive approach of this dissertation can be summarized as the
following proposition: The notion of religious toleration can only be defended with
coherence and consistency within a frame of reference that is hospitable to the ideas
of religious diversity. Islamic political thinkers have operated within a textual frame
of reference which consisted of certain assumptions that permit toleration for some
non-Muslims but are inherently antagonistic to any attempt to justify toleration for
religious dissent within the Islamic polity.
This proposition consist of three basic claims that need more elaboration.
The first claim, while implicit, is that the meaning and the structure of political ideas are
shaped, or determined, by the frame of reference of the political thinker. Thus, to focus
88
on the frame of reference of the pohtical thinker would be the most appropriate
approach to recover and then to explain the meaning of the past political texts. The
second claim in the proposition is that the argument for religious toleration is
conceptually associated with a certain frame of reference or world view that gives it
consistency and coherence. The third claim centered around the ideas that the Islamic
pohtical thinkers' view on toleration and persecution were determined by the
components of their frame of reference. In this section, I shall examine the first claim
and leave the other two to be discussed in the two remaining sections of this chapter.
The Concept of the Frame of Reference of Political Thought
My interpretive method is based on the premise that the meaning and
nature of pohtical ideas of the past must be located within the broader world view to
which the pohtical theorist subscribed. This approach does not consider pohtical
thought as an autonomous discourse, but rather, as a part of the broader intellectual
outlook of the pohtical theorist. And, hence, the interpreter's focus on the world view
of the past is a crucial step toward explaining why that particular thinker constructed
his or her ideas the way he or she did. It is suggested here that the meaning and
structure of the pohtical ideas of past pohtical thinkers are shaped by their previously
held philosophical assumptions or their frame o f reference.
The approach of this study is indebted the most to the views of Greenleaf,
the most obscure author among the New Historians of Pohtical Theory. For Greenleaf,
89
any pohtical argument consists mainly of three components. First, there is the
conclusion of the pohtical argument which refers to what the thinker wants to convey
to his or her audience. The second component is the style of argument that the pohtical
theorist adopts to arrive at her or his conclusion. Finally, there is a set of assumptions
which constitute the world view of the age that gives the pohtical argument its
coherence and relevance.
68
Greenleaf s emphasis is on the last element, that is the
world view, or the tradition to which the pohtical thinkers belonged, as a determinant
of the meaning of their pohtical ideas. But still, Greenleaf s discussion of these three
elements was extremely brief, and he made no attempt to relate these elements to one
another. Further, the primary objective of his method, as previously indicated, was
essentially a descriptive one, that is, the recovery of the meaning of the pohtical
argument of the past in reference to its tradition. This study, while benefiting from
Greenleaf s remarks, will advance his method by using the notion of the frame of
reference, not only as a descriptive tool of recovering the meaning of the text but also
as an explanatory device of why the pohtical thinkers of the past wrote the way they
did.
Following the vast majority of the historians of pohtical thought, I perceive
pohtical thought as a series of arguments concerning the best pohtical order. The
pohtical thinkers are viewed as members of the intellectual class of the community who
See Greenleaf, Order. Empiricism, and Politics. 1.
90
are engaged in a discourse concerning their vision of how power and influence ought to
be distributed in society. Unlike the ordinary members of the community, pohtical
philosophers have the skills to express their moral and pohtical arguments with a high
level of sophistication and abstraction. Being members of the learned class of society
suggests an important fact about the pohtical philosophers. That is, they belong to
different domains of knowledge, that is, philosophy, theology, history, and so forth.
Hence, the pohtical thinkers usually approach the question of politics with a previously
held theological or philosophical frame of reference which furnishes their pohtical
arguments with coherence and relevance. I consider the frame of reference of the
pohtical theorist to be the key to understanding the meaning and the structure of past
pohtical ideas.
The concept of the frame of reference refers to the pohtical thinker's
previously held doctrines concerning knowledge, the universe, and human nature. The
frame of reference of the pohtical thought consists of the basic epistemological and
ontological assumptions upon which the pohtical argument is found. Within the frame
of reference, the pohtical thinker solves or attempts to solve, the epistemological
questions of what constitutes knowledge, its sources and types. And in connection
with this, he or she deals with the question of what is the truth, and what is its criterion
and nature. Also, within the frame of reference, the pohtical thinker deals with some
ontological problems such as being, nature, essence, and the essential attributes of
reality. Furthermore, the question of human nature is usually dealt with within the
91
frame of reference of the political theorist. The political thinker is assumed to confront
these epistemological and ontological questions before he or she constructs his or her
political philosophy. In other words, the components of the frame o f reference precede
the construction of the political argument.
While the elements of the frame of reference seem remote from politics,
they, nonetheless, may color the method and the structure of the political argument.
The relationship between the thinker's frame o f reference and the nature of his or her
political ideas is, as Sprangens has put it, "more latent than manifest."
69
The frame o f
reference is the source of the political thinker's major concepts, categories, and
methods used in her or his political theorizing. It determines the scope of the political
thought in terms of what should be included or excluded from the political argument.
The frame o f reference determines the nature of the question of politics, whether it is a
theological, philosophical, or practical question. It represents the political thinker's
source of information about the questions posed to him or her by the historical
environment. When the political thinkers encounter the question of, say, why should
someone obey those with authority, they provide different answers according to their
frames of reference. A political thinker with a theological frame of reference would
turn to the sacred texts and the categories of the divine revelation to justify political
obligation. By contrast, a political theorist with, say, a Marxian frame of reference
Thomas Sprangens, The Irony of Liberal Reason (Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press, 1981), 10.
92
would appeal to the categories of historical materialism to provide an answer to the
same question that would totally differ from that of the theologian. Therefore, the
contents of the frame of reference of the poUtical thinker plays an authoritative role in
shaping the structure and the substance of the political argument.
The role of the frame of reference in poUtical thinking is suggested by a
simple historical fact about Western and Islamic poUtical theories. None of the major
poUtical thinkers in either tradition is a poUtical thinker, per se. All of these poUtical
thinkers were primarily theologians or philosophers by training and profession. Hence,
their views on the poUtical questions were developed in connection with their other
theological and philosophical doctrines. What distinguished MachiavelU from the rest
of the Western poUtical theorists and Ibn Khaldun from other Islamic poUtical thinkers
was, besides the substance of their teachings, the frame of reference that each of these
two thinkers had reUed on. Even though there are considerable differences between the
poUtical ideas of MachiavelU and Ibn Khaldun, the two thinkers expressed two similar
tendencies. First, both poUtical thinkers manifested a remarkable degree of reaUsm by
viewing poUtics as the exercise of power detached from reUgious and ethical
considerations. Second, and more important, MachiavelU and Ibn Khaldun broke away
from theology and philosophy, the two traditional frames of reference of poUtical
thinking in their time, and reUed on history instead. MachiavelU claimed that he had
invented a new way of looking at poUtics that was based on "real knowledge of history,
93
the true sense of which is not known."
70
In striking similarity to Machiavelli, Ibn
Khaldun claimed that he followed "unusual [and] a remarkable and original method"
for he was "dealing with historical facts" concerning the rise and fall of dynasties and
civilization.
71
Hence, the reliance of Ibn Khaldun and Machiavelli on history, as a
frame of reference of their poUtical ideas, made these two political thinkers stand
unique in both traditions of poUtical thought. The examples of Ibn Khaldun and
MachiavelU show how the interpreter's focus on the frame of reference could explain
the varieties of responses given by different poUtical thinkers who had lived in identical
historical circumstances, something that the contextuaUst method failed to achieve.
The history of poUtical thought reveals numerous examples of how the
frame of reference shapes the form and style of the poUtical argument. I should limit
my discussion to a few. Let me start with the poUtical philosophy of Plato, the most
influential thinker in Western poUtical thought. The most apparent feature of the ideal
polis of Plato is its authoritarian character. I am referring to the Platonic notion that
those who have knowledge of the Good ought to rule the society. Although it is
undeniable that the execution of his master, Socrates, had a lot to do with Plato's
rejection of the Athenian democracy, the authoritarian structure of his ideal polis was
related more to his epistemology. Plato's first assumption was that the ultimate truth is
Cited in Sprangens, The Irony of Liberal Reason. 11.
71
Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History trans. Franz Rosenthal
3 vols. (New York: Pantheon Books, 1958), 1:11.
94
knowable through philosophical reasoning. The truth about the ideal poUtical order is
seen in the form of the polis. Since the philosophers have the will and capacity to
discover the form of the polis, then they are the ones who possess the knowledge of the
proper ends of the polis and how it should be arranged. Therefore, the philosophers,
because they know the Good, should be the poUtical rulers, and the other members
must obey them. Hence, Plato's poUtical philosophy, especiaUy in the Republic, was
influenced by and coherent with his epistemological and metaphysical doctrines, that is,
his frame of reference, which he had formulated in the Republic and the Socratic
Dialogues. Aristotle, on the other hand, rejected his master's conclusion and
constructed a poUtical theory which was, in many respects, different from that of Plato.
He rejected Plato's mathematical method of reasoning and reUed instead on biology as
a model. Aristotle's "empiricist" method of dealing with the question of poUtics
seemed to be an important factor in his preference for the best poUty, which is
dominated by a large middle class, as an approximation of the ideal polis. Thus, the
reliance of Aristotle on a frame of reference that was based on biology as a model of
reasoning led him to a conclusion that was different from his former master, despite the
fact that they were responding to the same crisis.
Karl Marx's conception of the state is another good example of how the
frame of reference can condition the poUtical insights of the theorist. The frame of
reference of Marx emerged through his critique of the dominant modes of thought
during his time. While Marx was critical of a number of European thinkers like Bruno
95
Bauer in On the Jewish Question, and M. Proudhon in The Poverty of Philosophy, his
criticism was directed mainly toward the HegeUan method and the writings of the
classical political economists especially the works of Smiths and Recardo. Marx
dismissed the HegeUan method of studying history as too abstract and detached from
reaUty. In The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, he rejected the
assertions of the classical poUtical economists regarding commodity, money, property,
and value, and redefined these concepts within the contexts of aUenated labor,
exploitation and class conflict. The frame of reference of Marx in his early writings
was essentiaUy a critique of Hegel and a humanist critique of the basic assumptions and
categories of classical poUtical economy. Within that frame of reference, Marx
analyzed the state in the context of the civil society-state relations and the problem of
human emancipation. In Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Law,
Marx dismissed the HegeUan notion of the state as a universal entity that transcends the
particular interests of the civil society as abstraction and iUusion. For Marx, the state
was the product, not the originator, of the civil society, and hence, the state must be
shaped by the particularism of the civil society.
72
It is obvious from Marx's remarks on
the state, in his early writings, that he was primarily concerned with how the state and
its institutions relate to the civil society in general. Besides some scattered remarks
about private property and the stat, in his Introduction to the Critique of Hegel's
72
Karl Marx, Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Law Vol. 3 of
Collected Works (New York: International PubUshers, 1975), 6-8, 101-103.
96
Philosophy of Law, Marx makes no reference to the class theory of the state. The
reason for that, I think, is that his historical, materiaUst frame of reference was in its
formative stage and, therefore, the state as an instrument of class rule was not
conceptually present in the Marxian world view at that time.
However, as Marx's historical materiaUst frame of reference evolved and
gained more maturity, his conception of the state was significantly modified. For Marx,
the historical materiaUst, the state emerged as a result of the division of labor in the
civil society. The unequal distribution of property gave rise to social classes with
different and irreconcUable interests. In order to resolve the conflict between these
antagonistic social classes, an entity called the state was created to represent the
common interests of the society. But since the state grows out of the contradictions of
the civil society, it is incapable of maintaining its universaUty and neutraUty and must
serve the interests of those who control or own the means of production.
3
So
approaching the question of the state with a frame of reference based on historical,
materiaUst categories such as class struggle, exploitation, and relations of productions,
Marx developed certain views on the origin and functions of the state that were not
possible within the humanist and Neo-HegeUan world view of the young Marx.
73
Marx's views on the state as an instrument of the ruling class can be found in The
Gt»rman Tdeolnp^, Vol. 3 of CoUected Works. (New York: International PubUshers,
1975), 90; The Manifesto of the Communist Party, in The Marx-Engels Readers ed. R.
Tucker (New York: W.W. Norton, 1978), 475; and Capital 3 vols. (New York:
International PubUshers, 1967), 111:791.
97
Finally, there is the case of the feminist theory. Feminism represents an
interesting illustration of the role of the frame of reference in political thinking,
especially in regard to the questions of coherence and consistency. Despite the fact
that feminist theory has different manifestations and has been associated with varying
philosophical traditions, feminism has revolved around three major concepts which
were developed by the early radical feminists. Those core concepts of feminism are:
Woman, experience, and the personal is political. Within the radical feminist discourse,
woman is considered a universal and transhistorical category and being a woman is the
source of oppression and domination. The concept of experience refers to the
subjective feeling of woman as a member of an oppressed group and the existence of
such a feeling is a proof of the existence of the category of woman. The notion of the
personal is political was formulated by the early ferninists to show that the problems of
women are not private or personal issues, but rather, they are public and, hence,
political problems.
74
The development of these three core concepts was, I think,
essential for feminist theory to accomplish its objective, that is, the critique of society
and culture, and to distinguish it from other social and political discourses. Those core
concepts represent the frame of reference that makes feminist theory feminist.
However, the problems of logical consistency and coherence appear when the feminist
For a critical review of these three core concepts of Feminism, see Judith Grant,
Fundamental Feminism: Contesting the Core Concepts of Feminist Theory (New
York: Routledge, 1993), 20-39.
98
theorist decides to retain these core concepts and remain within other intellectual
traditions, especially the two dominant orthodoxies of modern Western thought:
liberalism and Marxism.
The question of personal politics is the most apparent conceptual problem
in any attempt to incorporate feminism with liberal political theory. One of the basic
tenets of the liberal tradition is the theoretical distinction between the public and private
domains, and the limiting of the activities of the state to the former. This public-private
distinction has served as a moral foundation for the liberal notion of the limited or
neutral state. To advocate the idea of the personal is political would mean the
violation of the liberal separation between the public and the private spheres by
advocating state intervention in matters that are considered by the liberal thinkers to be
outside state jurisdiction. Thus, without modifying either the radical feminist notion of
personal politics or the liberal distinction between public and private domains, the
problem of incoherence would be inevitable.
The same problem of coherence becomes more apparent in the attempts to
incorporate feminism within Marxism This is especially true in reference to problem of
reconciling the feminist concept of woman as a universal and transhistorical category
with the Marxian conception of social class. For the feminist thinker, women have
been dominated and oppressed because of their gender, regardless of their social class
or ethnic backgrounds. For the Marxist theorist, however, oppression, exploitation,
and domination are defined in socio-economic terms and not in terms of gender or
99
ethnicity. The reason for this is that the universe of Marxism is centered around the
category of social class not gender. Individuals in the Marxist world view are classified
as members of social classes according to their positions in the mode of production.
So, considering the universality of the Marxist category of social class, other concepts
such as gender, ethnicity, culture, and religion become conceptually irrelevant within
the Marxist world view. This does not imply, however, that the question of racism,
women's oppression, or religious persecution are illegitimate concerns in Marxist
theory. But rather, these problems are treated by the Marxists as essentially economic
problems or manifestations of deeper class conflicts in the social structure. In other
words, the Marxists will deal with the question of the oppression of women as
Marxists, that is, with reference to the dominant mode of production and class struggle
and not gender. Therefore, the radical feminist's claims for the universality of the
category of woman enter into unavoidable conflict with the Marxian concept of social
class. For the Marxist thinker, it is theoretically possible that a woman could become an
oppressor or exploiter of man if she is a slave owner, feudalist or capitalist. Likewise,
for the feminist, it is theoretically conceivable that a male proletarian man could
oppress a woman proletarian and the same oppressive relation could exist within the
capitalist class. Thus, accepting the universality of the category of woman would
mean, by definition, the rejection of the universality of social class and the distortion of
Marxism. Being well aware of the incompatibiUty between the core concepts of
feminism and the historical materialist categories of Marxism, some contemporary
100
feminist theorists have attempted to harmonize the two by trying to provide a
materiaUst conception of female experience. As Judith Grant has noticed, such an
attempt by the sociaUst feminists has serious conceptual problems and might lead to the
distortion of Marxism itself. Grant writes
But sociaUst feminism is conceptuaUy flawed in that it fails to
acknowledge the fundamental, and I think irresolvable, tension
between Marxism and the core concepts [Woman, experience,
and the personal is poUtical]. In order to use Marxist theory to
understand gender, it distorted Marxist categories so badly that
they can no longer understand capitaUsm or gender.
75
In summary, the poUtical theorist's previously-held epistemological and
metaphysical assumptions, that is, the frame o f reference, determine, to a large extent,
the form and contents of his or her poUtical thought. The meaning and the structure of
poUtical ideas of the past can be recovered and explained by focusing on the frame o f
reference that gave rise to them in first place. Based on this premise, the historian of
poUtical ideas should be able to explain why some poUtical thinkers, who had Uved in
identical historical settings, gave different responses to the same problem. My remarks
on the role of the frame o f reference in the formation of past poUtical ideas should
become clearer when I consider the frame o f reference of the idea of reUgious
toleration.
75
Grant, 56-57.
101
The Frame of Reference of the Idea of Religious Toleration
The role of the frame of reference in conditioning the pohtical ideas of the
thinker become more apparent in reference to the idea of religious toleration. The
reason for this is related to the fact that the question of religious toleration has never
been a permanent issue in pohtical theory. Unlike the issues of justice, pohtical
obligation, or liberty, the idea of religious toleration has always been a contingent
question that appeared only in the context of reUgious and sectarian upheavals. Such
contingent nature of the idea of toleration in pohtical thinking makes it conditioned not
only by the epistemological and metaphysical assumptions of the thinker, but also, by
bis or her previously-held moral and pohtical views, especially those concerning the
proper functions of the state.
In its most general form, the argument for religious toleration has three
dimensions: epistemological, moraL and pohtical. Any pohtical theorist who deals
with the problem of religious toleration, regardless of whether he or she is for or
against it, must confront three major questions. First, there is the epistemological
question of what is the truth. Second, there is the ethical question: Is an error in
doctrinal matters morally relevant? Finally, the pohtical thinker must settle the
question: What is the proper role of government in reUgious disputes? The ways in
which the pohtical thinkers answer these questions represent the frame of reference
within which the ideas of reUgious toleration or persecution is justified. Historically,
the pohtical thinkers who approach the religious truth with a skeptical attitude, beheve
102
in the subjective nature of moral claims, and exclude doctrinal errors from the realm of
morality have advocated toleration as a remedy for the problem of reUgious diversity.
By contrast, advocates of the state's intervention to suppress heresy tend to perceive
religious truth in certain and exclusive terms and consider doctrinal errors as morally
objectionable acts which threaten the peace of the community. In this section, I will
explore these three dominions of the frame of reference of the idea of reUgious
toleration in Western poUtical thought.
The works of four major European thinkers who had confronted the
problem of reUgious factionahsm directly have been studied in depth. This group
includes Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1523), Sebastian CastelHo (1515-1563), John
Locke (1623-1704), and Pierre Bayle (1647-1706). The ideas of other thinkers who
dealt with the problem with less emphasis, such as Hobbes, J. Bodin, M. de L. Hopital,
and Voltaire, are only considered briefly and whenever they are relevant to the issue
under discussion. Since the notion of reUgious toleration was historicaUy and
conceptuaUy connected with the idea of reUgious persecution, the writings of the
advocates of persecution must be considered in this study. Therefore, the arguments
for reUgious persecution presented by thinkers like St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas,
Martin Luther, and Jean Calvin are examined side by side with the case for toleration.
Before proceeding with the discussion of the three dominions of toleration,
I should make a few remarks concerning the purpose that this section is intended to
serve. What is relevant to this study is not the contents of these thinkers views on
103
religious diversity but rather, the style and mechanism of their arguments for or against
rehgious toleration. The primary purpose for considering the European thinkers' views
on the question of toleration is to illustrate the methodological orientation of this study.
Considering how these thinkers attempted to defend the idea of toleration or
persecution will give us an idea about the logical and conceptual problems that
prevented the Islamic political thinkers from considering toleration as a solution to the
problems of rehgious diversity within Islam. It must be emphasized, however, that the
European thinkers' views on the problem are far from ideal types of arguments for
toleration. Instead, they ought to be perceived as attempts to defend rehgious
toleration, which had some success but also suffered from a number of logical
inconsistencies.
Although the advocates of rehgious toleration were essentially responding
to particular historical events of rehgious persecution, the content and style of their
arguments were determined not by these events but by the structure of the justification
of rehgious persecution. These thinkers were particularly troubled by the use of secular
authority to enforce sectarian conformity. The proponents of rehgious toleration were
well aware of the fact that, for rehgious persecution to end, the secular arm must be
removed from rehgious controversies. But they also knew that the idea of rehgious
persecution would have never survived for a long period of time if it had not been
based on very strong epistemological and moral grounds. So, in order for the principal
of toleration to flourish, the epistemological and the moral grounds of rehgious
104
persecution had to be dismantled. In other words, tolerationists had to modify or break
away from the frame of reference within which the idea of religious toleration was
constantly justified and construct a world view that was more hospitable to religious
toleration. The way to that was to appeal to varying forms of skepticism, moral
relativism, and secularism.
Skepticism; the Epistemological Dimension
The relationship between the idea of religious toleration and skepticism has
been a subject of debate among the historians of toleration. The vast majority of the
commentators associate the rise of the idea of toleration with skepticism. For scholars
like Q. Skinner, J.W. Allen, T. Glenn, Seaton, W.K. Jordan, Jaynes, and G. Mara, the
political thinker's advocacy of religious toleration is a result of his or her skeptical
perception of religious truth.
76
Other writers, such as J. Harrison, E.W. Nelson,
A. Klein, G. Mensching, J. Hick, and S. Mendus, see the relationship between
skepticism and religious toleration in the emotional connection between commitment to
religious truth and the urge to persecute. For those scholars, the idea of persecution
rested on the notion of the revealed and exclusive truth, and toleration had to be
76
See Q. Skinner, The Foundation of Modem Political Thought. II: 247-49; T. Glenn,
39; W.K. Jordan, I: 23; Seaton, 17, 45-7, 53; E.S.P. Haynes, Religious Persecution: A
Study in Political Psychology (London: Duckworth and Co., 1904), 2-11, 15; and
Gerald M. Mara, "Socrates and Liberal Toleration," Political Theory 16 no. 4 (1988):
474.
105
justified within a conception of the truth that is formed on an element of doubt.
77
However, a few scholars have disputed such a connection and suggested that the idea
of toleration can be defended without appealing to skepticism.
78
As far as the European thinkers included in this studying are concerned, the
connection between the idea of religious toleration and skepticism and certainty and
persecution is historically, though not necessarily logically true. The proponents of
religious persecution manifested a considerable degree of certainty and dogmatism
concerning religious truth. St. Augustine's starting point of defending the use of the
secular arm to suppress heresy was the notion of the exclusive Catholic truth. So, for
Augustine, the heretic was the person who deviated from the true word of God as it
was embodied in the teachings of the Catholic church. The purpose of the intervention
of the temporal power to punish heresy was to preserve an existing body of religious
See J.P. Harrison, "Utilitarianism and Toleration," Philosophy 62 no. 242 (1987):
429.; Ernest W. Nelson, "The Theory of Persecution," in Persecution and Liberty:
Essays in Honor of George L. Burr (1931; reprint, Freeport: Books for Libraries
Press, 1968), 12.; Arthur Klein, Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth (Port
Washington: Kennikat Press Inc., 1968), 3-4; Gustav Mensching, Tolerance and
Truth in Religion, trans. H.J. Klimkeit (University: University of Alabama Press,
1971), 127-132; John Hick, Problems of Religious Pluralism (New York: St. Martin's
Press, 1985), 47-49; and S. Mendus, Toleration and the Limits of Liberalism, 7-8.
78
See Richard Tuck, "Skepticism and Toleration in the Seventeenth Century," in
Justifying Toleration: Conceptual and Historical Perspective, ed. Susan Mendus, 21-
35; Alan Ryan, "A More Tolerant Hobbes?," in Justifying Toleration, ed. Susan
Mendus; 37-59; and Preston King, "Justifying Toleration," The History of Political
Thought ix no. 4 (1989): 738, 743.
106
truth and correct a doctrinal error.
79
Hence, Augustine wrote "the reason held for
rebuking and coercing you is to warn you to depart from an error rather than to punish
you for a crime." [emphasis added]
80
St. Thomas Aquinas based his defense of the use
of coercion to correct heresy on the idea that heretics were propagating teachings that
were against the word of God. St. Thomas beheved that rehgious dissenters, with their
erroneous doctrines, were a threat to the soul and had no chance of achieving eternal
salvation. He wrote
Heretics can be licitly killed by secular authority and then-
goods confiscated even though they do not corrupt others.
They blaspheme against God and they hold a false faith
[emphasis mine] and hence they are more to be punished than
those who are guilty of defamation of a temporal king or those
who counterfeit money.
81
The connection between certainty and religious persecution is more
apparent in the writings of the Protestant reformers. Their struggle and, eventually,
breaking away from the established CathoUc church was not in favor of rehgious
toleration. As R. Popkin noticed, the reason for that was that "the reformers had to
insist on the complete certainty of their case . . . and they alone, had the only assured
See Augustine, Political Writings trans. Michael W. Tkacz and Douglas Kries
(Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1994), 232, 240.
80
Ibid, 232.
81
Cited in Donald X. Burt, The State and Religious Toleration: Aspects of the Church
- State Theories of Four Christian Thinkers (Washington, D. C: The CathoUc
University Press, 1960), 20.
107
means of discovering reUgious knowledge."
82
Thus, the Protestant Reformation, while
it represented an institutional and doctrinal break from the CathoUc church, did not
constitute an epistemological break regarding the question of reUgious truth. The
reformers had, indeed, retained the same medieval notion of exclusive truth and,
consequently, their world view was as resistant to the idea of reUgious toleration as that
of their Papal adversaries.
The association between the exclusive perception of the reUgious truth and
the idea of reUgious persecution is apparent in the works of two major Protestant
advocates of persecution: Martin Luther and Jean Calvin. These two thinkers had
expressed an uncompromising attitude toward the certainty of their theological claims.
It was such certitude concerning their reUgious convictions that had represented the
epistemological foundation of their justification of the use of compulsion against
reUgious heterodoxy. For Luther, heretics were punished because they deviated from
the word of God that was so clear and plain to every person. Luther's commitments to
certainty in reUgion and his resentment of skepticism were expressed in unmistakable
terms. In The Bandage of Will, he stated
I am so against the sentiments of skeptics that, so far as the
weakness of the flesh permits, I shaU not only steadfastly
adhere to the sacred writing everywhere, and in aU parts of
them, but also I wish to be as positive as possible on
nonessentials that Ue outside Scriptures, because what is more
miserable than uncertainty. . . The Holy Spirit is no skeptic,
82
Richard Popkin, The History of Skepticism From Erasmus to Spinoza (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1979), 13.
108
and what he has written into our hearts are no doubts or
opinions, but assertions, more certain and more firm than all
human experience and like itself [emphasis added].
83
In his polemical exchanges with Castellio, Jean Calvin appealed to the
notion of the absolute truth of the Bible to justify the execution of Michael the Servetus
in 1443. He frequently insisted on the possibility of knowing the truth through divine
revelation. Such revelation, for Calvin, was not only knowable to human beings but
also plain and manifest and did not need an extraordinary effort to be discovered.
Consequently, heretics within the Calvinist conception of the truth were deviating from
such simple and accessible truth.
84
Confronted with such absolutist and exclusive claims to religious truth, the
first task of the advocates of toleration was to undermine the epistemological
foundation of religious persecution, that is, certainty. Hence, the first step in their
effort to construct a frame of reference that would be receptive to the idea of religious
toleration was to appeal to varying forms of skepticism. The purpose of introducing
elements of skepticism into these thinkers' defense of religious toleration was not only
to undermine the epistemological certainty of the advocates of persecution but also to
increase the margins of religious diversity. Desiderius Erasmus, one of the early
Martin Luther, "The Bandage of WilL" in Discourse on Free Will, trans. Ernst
Winter (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., Inc., 1961), 102-103.
84
For more details on Calvin's views on the question of truth and how they shape his
ideas on religious toleration, see Allen, 70, 84-85.
109
advocates of religious toleration, had realized the warm connection between certainty
and the tendency to use force in sectarian disputes. Given his intellectual background as
a Renaissance humanist, Erasmus appealed to the assumptions and categories of
Academic Skepticism to legitimize the existence of doctrinal diversity. Within the
framework of Academic Skepticism, dogmatic and ethical truths could be known with
probability and not certainty.
85
For Erasmus, human passions and the limits of human
intelligence prevent the person from attaining certain knowledge of what the Scriptures
mean. Thus, he asserted that "Holy Scripture contains secrets into which God does not
want us to penetrate too deeply, because if we attempt to do so, increasing darkness
envelops us, so that we might come to recognize in this manner both the unfathomable
majesty of divine wisdom and the feebleness of the human mind.
86
"Some things,"
Erasmus asserted, "God wishes to remain totally unknown to us."
87
However, Erasmus was not advocating total and unrestricted skepticism in
religion. His skeptical attitude was limited to the domain of the nonessentials of the
Christian faith and restrained by the authority of the Scripture and the Church. Thus, in
The Free Will, Erasmus wrote
For an account of the epistemological assumptions of Academic Skepticim see Gary
Remer, "Humanism, Liberalism and the Skeptical Case for Religious Toleration," Polity
XXV no. 1 (1992): 23-27.
86
Desiderius Erasmus, "The Free Will" in Discourse on Free Will trans. Ernst Winter
(New York: Federick Ungar Publishing Co., Inc., 1961), 8.
87
Ibid, 9.
110
So great is my dislike of assertions that I prefer the view of the
skeptics whenever the inviolable authority of Scripture and the
decision of the church permit a church to which at all times I
willingly submit my own views, whether I attain what she
prescribes or not. And as a matter of fact, I prefer this
inclination to one I can observe in certain people who are so
blindly addicted to one opinion that they can not tolerate
whatever differs from it.
88
In the domain of the fundamentals of faith, which are very few, Erasmus
contended that certainty was required. Such certainty concerning the fundamental
articles of faith were determined by the consensus of the community as represented by
the Church. Therefore, the heretic was defined as the person who deviated from the
basic articles of the Catholic faith as defined by the Church. To decrease the scope of
heresy and reUgious dissent, Erasmus suggested that in order to keep Christianity in
peace and harmony "we define smallest possible number of dogmas and in many things
leave each one to his judgment."
89
While Erasmus supported the use of coercion to
restrain heretics,
90
his introduction of Academic Skepticism had increased the margins
of reUgious diversity. By denying certainty to most of the sectarian claims, he
equaUzed most of the theological views of the time and, hence, reduced the scope of
heresy. The result of such limited skepticism was the deprivation of the warring sects
89
Quoted in Lecler, I: 127.
90
Erasmus wrote 'let them burn, by all means, those who fight the teachings of the
Articles of faith or of something of equal authority by the consensus of the church."
Quoted in Lecler, I: 118.
Il l
of their weapons of condemning their adversaries as heretics, since most of the
religious views, with the exception of the fundamentals, were considered probable
rather than certain. So, as Remer has observed, "the consequences of Erasmus's
fundamentals is the greater tolerance .. . the fewer the article of faith, the greater
latitude there is for religious diversity and the fewer people there are to be labeled
heretics."
91
Therefore, while the idea of coercing religious dissenters to comply with
the established orthodoxy never disappeared from the Erasmusian world view, the
margins of religious toleration were substantially increased.
The same appeal to skepticism to defend religious toleration was made by
Sebatian Castellio. Castellio's advocacy of religious toleration is to be found in his
works: Concerning Heretics, Counsel to France in Her Distress, and Reply to Calvin.
But the epistemological assumptions underlying his justification of religious toleration
were expressed in his treatise: Concerning Doubt and Belief, Ignorance and
Knowledge. Castelho was well aware of not only the logical connection between
certainty in religion and persecution, but also of the receptive nature of skepticism to
the principle of toleration. He wrote
Not without great cause do I assert that some things ought to
be doubted, for I see no fewer evils arising from not doubting
where should be a doubt than from not believing where there
should be belief... Today in the Christian Churches some of
the most saintly persons are put to death indiscriminately. If
Christians entertained a doubt [emphasis mine] about what they
Gary Remer, 1989,399.
112
are doing they would not perpetuate such dreadful homicides
for which they will have to repent very soon after.
92
Castelho introduced skepticism into his argument for religious toleration
through his classification of different types of knowledge. He distinguished between
revelation, prophecy, knowledge, and doctrines. Revelation and prophecy have divine
origins since they were directly from God. Knowledge was based on human
testimonies and doctrines were based on human opinions.
93
Then, Castelho drew the
distinction between knowledge and faith. Knowledge referred to the statements that
were produced and proven by the senses and the intellect. Faith, on the other hand,
was accepted on the basis of feelings without using the senses and the intellect, because
it was above them. The conceptual utilities of these different categories of knowledge
for Castellio's defense of toleration became apparent in his inclusion of the different
sectarian claims within the domain of human knowledge. Such sectarian interpretations
of some of the ambiguous passages in the Bible were considered by Castelho to be
expressions of human knowledge, not faith. For Castelho, reason, which he called "the
daughter of God," is the only mean of interpreting and understanding the Scripture,
Sebastian Castelho, "Concerning Doubt and Belief, Ignorance and Knowledge," in
Sebastian Castelho, Concerning Heretics: Whether They are to be Treated: A
collection of the Opinions of the Learned Men Both Ancient and Modern trans.
Roland Bainton (New York: Octagon Books, Inc., 1965), 290.
93
Castelho, Concerning Doubt. 288.
113
because Christ would never say anything that is contrary to it. He rejected the views of
those who excluded reason from understanding the Scripture because it was restricted
by the original sin of Adam, which has been passed to posterity, as the source of
religious opinions.
94
So, most of the doctrines that had generated the subject of
controversies among the warring sects of his time were primarily manifestations of
human knowledge based on certain interpretation of the Bible. Thus, he stated that,
when it came to debating conflicting interpretations of the Scripture, "we must make
plain to the reader that we are not discussing the authority of Scripture which is held on
faith, but that we are talking of mind or sense of which there is knowledge."
95
However, Castellio's reliance on and confidence in reason as the source of
religious opinions did not lead him to dogmatism or certainty in religion. Instead, he
used his conception of reason to develop a more skeptical attitude toward most of the
sectarian assertions of the age. He expressed his skepticism about religious truth by
making two logically related claims. First, Castellio insisted on the fact that religious
controversies were centered around some passages of the Bible that were ambiguous
and obscure. God, Castellio contended, had intentionally put these passages in their
ambiguous forms and left them to human reason to discover their meanings.
96
Second,
94
Ibid, 297.
95
Ibid, 293.
96
See, Castellio, Concerning Doubt. 294; and "Reply to Calvin" in Concerning
Heretics. 267.
114
he made the claim that, while human reason was a reliable source of religious
knowledge, it was not infallible or unrestricted. The judgments of human reason could
be hindered by a number of environmental and emotional factors. Castellio was
especially concerned with the role of pride and the love of self in influencing the
pronouncements of reason concerning some theological questions. Considering the
role of personal prejudice in interpreting the divine texts, every sect claimed that it
alone possessed the truth, and accused other sects of being heretics. For Castelho, the
very existence of multiple sects with conflicting theological doctrines was an indication
of the impossibility of obtaining certainty about some theological controversies.
Therefore, in some religious matters, Castelho contended, a reasonable degree of doubt
was required.
98
As in the case of Erasmus, Castelho did not advocate a complete
skepticism in religion. His skepticism was limited to those doctrines which he
considered to be non-fundamental articles of faith. In regard to the fundamentals, he
insisted that they must be based on certainty, and those who question them are heretics
who can be coerced by using different means, including death." But even if Castelho
did not exclude the possibility of persecuting the blasphemers, his limiting of the
9
Castelho, Concerning Doubt. 294-301.
98
See Castellio, Concerning Heretics. 129; and Concerning Doubt. 288-290.
99
In Reply to Calvin. Castelho wrote, "if Servetus had said that God is a devil that
would have been real balsphemy and I should rejoice to see him punished.", 286.
115
concept of heresy to the essential doctrines of Christianty had increased the margins of
toleration and religious diversity. In fact, what he defined as the fundamentals of faith
were very small in number and consisted of doctrines that had never been historically
subject to controversy or dispute.
100
Beyond these fundamentals, every person should
be permitted to embrace the religious views that his or her reason and inner conscience
would dictate without the intervention of the magistrate. All diverse and conflicting
interpretation of the obscure passages of the Bible ought to be based on a certain
degree of doubt and, therefore, the possibility of error is equally present in each of
these interpretations. Consequently, doctrinal errors within the realm of the non-
fundamentals were not only unavoidable but also legitimate and equal to those of
orthodoxy.
John Locke's defense of the idea of religious toleration was founded on an
implicit form of skepticism While his Letter Concerning Toleration was basically
about the role of the magistrate in religion, Locke's argument rested on one general
epistemologjcal assumption about the nature of religious knowledge. Within his
Empiricist outlook, he perceived most absolutist claims to religious truth made by the
warring churches of his time, in skeptical terms. Locke expressed this skeptical view of
religious truths in his criticism of policies aiming at "introducing of ceremonies, or the
For more on Castellio's conception of the fundamentals, see Concerning Heretics.
139-140.
116
establishment of opinions, which for the most part are about nice and intricate matters
that exceed the capacity of ordinary understanding."
101
Furthermore, in the context of
his discussion of the nature of the sectarian controversies in seventeenth-century
England, Locke affirmed his skeptical and relativistic conception of most of the
sectarian assertions of his time. He stated:
For every church is orthodox to itself; to others, erroneous or
heretical. For whatsoever any church believes it believes to be
true; and the contrary unto those things it pronounces to be
error. So, that controversy between these churches about the
truth of their doctrines and the purity of their worship is on
both sides equal; nor is there any judge, either at
Constantinople or elsewhere upon earth, by whose sentence it
can be determined." [emphasis added]
102
It seems that Locke's skeptical perception of most of the theological claims
of his time was a logical outcome of his Empiricist epistemology. In his other work,
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Locke was rather conventional in his
distinction between faith and knowledge. Within the Lockean world view, certainty
was reserved for knowledge, which consists of general propositions that exist within
our ideas. Faith, on the other hand, was viewed in probable rather than certain terms.
He defined faith as "the admitting or receiving any proposition for truth, upon
argument or proofs that are found to persuade us to receive it as true, without certain
John Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration ed. Patrick Romanell, 2nd ed. (New
York: The Liberal Arts Press, Inc., 1955), 15.
Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration. 25.
117
knowledge that it is so."
103
So, for Locke, faith did not require a rational proof, but it
was a proposition that the person admitted into his or her heart without a rational
demonstration. Furthermore, revelation, which was the foundation of faith, must be
assented to with assurance, for there was no room for doubt in this matter. However,
he insisted that we have to be certain that what we assented to was divine revelation
and not a human opinion. For in rehgious controversies, people tended to confuse
human opinions with divine revelation, which had exposed them to what Locke called
"the extravagance of Enthusiasm," a seventeenth-century term referring to rehgious
extremism.
104
In the context of discussing the reasons for establishing wrong assent, he
cited the factor of taking doubtful or uncertain propositions to be principles by which
other propositions were judged. Locke found this error to occur more frequently in
theological disputes of his time. In such rehgious disputes, different sects relied on
some questionable traditional rehgious principle as a certain premise to confront their
sectarian enemies.
105
So, for Locke, in matters pertaining to metaphysical truths, the
mind had to settle with uncertainty and probability. It was this assumption that
John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding ed. Peter H. Nidditch
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975), 655.
104
Locke, Essay. 667, 695.
Locke, Essay, 712-13.
118
represented the epistemological foundation of Locke's argument against the use of
coercion in most religious disputes.
No thinker has confronted the problem of religious persecution with
philosophical depth and sophistication like the French philosopher Pierre Bayle.
Likewise, no advocate of toleration had appealed to skepticism as Bayle had. His
work, Philosophical Commentary, was, as its subtitle suggests, a refutation of the
Augustinian justification of religious persecution. Bayle's primary objective in
composing that book was to show how the Augustinian interpretations of the Biblical
verse "compel them to come in"
l06
was repugnant to the spirit of Christianity. While
his defense of toleration was essentially moral, he found skepticism to be a very
powerful conceptual tool to undermine the certainty and the absoluteness of the idea of
religious persecution.
Bayle's skeptical view of religious truth had recurred frequently throughout
his theory of religious toleration. Where the advocates of religious persecution like
Augustine, Luther, and Calvin had believed in the existence of a universal and objective
religious truth, Bayle strongly questioned the possibility of its attainment. In the
Philosophical Commentary, he stated
God has not printed any mark or signs on the truths which He
has revealed, at least not on the greatest part of them, by which
we might certainly and infallibly discern them. They are not of
a metaphysical or geometric clarity; they do not produce any
Luke, 14:23.
119
stronger convictions in our souls than falsehoods do; they do
not excite any passion which errors do not excite.
For Bayle, culture and the process of socialization were the most important
factors which prevented the achievement of certainty in religion. Within each culture,
reUgious convictions were reproduced through the process of socialization and were
passed from one generation to the other. So, the religious views of the individual were
not arrived at objectively, but were the product of their societal and personal
prejudices. That is why, Bayle contended, people who were raised in different cultures
adhered to the reUgious expressions of their cultures with a considerable degree of
certainty without verifying the truthfulness of such behefs. These obstacles, which are
involuntary and, in part, the creation of God, hinder the attainment of certainty in
reUgion and make the discovery of the truth impossible.
108
Even though Bayle did not beUeve in the possibiUty of knowing the
absolute truth, he thought that certainty in reUgion is required. Such certainty is
attained through the dictates of what Bayle caUed the "natural Ught." The term
"natural Ught" was defined by Bayle as "the universal principles of common sense . . .
Amie Tannenbaum, trans., Pierre Bayle's Philosophical Commentary: A Modern
Translation and Critical Interpretation (New York: Peter Lang PubUshing, Inc., 1987),
179. Also see pp. 181-82.
Ibid, 92-94, 140, 179, 185-187.
120
those eternal truths contained in the first principles or in the common notions of
metaphysics which God defuses in the souls of all men."
109
It is only through the
natural light that the person can arrive at a certain and accurate interpretation of the
Scripture.
Did Bayle contradict himself when he insisted on natural light-based
certainty after he questioned the possibility of attaining certainty in religion earlier?
The answer must be no. Bayle appeared to be speaking of two types of certainty in
religion: epistemological and moral. The natural light-based certainty was an
individualized and subjective understanding of the Scripture. Considering its subjective
nature, Bayle called this type of certainty "a moral certainty [which was] founded on
very high level of probabilities."
110
Because it was based on the inner persuasion of the
individual conscience, this type of certainty could take different forms and it allowed
the existence of multiplicity of religious truths. The type of certainty Bayle had denied
was the epistemological claims of the champions of persecution of knowing the
objective revealed and universal truth. Within that view, there was only one unique and
true interpretation of the Scripture, and consequently, any divergent interpretation was
condemned as heretical. The moral certainty that Bayle advocated was not
universalizable and, given the possibility of error, it allowed multiple and conflicting
Ibid, 28-29.
Ibid, 182.
121
interpretations of the Scripture to exist equally within the religious community. In fact,
with the exception of a few fundamentals, the possibiUties of doctrinal heresy were
reduced to a minimum in Bayle's perception of religious truth.
111
The conceptual utility of skepticism in the defense of religious toleration
was to legitimize the existence of multiple claims to religious truth with equal
epistemological status. Also, the appeal to skepticism by the advocates of religious
toleration had undermined the champions of persecution's exclusive claims to religious
truth and had increased the margins of toleration by restricting certainty and, hence, the
possibility of persecution to a few fundamentals of faith. However, the relationship
between the idea of religious toleration and skepticism ought to be approached with
some caution. It is true that historically the advocates of toleration had always
approached the question of religious truth with a skeptical frame of mind, and the
persecutionists had always expressed their religious claims in certain and exclusive
terms. But such historical association between doubt and toleration and certainty and
persecution should not be confused with or elevated to a logical connection. That is to
say, the idea of toleration can be defended only within skepticism, and certainty will
automatically lead to religious persecution. It would be absurd to say that Augustine
advocated toleration for the Donatists before 405 because he was less certain about his
111
As in the case of Erasmus and Castellio, Bayle held the notion of the fundamentals,
but reduced the scope of the fundamentals to the idea of "Jesus Christ [as] their leader
and the scripture [as] their rule." Ibid, 142.
122
religious convictions. And it would be equally absurd to suggest that Luther was more
inclined to tolerate religious dissent prior to 1525 because he had entertained some
doubt about his theological claims. For a thinker could be skeptical about most of the
religious claims, but he or she would still advocate the use of coercion against religious
dissenters on political or economic grounds rather than religious. Equally true is the
conceptual possibility of a thinker who expresses his or her religious convictions with
universal and exclusive terms but still defends toleration if the contents of his or her
convictions require tolerating religious dissent. As it will be shown in the case of
Islam, the contents of religious truth could be as important in determining the thinker's
position on religious diversity as its formal structure. So, while skepticism is more
receptive to the notion of religious toleration and certainty is more hospitable to the
doctrine of religious persecution, the association between those concepts should be
viewed as mostly historical rather than conceptual.
Relativism: The Moral Dimension
With the exception of Bayle, ethical relativism was a peripheral issue in the
writings of the advocates of religious toleration. The use of moral relativism by the
advocates of toleration was within their overall moral objection to coercing conscience.
Considering the parallel between epistemology and ethics, these thinkers' appeal to
moral relativism seemed to be a logical outcome of their skeptical perception of
religious truth. For these thinkers, since there were multiple religious truths, then there
123
must be multiple conceptions of the scope and the criterion of morality. In this section,
therefore, I will examine how the advocates of toleration appealed to varying degrees
of relativism as a conceptual weapon against the idea of using the secular arm in
religious controversies.
As in the case of skepticism, the proponents of religious toleration were
responding to the moral justification of the advocates of religious persecution. The
idea of suppressing heterodoxy by force rested on two moral claims. The first of these
claims was the idea of equating heresy with moral perversion. It was quite common
among the champions of religious persecution to insist on the moral content of heresy.
Heterodoxy was not viewed as the outcome of a sincere persuasion of the inner
consciousness of the individual, but rather, as a reflection of defective moral character.
Heretics, by their intentional disobedience of the true teachings of God, were
intervening with their eternal salvation and that of the rest of the community. Thus,
heresy was considered by the persecutors as a threat to the souls of the believers and to
the moral fabric of the society. Such insistence on the moral relevance of doctrinal
errors rested not only on the claim to possess the exclusive truth but also on a very
absolutist perception of the criterion and the scope of morality. Consistent with their
epistemological certainty, the supporters of religious persecution believed in the
existence of an objective and universal moral code. Furthermore, their perception of
the scope of morality was so broad that it was not limited to conduct, but also it was
extended to include the intellectual realm
124
The second claim that was made by the defenders of persecution was the
moral desirability of coercing heretics to comply with orthodoxy. Since heterodox
doctrines were considered acts of moral perversion which threatened the moral
structure of the society, then suppressing heresy was not only morally justified but also
morally required. Given the superiority of truth over error, orthodoxy has the moral
authority and obligation to use force to recall the dissenters from their errors and to
rescue them from eternal condemnation. Because of the erroneous nature of the
heretics' views, they do not have such moral power to persecute orthodoxy. This
attitude was best articulated by St. Augustine who stated that "the Church persecutes
out of love and the ungodly persecute out of cruelty."
112
Such moral defense of the use
of the power of the magistrate had persisted from the time of Augustine until the late
seventeenth century.'
13
In their response to these two moral claims, the proponents of religious
toleration utilized relativism only in reference to the question of the moral relevance of
doctrinal errors. But there was nothing relative about their objection to the issue of
coercing conscience. For Erasmus, Castellio, Locke, and Bayle, the use of physical
force to compel heretics to accept the truth was repugnant to the spirit of Christianity
and contrary to the intentions of Christ. Following the example of Christ, religious
112
Cited in Lecler, 1:57.
113
See Nelson, 7-8, 10-12.
125
dissenters ought to be brought to the true church by persuasion, not by force. To
interpret the Bible as advocating the use of any form of physical coercion to establish
the true religion was to distort the teachings of God and violate the basic principles of
Christianity. These thinkers appealed to the early views of Augustine, Luther, and
other Christian theologians against coercing conscience.
114
Such views against forcing
conscience were anything but ethical relativist. In fact, the defenders of toleration
expressed their moral defense of the freedom of conscience in a language which was as
absolutist and zealous as that of the champions of reUgious persecution.
The conceptual utility of moral relativism in justifying religious toleration
was to make dogmatic opinions morally irrelevant. These thinkers had argued that
since there was no certainty about most reUgious claims, then the inner conscience of
each individual should be the sole criterion of deciding what the right reUgious beUefs
are. The emphasis on inner conscience as the determinant of reUgious truth had two
ethical consequences. First, it subjectrvized the criterion of what constituted the right
moral conduct. Instead of the universal and absolutist conception of moraUty, widely
insisted on by the persecutors, the advocates of toleration viewed it as a subjective and
relative concept. Each individual was seen as an autonomous agent who is capable of
114
See Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration. 13-16; CasteUio, Concerning Heretics.
127, 132-35, 139, and Councel to France. 259, 260. The views of Bayle on forcing
conscience are expressed in his Philosophical Commentary. See Tannenbaum, 35-37.
The views of Erasmus are summarized in WaUace K. Ferguson's essay "The attitude of
Erasmus Toward Toleration," in Persecution and Liberty: Essays in Honor of G.L.
Burr (reprint, 1931; New York: Books for Libraries Press, 1968), 175-78.
126
making free moral choices according to the dictates of his or her conscience. Second,
heresy and orthodoxy, because of the subjective character of most of the theological
assertions, became morally equal, since both of them were the product of a sincere
persuasion of the individual conscience. Therefore, considering the private and
individual nature of most religious views, doctrinal errors became morally irrelevant.
The scope of morality, in which the distinction between right and wrong is required,
was limited to the traditional domain of ethics, that is, conduct. Consequently, simple
doctrinal errors in religious matters that were considered indifferent were excluded
from the realm of morality. Hence, the concept of perversion was restricted only to
morally offensive acts such as adultery, theft, murder, and so forth., which were
considered contrary to the spirit of the Gospel and harmful to the peace of society.
In comparison with other thinkers, the utilization of moral relativism in
justifying toleration was very apparent in the writings of Bayle. The primary purpose
of ethical relativism in Bayle's theory of toleration was to combat the Augustinian
justification of persecution. St. Augustine was the first Christian thinker who wrested
the phrase "compel them to come in" from its textual context to make it appear as a
divine order to use coercion against religious dissent. Bayle was essentially concerned
with the profound moral and intellectual impact the Augustinian interpretation of the
parable of the supper had on the question of religious dissent in seventeenth-century
115
The views of Erasmus on the subject are summarized in Ferguson, 175. See also,
Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration. 13, Castellio, Concerning Heretics. 123.
127
Europe. So, he saw his refutation of Augustine's interpretation as an attempt to
dismantle the moral frame of reference of religious persecution. In his Historical
Dictionary, Bayle waged a general critique of the whole Augustinian world view and
his heterodox theological teachings.
116
But it was in the Philosophical Commentary
where Bayle exclusively criticized Augustine's Biblical rationalization of the
employment of the secular arm to force the submission of heretics.
Ethical relativism was one of the conceptual tools that Bayle utilized to
combat the Augustinian justification of religious repression. To show that the
Augustinian understanding of the parable of the supper was erroneous and repugnant to
the gentle nature of Christ, Bayle took it to its logical end within the framework of
moral relativism. As I previously mentioned, Bayle denied the possibility of attaining
epistemological certainty in most of the theological disputes. However, he insisted that
rehgious convictions must be based on moral certainty, that is, a certitude about
rehgious beliefs without having strong evidence of their verity. The source of such
moral certainty was the persuasion of the inner conscience which was guided by the
dictates of the natural light. Based on these two conceptions of certainty in religion,
Bayle made the claim that it was immoral and sinful for the individual to act contrary to
Bayle's critique of Augustine went beyond the conventional scope of criticism to
attacking his character such as his womanizing and drinking problems before his
conversion to Christianity. See E.A. Beller and M. du;. Lee, Jr., eds. Selections From
Bayle's Dictionary (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1952), 49-77.
128
the dictates of his or her conscience.
117
Consequently, every person is required by God
to use all necessary means to impose on others what he or she believed to be the true
religion. But considering that religious truths could be defined in a variety of ways,
enforcing the interpretation of Augustine would lead to endless and mutual persecution
among the different Christian sects. Since sincerity, based on the persuasion of the
inner conscience, was the criterion of the right religious conviction, then heterodoxy
had the moral merit and obligation to persecute the true church. Thus, Bayle wrote:
If the Eternal Law, or any positive Law of God, requires that a
man who is convinced of the truth employ fire and sword to
establish in the world, all men ought to employ fire and the
sword for the establishment of their own religion . . . [every
believer] ought to use fire and sword for the establishment of
the religion he professes, because he knows no other truth but
that one, nor other way of executing the order of God, than
that of acting for his own religion; and he would believe he
acted in favor of falsehood, and consequently fall into a
transgression of the divine Law if he labored for the
advancement of some other religion than his own.
U8
Therefore, within the Baylian epistemological and moral frame of
reference, Augustine's defense of religious persecution became not only cruel and
repugnant to the spirit of Christianity but also a license to every religious sect who
claimed to possess the truth to persecute her adversaries. In its original frame of
reference, that is, certainty and moral absolutism, the Augustinian Biblical justification
117
Tannenbaum, 158,102-103.
118
Ibid, 156.
129
was logically consistent with the epistemological dichotomy of the truth vs. error, in
which the former assumed superiority over the latter. But with the introduction of
skepticism and ethical relativism, heresy and orthodoxy were given equal
epistemological and moral statutes which made enforcing the Augustinian
interpretation of that Biblical passage extremely difficult to justify morally or
theologically.
As in the case of the relation between skepticism and toleration, the
association between ethical relativism and toleration is historical not conceptual. It is
true that the thinkers who advocated toleration held varying forms of ethica,l
relativistic views and their adversaries entertained absolutist conceptions of the criteria
and the scope of morality.
119
But that does not necessarily mean that toleration can
only be defended within a relativistic frame of reference. While a frame of reference
that is based on ethical relativism is hospitable to the idea of toleration, it does not
mean that toleration cannot be justified within the framework o f moral absolutism. The
detennining factor is not only the nature of the thinker's conception of morality but the
contents or the teachings of his or her moral system. If such absolutist moral
philosophy teaches toleration, then the principle of religious toleration can be morally
justified with consistency without resorting to moral relativism. In fact, when ethical
For an interesting discussion of the relationship between relativism and toleration,
see Bernard Williams, "Subjectivism and Toleration," in A.J. Aver Memorial Essays,
ed. Phillips Griffiths. Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement: 30 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1991), 197-208.
130
relativism is taken to its logical end it could be a threat to the logical consistency of the
argument for reUgious toleration. Within the categories of moral relativism not only
reUgious persecution becomes moraUy unjustifiable but also the notion of reUgious
toleration becomes indefensible. The reason for this is that ethical relativism makes the
idea of reUgious toleration morally equal to the idea of persecution, not superior to it.
Secularism; The Political Dimension
The final element in the frame of reference of reUgious toleration is
secularism. Unlike skepticism, scholars of toleration are unanimous on the positive
relationship between the rise of the idea reUgious toleration and the secularization of
pohtics.
120
Indeed, the relationship between secularism and toleration is conceptual,
not historical. That is, defending reUgious toleration becomes logicaUy impossible if the
secular authority is not removed from th e realm of sectarian disputes. To give the state
the function of arbitrating theological differences in society is, by definition, to make
reUgious persecution inevitable. As mentioned at the outset of this section, the
advocates of toleration were disturbed by the practice of using the power of the
magistrate to impose reUgious conformity. Their primary intention was to try to
neutralize the state in reUgious controversies. So, after dismantling the epistemologjcal
120
See for example, Lecler, I: 80-81, 475-479, 485, 506; EUsabeth Labrousse,
"ReUgious Toleration," in Dictionary of the History of Ideas ed Phihp P. Wiener (New
York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1973), 117; Richard Arenson, "NeutraUty and Utility,"
Canadian Journal of Philosophy 20 no. 4(1990): 215-16.
131
and moral grounds of the idea of religious persecution, these thinkers were prepared to
state the conclusion of their argument, that is, that the employment of the secular arm
to achieve rehgjous or sectarian conformity was irrational and repugnant to the moral
teachings of Christianity. The argument for the neutrality of the state in religion
involved three elements: the religious duties of the ruler, the relevance of the political
laws of the Old Testament, and the criminality of heresy. In this section, those three
issues will be examined as they appeared in both sides of the debate on religious
toleration.
The conceptual utility of secularism for tolerationists was to combat the
theocracy of the champions of religious persecution. Although the defenders of
persecution had maintained the theoretical distinction between church and state, it was
common among these thinkers to extend the duty of the magistrate beyond the keeping
of public peace to include maintaining the purity of the Christian faith. St. Augustine
had declared, "Let the kings of earth serve Christ, even by enacting laws for the sake of
Christ."
121
For Luther, the most important duty of the Christian ruler was "to promote
the honor of God, to repress blasphemy and idolatry."
122
The Protestant theologian,
Augustine, Political Writings. 240.
122
Cited in Lecler, I: 163. Similar remarks were made by Luther in his other works.
See Jaroslav Pelikan, ed. Selected Psalms II vol. 13 of Luther's Works (St. Louis:
Concordia Publishing House, 1956), 52, 61, 52, 68. Also, see Acton, The Protestant
Theory of Persecution. 100-110.
132
Philip Melanehthan described the theoretical separation and the practical connection
between the political and the ecclesiastical authorities as the following:
The office of the preacher is distinct from that of governor, yet
both have to contribute to the praise of God. Princes are not
only to protect the goods and the bodily life of their subjects,
but the principle function is to promote the honor of God, and
to prevent idolatry and blasphemy [emphasis added].
Jean Calvin also perceived the scope of political authority to include the
enforcement of the true religion. He believed that the reason for the estabhshment of
secular authority was "that idolatry, blasphemy of the Name of God and against his
truth and other scandals to religion, be not publicly set forth and broadcast among the
people."
124
Other Protestant advocates of religious persecution such as Bucer, Zwingli,
and Beza, while they maintained some variations in their attitudes toward heretics,
agreed on the notion that the preserving of doctrinal purity was among the important
telos of the civil government.
125
The inclusion of preserving the purity of faith within the jurisdiction of the
secular authority was justified on two bases: the political laws of the Old Testament
and the notion of heresy as a political crime. It was common practice among the
defenders of persecution to make direct appeal to the Mosaic Laws, according to which
Cited in Acton, The Protestant Theory of Persecution. 113.
Cited in Allen, 60.
See Acton. The Protestant Theory of Persecution. 116-121.
133
heretics and blasphemers were put to death. Such appeal to the Old Testament to
justify the use of political authority was apparent in the writings of Cathohc authors
such as St. Optatus
126
or Protestant thinkers like Luther,
127
Melanehthan
I28
and many
others. Considering the apolitical nature of the New Testament, the persecutors had to
resort to the examples of the Old Testament to provide their argument for the state's
intervention in religion with a biblical justification. As Joseph Lecler realized, "the
examples of the kings of Israel helped on the one hand to obscure the distinction
between the spiritual and the temporal, as set down by Christ, and on the other to
encourage the Cathohc princes, and still more the Protestant ones, in their inroads to
the ecclesiastical domain."
129
For that reason, these thinkers had always insisted on the
idea of the unified Bible which consisted of the Old and New Testaments.
While the examples of the Old Testament provided the rulers with a
Biblical justification to intervene in religion, the idea of heresy as a poUtical crime
justified putting heretics to death. Within the world view of the defenders of rehgious
persecution, the individual was perceived as a member of an organic whole that was
ordained by God and took faith as its foundation. The individual can realize his or her
126
Lecler,I: 61-62.
127
Pelikan, 44-45.
128
Clyde L. Manscheck, trans. Melanehthan on Christian Doctrine: Loci Communes:
1555 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965), 323-343.
Lecler, 1:7.
134
existence and attain eternal salvation only within an organic entity called Christendom.
The survival and cohesion of Christendom was determined, to a large extent, by the
religious consensus of its members. Since heterodox views were considered a threat to
the normative structure of society, then such doctrines, beside their interfering with the
eternal salvation of the religious dissenter, were seen as hazardous to the well-being of
the whole community. Hence, the nature of the religious views of each member of the
Christian commonwealth had political relevance and consequences. In other words,
within that organic conception of the society, heresy was considered a crime against the
state, that is, treason.
During medieval times the church and state, though theoretically separate,
were two sides of the same social structure under the authority of the church. Under
such socio-political arrangements, with the influence of the old constitution of Rome
which subjected heretics to death for committing less-majesty or civil crime, religious
dissenters were executed as political criminals.
130
The rise of the Protestant
Reformation with its profound theological and structured implications was not in favor
of removing the secular arm from religious disputes. The major Protestant thinkers,
especially Luther, considered heresy harmful to the survival and stability of the state.
131
As Acton has suggested, the Protestant thinkers had retained the same organic
130
See, Lecler, I: 66-71, 84-87.
131
The views of Luther on the political implication of heresy are found in Pelikan, 63
65.
135
conception of society, but in their framework, the balance of power was in favor of the
state, not the church.
132
To deprive the persecutors from using the secular arm to achieve religious
conformity, the tolerationists disputed the relevance of the Old Testament, the religious
duty of the ruler, and the criminaUty of doctrinal errors. These thinkers had forcefully
insisted on the distinction between the Old and the New Testaments, and the
superiority of the spiritual laws of the latter over the political laws of the former. They
simply restored the original Christian doctrine of the separation between the political
and the spiritual realms, an idea held earlier by the same Fathers of the Church, such as
St. Hilary, St. Ambrose and Pope St. Gelasius.
133
The political laws of the Old
Testament, the tolerationists contended, were intended only for the Jewish theocracy,
and these laws were suppressed by the spiritual laws of the new Testament. Bayle
believed that heresy under the Jewish law was considered a crime and sedition against
the state, because God was considered the head of the republic.
134
However, under the
spiritual laws of the New Testament, "the precepts of the Gospel are not the political
laws of the state. .. Christians are under no theocratical form of government. . . [and]
Christianity is not the fundamental law of any state."
135
Therefore, Bayle continued,
Acton, The Protestant Theory of Persecution, 111-116.
SeeLecler, I: 47-51.
Tannenbaum, 120.
136
"magistrates ought to leave God alone with the task of chastising heretics who do not
disturb the public peace."
136
Similarly, John Locke dismissed the relevance of the
Mosaic Laws by emphasizing the theocratic character of the Jewish polity in which
God himself was the supreme legislator.
137
In regard to the New Testament, Locke
forcefully emphasized its apohtical character, and reminded his reader about the fact
that Christ never established a commonwealth. He wrote
There is absolutely no such thing under the Gospel as a
Christian commonwealth . . . [Christ], indeed that taught men
how, by faith and good works, they may obtain eternal life; but
He instituted no commonwealth. He prescribed unto his
followers no new and peculiar form of government, nor put the
sword into any magistrate's hand, with commission to make
use of it in forcing men to forsake their former religion and
receive His.
138
Having dismantled the Biblical bases of the notion of persecution, the
theorists of religious toleration attempted to redefined the functions of the state in
religious matters. Instead of maintaining the doctrinal purity of the Christian religion,
the primary function of the magistrate became the preservation of the public peace and
tranquillity. Armed with skepticism and moral relativism, these thinkers had argued
that due to the uncertain nature of religious knowledge and its reliance of the
135
Ibid, 121.
136
Ibid, 122.
137
Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration. 34.
138
Ibid, 43.
137
persuasion of the inner conscience, imposing rehgious conformity by the prince ought
to be relegated to a secondary importance. Erasmus considered maintaining peace and
stability within the state to be more important than achieving sectarian unity.
139
Likewise, CasteUio had asked the secular rulers to "contend themselves to prevent the
bad from injuring the good either in their property or their persons."
140
For John
Locke, the most important duty of the magistrate was to protect of property and the
lives of the members of the commonwealth, and not to teach them how to achieve
salvation.
141
In similar fashion, Bayle required the prince to be more concerned with
preserving the peace of the repubhc rather than attempting to impose rehgious
conformity.
142
The organic conception of Christendom, in which the notion of heresy as a
crime had flourished, ha d to be rejected by the defenders of toleration. The conception
of the society as an organic whole that was ordained by God for the attainment of
eternal life was replaced by another secular view. Society, for the tolerationists, was
seen as a human-made entity which consisted of individuals whose primary aims were
the acquisition of wealth and attainment of physical survival. Such emphasis on the
See Ferguson, 178.
CasteUio, Concerning Heretics. 136-37, and Reply to Calvin. 271.
Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration. 48-49.
Tannenbaum, 167.
138
secular conception of society was particularly apparent in the writings of Locke. He
asserted that human beings decided to form civil association in order to "secure unto
each other their properties . . . and their temporal goods."
143
In fact, this worldly
understanding of the origin and telos of society represented a dramatic departure from
the medieval notion of Christendom and was expressed in more detail in his other
work, The Second Treatise of Government. Within such alternative conception of
society, the spiritual and temporal realms were theoretically and practically separate.
But being separate in regard to jurisdiction did not mean the two entities had equal
power. The use of physical coercion was reserved, in theory and in practice, to the
secular ruler. Thus, Locke argued that the "church itself is a thing absolutely separate
and distinct from the commonwealth . . . [they] are in their original, end, business and
in everything perfectly distinct and infinitely different from each other."
144
Then, Locke
went on to say that the church was a voluntary organization which had no physical
power to discipline her members and it could only use advice and excommunication
against those who would defy her rules.
145
Erasmus had drawn the distinction between
the church, which had only spiritual jurisdiction over her followers and the state which
was the only entity that had amonopoly on the use of coercion. However, Erasmus's
143
Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration. 47.
144
Ibid, 27.
145
Ibid, 23.
139
ideas on the subject were not as explicit or as forceful as those of John Locke.
146
Castellio also suggested that heresy, if it was not disturbing the public peace, was "to
be punished by the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God."
147
The primary purpose of distinguishing between the jurisdiction of the state
and the church and the tmphasis on the artificial nature of the community was to
decriminalize heresy. Since the main reason for establishing the civil society was the
preservation of human life and worldly possessions of its members, then theological
opinions with no practical implications should be considered politically irrelevant. The
absence of consensus on the non-fundamental articles of the Christian faith became no
longer a threat to the stabihty of the survival of the commonwealth. The religious
views of each individual, as long as these views did not disturb the social peace, had no
legal consequences on that individual's status as a member of the commonwealth.
Such conclusion concerning the criminality of heterodoxy would have never been
achieved without abandonment of notions of the organic conception of the Christian
society and the religious duty of the magistrate as the guardian of faith.
However, the separation between the ecclesiastical and temporal realms
and the limiting of the function of the magistrate to enforcement of the civil laws did
not mean the complete withdrawal of the state from reUgious controversies, or the
SeeFerguso, 178-180.
Castellio, Concerning Heretics. 137.
140
elimination of religious persecution. The punishment of heretics, which could include
death, by the secular ruler to maintain order and stability was a reccuring theme in the
writings of the tolerationists. For these thinkers, the secular ruler could physically
punish individual heretics, even if they were following the dictates of their conscience,
if their views were considered harmful to the peace of the society. Erasmus, who had
never objected to the execution of a heretic in his time, found it acceptable for the
prince to put heretics to death if that would contribute to the security of the state.
148
Castellio had contended that "if anyone disturbs the commonwealth by an assault under
the color of religion, the magistrate may punish such as one not on the score of
religion, but because he has done damage to bodies and goods, like any other
criminal."
149
John Locke had advocated the use of the secular arm to punish some
religious sects that propagated opinions which were "contrary to human society, or to
those moral rules which are necessary to the preservation of civil society."
150
Also
Locke found it morally justifiable to coerce the conscience of members of a religious
sect if they gave their loyalty to another prince.
151
Bayle also considered the
See Gary Remer, Humanism. Liberalism, and the Skeptical Case for Religious
Toleration. 28-30; Remer, (1989): 380-81, 392; and Ferguson, 178-180.
149
Castellio, Concerning Heretics. 137.
150
Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration. 50.
151
Ibid, 150-52.
141
suppression of heresy for political reasons to be morally permissible, even if that meant
the violation of the inner conscience of the individual.
152
The introduction of the notion of politically justified reUgious coercion had
brought disastrous consequences on the logical coherence of the argument for
toleration. The theorists of toleration had succeeded in dismantling the
epistemological, moral, and Biblical foundations of the ideas of reUgious persecution.
Then, they concluded that the use of the secular arm to achieve reUgious conformity
was irrational, antithetical to moral teachings of Christ, and with no BibUcal
justification. But towards the end of their argument, these thinkers found it moraUy
acceptable to use the power of the state to punish members of heretical sects if their
views were considered harmful to the social peace. However, the tolerationists did not
seem to be aware of the fact that the notion of suppressing heresy on poUtical grounds
was incompatible with the notion of sanctity of conscience, an idea that serves as a very
effective weapon against the persecutionists. These two ideas exclude each other and
cannot be kept within the same argument. In fact, the defenders of toleration had
reintroduced the idea of reUgious persecution under a different pretext. Instead of
achieving doctrinal purity within the commonwealth, the rationale for reUgious
persecution became the preservation of the stabiUty of the state. The poUtical
justification for suppressing heterodoxy had destroyed the conscience-based defense for
Tannenbaum, 66-67, 128-29, 137, 167.
142
toleration and left the whole case for toleration in ruin. Such incoherence was later
avoided by a group of thinkers called the Politiques, whose views were best articulated
by the French thinker and statesman Michel de L' Hopital ( 1503- 1573). The
Politiques justified toleration and persecution on purely political grounds. They never
questioned the desirability of attaining religious unity within the state. However,
without engaging in an argument about truth in religion or conscience, the Politiques
had argued that achieving such religious unity would be politically too costly to the
secular rulers. Therefore, the state should refrain from suppressing heresy, not because
coercing heretics was considered irrational or immoral by the Politiques, but because
such action by the secular authorities could lead to civil strife, which could threaten the
very survival of the state.
153
In conclusion, the idea of religious toleration was advanced within a frame
of reference that was hospitable to the idea of religious diversity. Skepticism,
relativism, and secularism represented the major components of the frame of reference
and they provided the argument for toleration, in most instances, with coherence and
logical consistency. It was no accident, therefore, that the idea of religious toleration
has been conceptually and historically associated with liberalism, with its narrow
conception of the good and its emphasis on the notions of autonomy and the neutrality
of the state. The European thinkers who defended religious toleration as a moral
SeeKamen, 131-37.
143
principle belonged to world views that were somewhat different from the traditional
Christian world view within which the principle of religious persecution had flourished.
It is true that the advocates of religious toleration had appealed to some traditional
ideas within Christianity, and all of them, with the exception of Bayle, were devoted
Christians who truly believed that religious persecution was an anti-Christian idea. But
it is equally true that the majority of the champions of toleration were associated with
intellectual traditions that existed outside the dominant traditional Christian world view
of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Erasmus and Castellio were intellectually
associated with the emerging Humanism of the Renaissance, the Greek and Roman
Classics, and both authors, especially Erasmus, had written commentaries on the Bible.
John Locke, besides his poUtical ideas, was among the pioneers of logical Empiricism
with its profound impact of the European thought until the Enlightenment. Bayle also
was a philosopher by vocation, and was intellectually associated with the rationahsm of
the seventeenth century. The long and complex process of transition, from medievalism
to modernity in Europe from th e sixteenth century until the late nineteenth century, had
resulted in the de-Christianization of the European mind and culture. These
transformations provided theorists of religious toleration with alternative conceptions
of morality, truth, and politics. Such advantages were not available to the Islamic
poUtical thinkers who belonged to a world view that had never experienced the
epistemological and ontological transformations that the European inteUectual history
had witnessed. The lack of such transformations gave rise to a rather pecuUar response
144
to the problem of reUgious dissent that was radically different from that of the
European thinkers. This assertion will be explored in the next section.
The Interpretive Approach of the Study
It is what makes Islamic political thought Islamic that explains the ways in
which the Islamic political theorists have responded to the question of reUgious dissent.
The most apparent feature of Islamic poUtical theory has been its reUance on divine
texts as the major source of its axioms, basic categories, and methods. Such textual
frame of reference has given rise to a pecuUar way of looking at poUtics in general and
the question of reUgious diversity in particular. The impact of the textual character of
Islamic poUtical discourse on the idea of toleration will be delineated in three steps.
First, I wiU give a general account of the textual frame o f reference of Islamic poUtical
theory as an interpretive tool of explaining the structure of the Islamic poUtical
thinkers' views on reUgious toleration. Second, I wiU discuss how this textual frame o f
reference has shaped Islamic poUtical thinking in respect to its formal structure,
contents, and style of argument. FinaUy, it wiU be shown how the textuahsm of Islamic
poUtical theory has placed limits on the notion of reUgious toleration in that tradition
and could explain the persistence of its formal structure throughout history.
145
Al-Jabiri's Contribution
This study's focus on the textual character of Islamic political thinking has
been inspired by the recent achievements of the contemporary Moroccan intellectual
historian and social critic Muhammad Abid al-Jabiri. In his two controversial works,
The Formation of the Arab Thought (1984) and The Structure of the Arab Thought
(1986),
154
al-Jabiri has revolutionized the ways in which the history of Arab-Islamic
thought is studied. Instead of analyzing the intellectual history of Islam according to
sectarian lines, or to the reason- revelation dichotomy, al-Jabiri has studied the
evolution and the structure of the Islamic thought according to three epistemological
traditions or systems of knowledge: al-Bayan (perspicuous declaration),
155
al-'Irfan
(Gnosticism), and al-Burhan (demonstration or Aristotelism logic). Such scheme of
classification refers to the mechanisms according to which knowledge about God, the
universe, and society are arrived at and evaluated. al-Jabiri's works were intended to
be an integral part of his project of the critique of the tradition which represents the
foundation of contemporary Arab discourse. But despite his ideological motives which
Muhammad Abid al-Jabiri, Takwin al- 'Aql al-'Arabi (The Formation of the Arab
Thought) 4th ed. (Beirut: Markaz Dirasat al-Wihdah al-'Arabiyah, 1984) and Bunyat
al-'Aql al-'Arabi (The Structure of the Arab Thought) (Beirut: Markaz Dirasat al-
Wihdah al-'Arabiyah, 1986). These two works have not been translated into the
English language yet.
155
1 have adopted the translation of Majid Khadduri of al-Bayan. See Majid Khadduri,
trans. Islamic Jurisprudence: Shafi'i's Risala (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press,
1961), 67.
146
extend beyond the narrow academic interest of this dissertation, al-Jabiri's remarks on
the development and mechanisms of Islamic thought have a considerable relevance to
the interpretive method of this study. It is true that al-Jabiri never intended to interpret
the history of Islamic pohtical thought or to explain the notion of religious toleration in
that tradition. But the relevance of his findings ca n be seen, not in the contents of his
works but in the implications of his findings on the study of the history of Islamic
pohtical ideas.
Al-Jabiri's method revolves around the concept of the system of
knowledge (al-Nizam al-Ma 'rafi). In direct appeal to Michel Foucault, he defines the
system of knowledge as "a collectivity of concepts, assumptions, and techniques that
give knowledge its unconscious structure in a given historical period" . Each system
of knowledge imposes its world view on the thinkers who subscribe to it and
determines the ways in which they acquire and evaluate different types of knowledge.
Within each system of knowledge there are specific conceptions of truth, rationality and
the universe which, in turn, give rise to peculiar styles of tliinking.
In his assessment of the genesis of Islamic thought, al-Jabiri rejects the
traditional view of tracing the beginning of that thought back to pre-Islamic Arabia.
For al-Jabiri, Islamic thought had become systematized with respect to its contents and
style during the ninth and tenth centuries, a period that later became known in Islamic
Al-Jabiri, Takwin al-'Aql al-'Arabi 37.
147
history as the Age of Documentation ('Asr al-Tadwin). During that period, the oral
and fragmented disciplines of the Arabic language and its sub-disciplines, and Islamic
theology with its sub-disciplines, were classified and transmitted into written format.
Likewise, most of the works of Aristotle were translated into Arabic with extensive
commentaries during that time period. Furthermore, elements of Neo-Platonism,
Hermestism, and other forms of Gnostic knowledge had found their ways in the Islamic
discourse before and during the Age of Documentation. The outcome of that historical
period was the emergence of the three epistemic traditions of al-Bayan, al-'Irfan and
al-Burhan. Each one of these traditions is a self-contained world view with a
distinctive cosmologicaL, theological, and political view. The history of the Islamic
discourse, al-Jabiri contends, has been the history of the conflict and reconciliation
between these three epistemological traditions. These three epistemic modes have
dominated the Arab-Islamic discourse from the time of their inception during the Age
of Documentation until the present day. Among these three epistemic traditions, the
tradition of al-Bayan is the most relevant to the interpretive approach of this study.
However, for the sake of clarity, I will give a brief discussion of the other two
traditions, that is, al- 'Irfan and al-Burhan.
The tradition of al- 'Irfan is associated with the esoteric (batani) sects of
Shi 'ism and the mystical tendencies within Sunni Islam. Within the world view of al-
'Irfan, the true knowledge or gnosis about God and the universe is achieved through
the process of spiritual exercises which aim at the union with God and the attainment of
148
enlightenment and individual salvation. The role of reason in al- 'Irfan is reduced to a
secondary importance. Also a common practice among the 'Irfanists is the tendency to
emphasize the inner and esoteric meaning of the divine texts of Islam through the
process of to 'wil which refers to the diverting of the exoteric and conventional meaning
of the text to its hidden and esoteric message. Al- 'Irfan consists mainly of the diffusion
of elements of the Neoplatonist cosmology, especially that of Platinus, and some of the
teachings of Hermes Trismegistos, which found their way into Islamic thought through
the translation into Arabic of some of the Greek works in theology, astronomy and
philosophy, which were found in cities like Alexandria and Harran.
157
Within the world
view of al-'Irfan, the esoteric (batani) political thought, with its emphasis on prophecy
and the notion of the infallible Imam (leader), had flourished.
The system of knowledge of al-Burhan refers to a world view where the
certain and reliable knowledge is attained by appealing to the categories of the
Aristotelian logic. Knowledge, within this tradition, is achieved by relying exclusively
on human reason and without the need for divine revelation. Such a tradition was best
articulated by Islamic philosophers like al-Kindi (185-252), al-Farabi (260-339), and
later Ibn Rushd (Averrose) (520-595). Even though these Muslim philosophers had
157
See al-Jabiri, Takwin. 140-141, 194-199, 200-213; and Bunvat al-'Aql al-'Arabi.
251-255. For more detailes about the legacy of Greece in the tradition of Al'Irfan, see
Ian Richard Netton, Muslim Neoplatonists: An Introduction to the Thought of the
Brethren of Purity (Ikhwan al-Safa) (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1982),
Chapts. 2,3; Fakhry, A History of Islamic Philosophy. 19-31.
149
modified Aristotelianism to serve their ideological and sectarian goals, they nonetheless
retained most of the elements of the Aristotelian world view.
158
. Islamic political
philosophy, which is best expressed by the works of Alfarabi, had developed within the
framework of the Aristotelian logic, that is, al-Burhan.
Our case study, Ahmad Ibn Taymiyah, belonged to the tradition of al-
Bayan. In fact, he had expressed a considerable hostihty to the advocates of both of
these two traditions, especially those of al- 'Irfan. So, in the following, the tradition of
al-Bayan will be examined in a more detailed fashion since it represents the frame of
reference of Ibn Taymiyah's views on the question of toleration.
The conception of al-Bayan defies any attempt to translate it into any
language other than Arabic. The reason for that seems to be related to the fact that the
concept of al-Bayan was a unique product of the Arab-Islamic cultural milieu. Unlike
the traditions of al-'Irfan and al-Burhan, the world view of al-Bayan was not
influenced, in its major premises at least, by the Greek philosophical traditions or by the
Eastern religions. The word al-Bayan comes from the root word B-A-N-A which
literally means, besides other meanings, to make something manifest, verbally clear or
perspicuous. However, as the Arab-Islamic culture evolved, the word al-Bayan
became more detached from its literal meaning and acquired a technical meaning which
designated a distinctive style of thinking within the Islamic discourse.
Al-Jabiri, Takwin. 230 - 247; and Bunyat, 383 - 84.
150
For al-Jabiri, the system of knowledge of al-Bayan refers to rules
governing the production of knowledge within the domain of the Arabic and Islamic
disciplines. In his analysis of the world view of al-Bayan, al-Jabiri draws the
distinction between "the conditions governing the production of the discourse" and
"the roles of interpreting the discourse."
159
The conditions of producing the discourse
are associated with Arabic sciences such as grammar, lexicography, and poetry. The
rules governing the interpretation of the discourse are associated with the religious
disciplines such as jurisprudence, principles of jurisprudence, speculative theology, the
Quranic sciences, and the Hadith (the Prophetic traditions) sciences and their
subdivisions. In spite of the differences in their contents, all of these disciplines,
whether those concerned with the conditions of the production of the discourse or
those concerned with the interpretation of the discourse, are unified by a single style of
thinking. These disciplines revolved around a given point of reference or text without
which the Bayanist thinker can not perform his or her intellectual task. The Bayanist
rationality, al-Jabiri contends, begins with a point of reference or principle directed
toward a point of reference.
160
The Arabic of the Bedouins of Arabia was the point of
reference for the scholars to determine what should be included in or excluded from th e
major Arabic dictionaries. The divine text is the starting point of the Islamic juridical
Al-Jabiri, Bunvat. 20-21.
Ibid, 113.
151
thought and theology. Al-Jabiri went into considerable length in his discussion of the
mechanisms controlling the production of knowledge within the epistemic tradition of
al-Bayan. But of direct relevance to this study are al-Jabiri's remarks on Islamic
jurisprudence as one manifestation of the tradition of al-Bayan.
Where al-Bayan represents the frame of reference of Islamic political
thought, jurisprudence is the field within which Islamic political thinking takes place.
Ibn Khaldun defined Islamic jurisprudence as "the knowledge of the classification of
the laws of God which concern the actions of responsible Muslims, as obligatory,
forbidden, recommendable, disliked, or permissible."
161
Such classification or
categorization of human acts is essentially textual. The Muslim jurists engage in
hermeneutical activities that are centered around the divine texts of Islam, the Quran,
and the traditions of the Prophet, in order to arrive at classifying all manifestations of
human behavior into these legal categories. The outcome of such hermeneutical
endeavor is called Hukum (PI. 'Ahkam) which means judgment, assertion, or
categorization. Such textual categories are intended to cover the whole spectrum of
human life in Islam. The language of politics in Islam derived its major vocabularies
exclusively from th e field o f Islamic jurisprudence. Because of its textual character and
its association with jurisprudence, this type of political tliinking in Islam has been called
juridical political theory ( al-Siyasah al-Shar'iyah). Such a designation has been
Ibn Khaldun, HI: 3.
152
intended to distinguish this form of political discourse from Islamic political philosophy
which is founded on the Aristotelian world view and the esoteric political theory that is
derived from th e tradition of al- 'Irfan.
While Islamic jurisprudence is the field of Islamic political thought, its
textual character is expressed in the field of the principles of jurisprudence. The
principles of jurisprudence, sometimes called theoretical jurisprudence, is concerned
with methodological and epistemological postulates according to which the Muslim
jurists conduct their hermeneutical task of interpreting the divine texts of Islam. Ibn
Khaldun defines the principles of jurisprudence as the intellectual activity that "is
concerned with the evidence of the religious law from which the laws of legal
obligations of the Muslims are derived."
162
So, where jurisprudence is concerned with
the classification and the articulation of these categorizations of human actions, the
principles of jurisprudence are concerned with sources of these categorizations and
norms and rules governing the process of deriving them from thei r textual origins. It is
within the domain of the principles of jurisprudence that the interpreter of the history
of Islamic political ideas can recover their meaning and explain their structure.
In agreement with Joseph Schacht and I. Goldziher, al-Jabiri considers the
Muslim jurist al-Shafi'i (767-820) to be the founder the principles of jurisprudence as
an independent of field o f study. Indeed, he calls al-Shafi'i the great legislator of the
Ibn Khaldun, m : 23.
153
Arab mind, and insists that al-Shafi 7 's world view and style of thinking extended
beyond the field o f the principles of jurisprudenc e to include other disciplines within al-
Bayan tradition such as Arabic and speculative theology.
163
For that reason, al-Jabiri
relies heavily on al-Shafi 7 's insights and cites him extensively in his analysis of al-
Bayan tradition. al-Shafi 7 was the first Muslim scholar who elevated the term of al-
Bayan from its literal meaning to a concept referring to a totality of an epistemic
tradition and a peculiar style of thinking. For al-Shafi 7, al-Bayan is associated with
the branches of knowledge derived from or associated with the interpretation of the
divine texts of Islam.
164
Al-Shafi'i's primary achievement was his systemization of
methods and procedures of interpreting the different meanings of the Islamic revelation.
He had instituted the major rules and norms governing the production of judicial
knowledge within the tradition of al-Bayan.
In his treatise on the principles of jurisprudence, al-Risalah (an epistle or a
letter), al-Shafi 7 divided Islamic revelation into four categories. The first is what God
'lias declared to His creatures by texts [in the Quran],"
165
which are precise and require
no interpretation. The second "consists of [those duties] the obUgation of which He
Al-Jabiri. Takwin. 105-106.
See Khadduri, Islamic Jurisprudence. 67.
Ibid, 68.
154
established in his Book, but the modes of which He made clear by the tongue of His
prophet."
166
The third category "consists of that which the Apostle of God established
by example or exhortation, but in regard to which there is no precisely defined rule
from God."
167
The fourth and last category of Islamic revelation consists of "what God
commanded His creatures to seek through ijtihad (personal reasoning)."
168
Based on
this categorization of the divine revelation according to their degrees of preciseness, al-
Shqfi'i identified four sources of judicial knowledge in Islam. The Quran and the
Sunnah (the sayings and actions attributed to the prophet) represent the first and the
second source. The third source of knowledge in jurisprudence is 'Ijma' (the
consensus of the Muslim jurists on a certain legal matter). The fourth source is qiyas
(the use of analogical reasoning to textually categorize an event or action to which
there is no textual reference in the Quran or Sunnah)}
69
But as al-Jabiri observes,
these four sources could be conceptually reduced to two sources: the text (Quran and
Sunnah) and the analogical reasoning which includes the qiyas and consensus
{ijma')}
10
These sources represent the epistemological universe within which the
Muslim jurists carry out their discourse.
166
Ibid.
167
Ibid.
168
Ibid.
169
Ibid.
170
Al-Jabiri, Bunyat, 23.
155
These sources of juridical knowledge are ordered in a hierarchical fashion.
The jurist is expected to form his juridical opinion by moving from the highest source,
the Quran, then to Sunnah and consensus to the lowest source, qiyas or analogy. This
movement from the highest to the lowest source correspond to different types of
judicial knowledge which varies from certain to doubtful. Generally, the Muslim jurist
is required to derive his categorizations from the Quran and Sunnah by engaging in the
hermeneutical analysis of these texts to discover their explicit and implicit meanings.
Considering the fact that the divine texts of Islam are linguistic entities, the jurists'
knowledge of Arabic, especially its grammatical rules, are essential for recovering the
meanings of these divine texts. Such reliance on Arabic explains the intimate
connection between the Arabic language and Islamic juridical and theological thought
in general.
Since the text-based categorizations are limited and events are endless,
Muslim jurists engage in the process of analogical reasoning (qiyas) to textually
categorize the events that are not categorized in the original source (Quran and
Sunnah). As an axiom in Islamic juridical discourse, the Quran, which is sometimes
called the Book, contains all answers and guidance for the problems that the Muslims
may encounter in their every day lives.
171
However, in reality the Muslim jurists
171
For instance, al-Shafi'i in the introduction of his treatise, al-Risalah, cited the
Quranic verse "And we have sent down to thee the Book as a clarification for
156
encounter new cases concerning social interactions or worships that are not referred to
or categorized in the Quran, Sunnah, or the consensus (Ijma'). Through the process of
analogy, these jurists would extend the text-based categorization, or the principle case
('asl), to the novel case (far'), because both cases share the same 'illah (rationale or
reason behind the making of the text-based categorization). In other words, the
outcome of the analogical reasoning is the inclusion of the novel case within the same
textual category of the principle case that shares with it a common rationale. The vast
majority of legal opinions in Islam have been formed according to this method of
thinking, that is, analogy.
It must be emphasized, however, that the process of analogical reasoning
takes place within the limits of text and not outside it. Al-Jabiri contends that analogy
is not equivalent to logical deduction. Rather, it is nothing more than extending or
deriving the rule concerning the novel case from the text-based rule of the principle
case.
172
Therefore, for al-Jabiri, "the text is the primary authoritative reference of the
Arab mind and its mechanisms."
173
That is what al-Jabiri has in mind when he asserts
that rationality within al-Bayan tradition is essentially textual, and the style of tliinking
within that tradition starts with a text, is directed by a text, and ends with a text. And
everything and as a guidance and mercy and good tidings to the Muslims." Quran, 16:
89. See Khadduri, 66.
172
Al-Jabiri, Bunvat. 113-114.
173
Al-Jabiri, Takwin. 105.
157
in the context of this study, this is what is meant by the concept of the textual frame o f
reference of Islam political thought.
Hence, Islamic political theory paradigmatically belongs to the tradition of
al-Bayan; its contents are those of Islamic jurisprudence, and it has the style of the
principles of jurisprudence. The poUtical theorists of Islam constructed their poUtical
argument within the textual universe of al-Bayan, and derived its major concepts from
Islamic jurisprudence, and advanced it according to the theological and methodological
axioms of the principles of jurisprudence. This textual frame of reference had
performed an authoritative role in limiting the poUtical argument in Islam in respect to
its substance and style. Such textual style of thinking has given rise to a pecuUar
poUtical thought that is essentially ahistorical. What is meant by ahistorical is that the
textual categories of Islamic jurisprudence assume priority over the historical mUieu as
the primary criterion of determining the contents of Islamic poUtical thought. Hence,
the primacy of the textual categories in Islamic poUtical thought gave it a permanent
structure that has remained generaUy the same throughout history. This is not to
suggest, however, that these thinkers have carried out their inteUectual activities
exclusively within the realm of the divine texts with total detachment from their
historical miUeu. Rather, the Muslim poUtical theorists tended to abstract the poUtical
questions that they encountered from their concrete historical settings by classifying
them as textual categories. In other words, the historical events cannot be said to have
158
significance, meaning, or relevance for the Islamic political thinker if he cannot
categorize them within his textual frame of reference.
There are numerous examples of how the contents of Islamic political
thought is determined by its textual frame of reference. I should limit my analysis to
one example: the question of leadership {caliphate) in Islamic political discourse. One
of the major political doctrines in Islam is the notion of one single caliph (leader,
vicegerent) as the head of one united Muslim community (Ummah). This notion of the
caliphate has always been reflected in the writings of the Muslim political thinkers
within al-Bayan tradition. However, the historical reahties show that the land of Islam
and the Muslim community have been divided among different rulers who were
independent of one another. Each ruler was actually performing all the duties of what
the Muslim ruler was theoretically supposed to perform, especially the enforcement of
the Islamic law (Shah'ah). But the occurrence of the multiplicity of these sovereign
rulers in Islamic history has rarely been considered in the major works of Islamic
political theory. When the possibility of having more than one Muslim ruler during the
same time period was considered by these thinkers, it was treated as a secondary issue.
The great Muslim political thinker Abu al-Hasan al-Mawardi (974-1058) asserted that
it is strictly prohibited to have two Imams (leaders) of the Muslim community at the
same time.
m
To bridge the gap between theory and reality, and out of necessity, al-
Abu al-Hassan al-Mawardi, Al-Ahkam al-Sultaniyah wa al-wilayat al-Diniyah
(Cairo: Matba'at Mustafa al-Halabi, 1973), 9.
159
Mawardi, made the exception to recognize the presence of more than one sovereign
ruler during his time, but reserved the title of caliph or Iman to one ruler only and gave
the other rulers other titles, such as sultan or amir.
175
However, throughout his
political treatise, Mawardi had remained committed to the notion of one single Muslim
community (Ummah) under the leadership of one single caliph. Thus, while Mawardi
and other major Islamic political theorists admitted that sultans or amirs were actually
performing the same functions of the caliph, they were not able to include them within
the category of caliph because their textual frame of reference did not permit the
existence of more than one caliph and assumed the existence of only one Muslim
community that was politically and doctrinally unified. Had these thinkers attempted to
legitimize the existence of more than one caliph at a given time period, they would have
violated one of the major components of their frame of reference. In other words, the
notion of multiple cahphs ruling simultaneously cannot be textually categorized or
incorporated in Islamic political thought.
Authority of the Text and the Limits of Religious Toleration
in Islamic Political Thought
Like other political ideas in Islam, the notion of religious toleration was
shaped and limited by the textual frame of reference of the Islamic political discourse.
Mawardi admitted that such recognition of more than one Muslim ruler during the
same time period, even if the the rulers were not considered imams, was a deviation
from the norms of Islamic political theory. See Mawardi, 34.
160
The response of the Muslim political thinker to the question of religious dissent was
limited by and derived from the methodological and epistemological assumptions of
Islamic jurisprudence. As I mentioned in chapter one, reUgious dissent in Islam had
manifested itself in two forms. One form of reUgious dissent was expressed in the
differences between Muslims and the followers of other reUgions, who were usuahy
called unbeUevers (kuffar). The other form of reUgious dissent was the sectarian
divisions within the realm of Islam. The Muslim poUtical theorists had dealt with these
two forms of reUgious dissent within the textual framework of their discourse. It is
these thinkers' reUance on the text categories and methods of Islamic jurisprudence that
explains the structure of their response to the problem of reUgious diversity and
variations within such response.
The Islamic poUtical thinkers' advocacy of tolerating the People of the
Book was based on and limited by the textual frame o f reference of their thinking. Any
argument for granting this reUgious group limited toleration usually starts with the
Quranic injunction that reads as foUows:
Fight those who beUeve not in AUah nor the Last Day, nor hold
that forbidden which hath been forbidden by AUah and His
Messenger, nor acknowledge the ReUgion of the Truth, from
among the People of the Book, until they pay the jizya [poU-
tax] with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.
176
Quran: 9: 29.
161
Tolerating People of the Book as a defensible moral principle in Islamic
political thought was exclusively based on this Quranic verse. While this divine
command considers the People of the Book as unbelievers, the Muslim rulers must not
coerce them to embrace Islam provided that they pay the poll tax (jizyah). In the
original intent of the Quranic injunction, the People of the Book included mainly the
Christians and Jews. But later, the Muslim jurists who relied on some sayings and
actions attributed to the Prophet, extended the concept to include any reUgious group
with a scripture or semi-scripture. So, in addition to the Christians and the Jews, other
reUgious groups like the Zoroastrians, Samaritans, and Sabians were given the status of
People of the Book.
177
The previously mentioned Quranic text and the traditions of the Prophet
were confined only to the principle of providing the scripturaries with the right of
worship and physical and economic security in exchange for paying a poU tax (jizyah).
However, later Muslim jurists, because of their reUance on less authoritative texts,
advocated placing more restrictions on the scripturaries under Islamic rule. The major
source of such restrictions was a text caUed the Covenant of 'Umar which consisted of
a letter that was written by the Christians of Syria to the second Muslim caUph, 'Umar
Ibn al-Khattab (d. 644), after the Arab armies conquered their land. In that document,
For more detaUs on the scope of the concept of the People of the Book, see Majid
Khadduri, War and Peace in the Law of Islam (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press,
1955) 176-177.
162
the Christians of Syria had requested the safety of their bodies and the security of then-
property and places of worship. In exchange for having their request granted, they
volunteered to impose certain restrictions on themselves, which included the wearing of
clothes that distinguished them from the Muslim population, refraining from displaying
their religious symbols, not repairing their old churches or constructing new ones, in
addition to other economic and social restrictions. Although this document's relation
to the caliph 'Umar was historically questionable, the majority of the Muslim jurists
frequently appealed to it as a major source of rationalizing the imposing of more legal,
social and economic disabilities on the scripturaries, which practically reduced them to
second-class citizens with rather unpleasant living conditions.
178
The Muslim jurists
expressed some disagreements about the purpose and the amount of the poll tax, the
method of its collection, the definition of the People of the Book, and what kinds of
restrictions the Muslim ruler should place on them. However, despite such
disagreements, the Islamic thinkers had never questioned the principle of tolerating the
People of the Book and had never advocated coercing them to convert to Islam,
regardless of the requirements of their historical environment. Being aware of the
For a competent summary of the development of the Muslim jurists' views on the
status of the People of the Book in the Islamic state, see Khadduri, War and Peace,
chapter XVII. Also, see Lewis, The Jews of Islam, chapter 1. The Covenant of'Umar
and its historical authenticity is examined in the above mentioned works of Khadduri
and Lewis, but the most extensive study of it was conducted by A.S. Tritton, The
Caliphs and Their Non-Muslim Subjects: A Critical Study of the Covenant of 'Umar
(1930; reprint, London: Frank Cass and Company Ltd., 1970).
163
explicit Quranic and the Prophetic texts that prohibited the Muslims from persecuting
the scripturaries, the most that the Muslim jurists could do was to appeal to some other
secondary texts, such as the Covenant of 'Umar, to impose more legal and economic
disabilities on them, which exposed these people to an indirect form of persecution.
The main point of the preceding discussion is that the Muslim thinkers' argument for
tolerating the People of the Book as religious dissenters was mainly derived and limited
by the textual frame o f reference of their discourse.
The Islamic thinkers' support of religious persecution for the Pagans, was
caused by the same textual frame o f reference that dictated their notion of tolerating the
scripturaries. Within the textualist universe of the Islamic political thinkers, the human
race is divided into two exclusive categories: the believers (Muslims) and the non-
believers (followers of other reUgions). The category of the non-believers was then
subdivided into two groups: the People of the Book and the Pagans.
179
Religious
toleration was limited to the individuals who were classified as scripturaries but was
never extended to those who followed one of the Paganistic reUgions. The reason for
not extending reUgious toleration to the Pagans was not historical but textual.
Advocating the persecution of the Pagans by the Islamic thinkers was a logical
outcome of the textual style of their discourse. As in the case of tolerating the
scripturaries, the idea of coercing the Pagans to convert to Islam is based on a number
A classic statement of such classifications was made by al-Shafi'i, see Khadduri,
Islamic Jurisprudence. 58-62.
164
of Quranic injunctions, the most explicit of which is the Verse of the Sword. This
Quranic injunction reads "But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay
the Pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for
them in every stratagem (of war)..."
180
This verse was referring primarily to the Arab polytheists, who were the
traditional enemies of the Prophet. Where the scripturaries were asked to choose
between three options: conversion to Islam, paying poll tax, or death; the Pagans were
forced to choose between Islam and the sword. It was common among the Muslim
thinkers, when they were commenting on the Quranic verse concerning the People of
the Book, to explicitly exclude the Arab polytheists from that category. Considering
the textual and ahistorical character of Islamic discourse, the Pagan as a rehgious
category had remained a living issue for the Muslim jurists and theologians, despite the
fact that Arab Polytheism had vanished completely before the death of the Prophet.
Since the text, not the historical circumstances, was the criterion for significance and
relevance for the Islamic theorists, then it should be expected that the question of
Polytheism remained an issue in Islamic thinking.
The question of why the Islamic political thinkers advocated the
persecution of the Muslim heretics is somewhat problematic. The historian of political
ideas cannot find th e explicit Quranic or Prophetic texts that required the Muslim rulers
Quran, 9: 5.
165
to persecute or tolerate religious dissenters within the Islamic faith. The reason for the
lack of such explicit texts was primarily historical. The Islamic polity had maintained
its political and doctrinal unity until the death of the Prophet. Sectarian divisions did
not occur until the assassination of the third caliph, 'Uthman, in 656. Therefore, since
the Muslim community was doctrinally united during the lifetime of the Prophet, there
was no revelation (text) governing divisions within Islam itself. The only manifestation
of religious dissent within Islam during the lifetime of the Prophet was the apostasy of
some individuals who left Islam to return to their previous religions. That is why there
is a Quranic reference to apostasy in which God promises those who abandoned Islam
eternal condemnation, but without a specific worldly punishment. The notion of
putting the Muslim Apostate to death was justified by a number of traditions attributed
to the Prophet and not by an explicit Quranic text. Other than apostasy, one cannot
find an explicit Quranic or Prophetic text that defines religious dissent in Islam or
determines the proper course of action toward Muslim heretics. The only relevant
texts in such regards are some Quranic verses that warn believers about the hazardous
effects of factionalism and some Prophetic traditions condemning innovations in
religion in general. Considering that the Quranic texts about tolerating the scripturaries
and coercing the Pagans were originally limited to these groups, the Muslim thinkers
were prevented from extending the scope of these texts, through the process of
analogy, to justify either persecuting or tolerating religious heterodoxy within Islam
166
Then, if there was no explicit textual reference in the world view of Islamic
political theory to the nature of heresy or the proper treatment of individual heretics,
what would be the explanation for the Muslim thinkers' advocacy of persecution for
the Muslim heretics? Putting the question differently, why was not religious toleration
considered by these thinkers as a remedy for religious dissent in Islam? Definitely, the
explanation for this cannot be located in the historical milieu of Islamic political theory.
But rather, the answer is found in the textual universe within which the Islamic political
thinkers had responded to the question of sectarian diversity in Islam. Where the
relationship between the Muslim thinker's defense of toleration for the scripturaries and
persecution for the Pagans and their textual frame of reference was explicit and direct,
in the context of their response to heterodoxy within Islam such relationship was quite
implicit and indirect. In my discussion of the idea of religious toleration in European
political thought, I abstracted the three dimensions of the idea of religious toleration,
epistemological, moral, and political, which represented the argument for toleration in
its most general form. It was also suggested that the defense of the idea of religious
toleration was historically and, in most instances, conceptually associated with
skepticism, ethical relativism, and secularism These three ideas represented the main
components of the frame o f reference that gave the argument for religious toleration its
sense of significance and logical coherence. The Islamic political thinkers approached
the question of religious dissent with a world view that was inherently antagonistic to
the idea of religious diversity. The textual frame of reference from which the Islamic
167
political theorists derived their major moral and political concepts consisted of a set of
epistemological and theological assumptions which made defending the principle of
religious toleration logically impossible. Where the frame of reference of religious
toleration in European thought was founded on skepticism, relativism and secularism,
the Muslim thinkers approached the problem of religious dissent within Islam with
epistemological certainty about their theological claims, an absolutist and inclusive
conception of the criteria of morality, and a theocratic conception of the functions of
the Islam state.
At the epistemological level, the Islamic political thinkers had always
expressed their unquestionable certainty about their theological claims. In the Islamic
discourse, religious truth is perceived as universal, unique, exclusive, and above all,
knowable. The truth, for Muslim political theorists, was revealed by God to his
messenger, Muhammad, and it is embodied in the divine texts of Islam, the Quran and
the traditions of the Prophet. The Muslim thinkers' conception of the religious truth as
divinely revealed and having a linguistic form has two epistemological implications.
First, the truth has an objective existence and it is independent of its holder, that is, the
believing Muslim Second, such religious truth, because of its embodiment in linguistic
texts, is accessible or knowable through reading the divine texts of Islam. But
considering the fact that these texts were linguistic entities, there was always the
possibility that the same Quranic or Prophetic text could yield two conflicting meanings
concerning the same theological issue. Despite the Muslim thinkers' awareness of a
168
such possibility, they always insisted on the doctrine of one correct interpretation of the
Word of God. The reason for that was related to the Islamic belief that theological
claims concerning the articles of the Islamic faith must be based on certainty since these
articles were considered essential to the attainment of eternal salvation. With such a
conception of the nature and the source of rehgious truth, the existence of multiple
rehgious truths is conceptually impossible in the Islamic discourse. Consequently, a
doctrine that was not in agreement with what a given thinker believes to be the truth
was condemned as heresy. This exclusive conception of rehgious truth was best
expressed by an oral tradition attributed to the Prophet who was reported as saying, "
'Lo, the Banu Isra'il are divided into 71 sects, and lo my people will be divided into 72
sects, all of them destined to hell fire except one, and these are the true believers."
181
Other versions of the tradition were also given. This tradition, which later became
known as the tradition of division (hadith al-Iftiraq), became a standard starting point
for most of the Muslim heresiographers.
182
The ways in which the Muslim thinkers had responded to the phenomenon
of diversity in Islamic theology and jurisprudence can be used as good illustrations of
181
Cited in al-Baghdadi, 22.
182
Besides al-Baghdadi, other Muslim heresiographers had cited the tradition of
divisions. See 'Abi Muhammad al-Yamani. 'Aqa'id al-Thalath wa al-Sab
c
in Firqh (The
Dogmas of the Seventy-Three sects') 2 vols. (al-Madina al-Munawarah: Maktabt al-
'Ulum wa al-Hikm, 1994) 1:3.
169
how these thinkers' perception of the religious truth had determined their response to
the problem of sectarian factionalism in Islam. Islamic jurisprudence had experienced
the same diversity, if not with more intensity, that the field of Islamic theology had.
However, the existence of diverse and conflicting views within Islamic jurisprudence
had never been a source of any moral or religious objection by the Muslim thinkers.
Not only that, the Islamic thinkers did not find such multiplicity of legal opinions
morally objectionable; they actually legitimized it by creating two sub-fields within the
principles of jurisprudence, the field of the controversial questions and the field of
dialectics, which dealt directly with the question of diversity in Islamic legal thought
and how it should be regulated
183
. However, differences concerning theological
matters were always considered morally and religiously undesirable by these thinkers
who had the tendency to label their sectarian opponents as heretics, zandiqs, or even
unbelievers. The reason for the Muslim thinkers' tolerance for the diversity of legal
opinions and their intolerance for theological diversity could be explained in reference
to the different epistemological assumptions underlying both intellectual activities.
Even though both fields, jurisprudence and theology, were textual discourse and
belonged paradigmatically to the tradition of al-Bayan, the categorizations of
jurisprudence, at least the ones that were not directly derived from the divine texts
which represent the majority of legal opinions in Islam, were distinguished from the
theological statements by their reliance on doubt (zanri) as an epistemological
See Ibn Khaldun, IH : 30-33.
170
assumption. By contrast, the theological assertions in Islam were based on
epistemological certainty iyaqin). That is why the sectarian differences in Islam were
defined according to theological not juridical differences. Abd al-Qahir al-Baghdadi (d.
1037), the author of an outstanding work on the Islamic heresiographical tradition, was
quick in pointing out that the Piophetic tradition about the division of the Muslim
community into 72 sects was a reference to theological not to legal divisions. He
wrote:
The Prophet in speaking of the divisions that were to be
condemned and the members of which were destined for hell-
fire, did not mean the various legal schools, who, though they
disagreed as to the derivative Institutes of law, agreed
concerning the fundamentals of religion . . . [but he], in
mentioning the sects condemned, had in mind only those
holders of erring opinions who differ from the sect which will
be saved, in such matters as ethics and the unity (of God),
promises and threats (regarding future life), predestination and
free will etc...
184
The Muslim thinkers' exclusive perception of rehgious truth was reinforced
by several Quranic and Prophetic texts that prohibited Muslims from religious
factionalism and emphasized doctrinal unity and cohesion. While the existence of
diversity and factionalism in rehgious matters are denied in the Quran, they are always
considered highly objectionable and, in some instances, strictly prohibited. Consider
for instance, the following Quranic verse:
Al-Bagdadi, 22-23.
171
Mankind was one single notion, and God sent messengers with
glad tidings and warnings; and with them He sent the Book in
truth, to judge between people in matters wherein they
differed; but the People of the Book, after the clear Signs came
to them, did not differ among themselves, except through
selfish contumacy. God by His grace guided the behevers to
the Truth, concerning that wherein they differed.
185
Other Quranic texts are explicit divine commands to the adherents of Islam
to maintain the doctrinal unity of their community and to refrain from creating rehgjous
divisions among themselves. One Quranic text, for example, reads, "that ye should
remain steadfast in religion, and make no divisions therein."
186
In another Quranic
text, the behevers are ordered to "hold fast, all together, by the rope which God
(stretches out for you) and be not divided among yourselves."
187
Other Quranic
injunctions consist of divine orders to the Muslims to avoid factionalism in religion. In
one Quranic text, the behevers are asked to "be not like those who are divided amongst
themselves and fall into disputations after receiving clear signs: For them is a dreadful
penalty."
188
Those Quranic texts, whether they are prohibiting factionalism in religion
or commanding doctrinal unity, are consistent with the Islamic theorists' exclusive and
185
Quran, 2:213.
186
Quran, 42:13.
187
Quran, 3:103.
Quran, 3:105.
172
certain perception of religious truth. What is more significant is the decisive role that
those texts have played in making the Muslim thinkers move in the direction of
religious persecution, not toleration, as a remedy for sectarian diversity in Islam. As I
mentioned in the discussion of the frame of reference of the notion of reUgious
toleration, the first step in justifying reUgious toleration would be to consider the
possibiUty of error in both sides of the theological dispute, or the possibiUty of having
multiple reUgious claims with equal epistemological status. For the MusUm thinkers to
consider the first possibiUty would be to question the foundations of their faith by
making error epistemologicaUy equal to truth. And to consider the second possibiUty
would be, by impUcation, to advocate the doctrinal divisiveness within the Islamic faith
and to violate the expUcit divine commands against factionaUsm among the behevers.
However, moving in the opposite direction, that is, advocating reUgious persecution,
was not only desirable from the theological standpoint but also consistent with the
epistemological assumptions of the frame of reference of Islamic pohtical thought.
It must be emphasized here that the role of these Quranic texts and the
MusUm thinkers' certainty in rehgion in the rise of the notion of reUgious persecution in
Islam is conditioned by the absence of the expUcit text dealing with the issue of
reUgious dissent within Islam Because of the lack of Quranic or Prophetic texts
concerning the treatment of heterodoxy in Islam, the MusUm thinkers, when they were
confronted with the problem of reUgious dissent, chose the option of persecution in
order to avoid logical inconsistencies between the idea of reUgious toleration and their
173
exclusive conception of the religious truth and the Quranic texts on religious
factionalism. However, had there been a Quranic or Prophetic text requiring the
Muslim rulers to tolerate Muslim religious dissenters, the Islamic thinkers would have
advocated toleration for Muslim heretics without being concerned with the problem of
consistency. The reason for this is that, in the frame of reference of Islamic thinking,
the authority of the text takes priority over other conceptual and logical considerations.
For instance, the certainty of the Muslim thinkers of their religious convictions did not
prevent them from tolerating the People of the Book even though these thinkers
considered the Scripturaries' religious claims to be erroneous and objectionable.
The Muslim thinkers' conception of the criteria and scope of morality was
another factor that prevented them from considering toleration for religious dissent
within Islam The same frame of reference that gave rise to the idea of the universal
and exclusive religious truth also gave rise to a moral system that was absolutist in
criteria and inclusive in scope. The most relevant aspect of the Islamic morality to the
question of toleration was the inclusion of doctrinal errors in the category of morally
objectionable acts. In the textual frame of reference of Islamic political thought, the
distinction between what is morally undesirable and what is legally prohibited was very
blurred. The reason for this inclusive perception of the scope of morality is that the
Islamic political theorists' moral views were based on the premise that Islam " is a
comprehensive scheme of human behavior which derives from the one ultimate
authority of the will of Allah; so that the dividing line between law and morality is by
174
no means so clearly drawn."
189
Therefore, within the moral outlook of the Muslim
political theorists, the religious views of the individual had moral relevance.
Consequently, the advocacy of religious views that were not consistent with what was
considered the true interpretation of the Word of God, would be viewed as a sign or
moral wickedness and defective character.
The tendency of the Muslim thinkers to include doctrinal errors within the
domain of morality were conceptually related to their organic conception of the Muslim
community. In Islamic political thought, community (Ummah) was perceived as an
organic whole which consisted of individuals connected or separated from one another
by their religious affiliations. According to the Islamic world view, the primary
purpose for the creation of humankind is to worship God. It is true that the behevers
are expected to perform worldly activities other than the rituals of worship. But these
worldly activities were included within and regulated by the divine laws of Islam.
Because the criteria of membership in the Islamic community was exclusively religious,
the rights, duties, rewards, and punishments of each member were determined in
accordance with his or her religious orientation. Therefore, the individual had no
existence outside of the Muslim community, and because of being organically
connected with the rest of the Muslim Ummah, he or she had no moral autonomy.
Noel J. Coulson, Conflicts and Tensions in Islamic Jurisprudence (Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press, 1969),79.
175
Thus, for the Muslim thinkers to make errors in doctrinal matters is morally
irrelevant, the distinction between the domain of purely theological matters and that of
the worldly affairs had to be made. In other words, the distinction had to be drawn
between the theological views and acts of worship that were reflections of the inner
conscience of the individual and worldly acts that existed outside the spiritual realm.
But considering that such distinction never existed in the frame of reference of Islamic
political thought, the differentiation between acts or views that posed a threat to the
public peace and those that did not, was not conceptually possible without radically
altering the world view of Islam Since the collective identity of the Muslims was
founded exclusively on religion, then the heterodox views of any member the Muslim
'Ummah would have social consequences and become morally relevant. And what
could be more ethically relevant than doctrinal views that not only interfered with the
salvation of other Muslims but also undermined the fabric of the Muslim society as a
whole.
However, it was the Islamic political thinkers' conception of the nature and
function of the political authority that made defending toleration of heterodoxy within
Islam an extremely difficult task. Islam is not only a revealed truth but also is a
revealed law. What makes the Islamic state Islamic is not its formal structure, but its
function as an enforcer of the codes of Islamic law. While the Muslim political thinkers
expressed conflicting views about the form of the Islamic government and how the
rulers should be selected, they were unanimous about the idea that the primary function
176
of the Muslim ruler was the enforcement of the Islamic law. Because of the inclusive
and totalitarian character of the Shari'ah law, the scope of the function of the Muslim
ruler was extended to include all aspects of Muslim life. The Islamic law, as Coulson
noticed, is
a totalitarian and comprehensive code of conduct covering
every aspect of human life and regulating the individual's
relations with God, with the state, with his neighbor, and with
his own conscience on the same single basis of the dictates of
the divine command. Thus, any human activity, any social
institution in Islam has in the final analysis a religious
•c 190
significance
Thus, the Islamic political theorists had formulated the totalitarian polity in
which the ruler had the religious right and duty to regulate all aspects of life of the
Muslim community, from the sexual conduct of the individual Muslim to taxation and
waging war. Among the primary functions of the Islamic polity was the preservation of
the purity and integrity of the Islamic faith from external and internal threats. While
there were an explicit Quranic and Prophetic texts requiring the believers to protect
Islam from external threats in form of the doctrine of Jihad, the Islamic political
thinkers had added the punishment of heresy, which they considered a manifestation of
an internal threat to Islam, to the functions of the Muslim ruler. Al- Mawardi, for
instance, contended that " imamat is established to replace prophecy in the defense of
Coulson, 81.
177
the faith [my emphasis] and the administration of the world."
191
Considering the
Muslim thinkers' notions of religious faith as the ultimate foundation of the community
and the ruler as the guardian of faith, heterodoxy in Islam became not only morally
objectionable but a crime against the Islamic state.
The law of apostasy was the most relevant issue to question of the state
and religious diversity in Islam There was a consensus among the Muslim thinkers,
regardless of their legal or sectarian affiliations, on putting the Muslim Apostate to
death, though they differed on whether or not the Apostate should be provided with the
opportunity to repent. The textual justification of this notion was derived not from the
Quran, which condemned apostasy but never prescribed a worldly punishment for it,
but from some Prophetic traditions that appeared after Muhammed's death. The most
frequently cited Prophetic oral tradition concerning the execution of the Apostate was
that transmitted by 'Abdallah Ibn 'Abbas, a cousin and a companion of the Prophet.
Ibn 'Abbas reported that he heard the Prophet saying "He that changes his religion
must be put to death."
192
Cited in Erwin I. J. Rosenthal, Political Thought in Medieval Islam : An
Introductory Outline ( Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1958), 28.
192
This oral tradition of the Prophet was authenticized by and cited in Abu Abdallah al-
Bukhari, Sahih al-Bukhari (Beruit: Dar al-Jil, n.d), 9:19, and Abu 'Isa Muhammad al-
TirmithL Sahih al-Tirmithi (Beirut: Dar al-Kitab al-'Arabi, n.d), 6:243.
178
It was apparent from the wordings and the occasions of these Quranic and
Prophetic texts that the concept of apostasy was confined to the event of a Muslim
abandoning the Islamic faith and converting to any religion or to no religion at all. So,
the term apostasy meant a subjective process in which the individual believer
intentionally and voluntarily decided to reject Islam and embrace another religion. But
later generations of Muslim jurists transformed the notion of apostasy into an objective
concept by extending it to include some heterodox views or actions. Therefore, the
Muslim could become an Apostate by advocating certain views that could be
interpreted as questioning one of God's attributes, or claiming prophecy, or insulting
the Prophet, or making any utterance that would indicate a disbelief. Furthermore, a
Muslim may be considered an Apostate if he or she performed certain acts such as
throwing a copy of the holy Quran, or part of it, in a dirty place or bowing to a person
or an idol.
193
Consequently, any Muslim could be classified as an Apostate if he or she
expressed certain religious views that were considered by others to be expressions of
disbelief, even if he or she never intended to leave Islam and sincerely believed that
The views and the actions that may lead the Muslim to apostasy are listed in the
majority of works in Islamic jurisprudence. See example, Muhammad Ibn Muflih, al-
Frul (Cairo: Dar Masr Liltiba'ah, 1967), 6:164, 168; 'Ala al-Din al-Samarqardi,
Tuhfat al-Fuqaha (Demascus: Matba'at Jami'at Dimashiq, 1959) 3:530; 'Ali Suliman
al-Mardadi, Al-'Insaf (n.p: n.p., n.d), 10:326-353; Abi Yahya Zakarya al-Shafi',
Sharh Rudh Al-Talib (n.p: al-Maktabah al-'Islamiyah, n.d) 4:116-125, Muaffq al-Din
Ibn Qudamah, Al-kafi (Beruit: al-Maktb al-'Islami, 1979) 4:156-157; and Al-Muqni
c
(Riyadh: al-Mu'ssasah al-Sa'diyah, n.d.) 4:152-161. For a comprehensive survey of
the Muslim jurists' views on apostasy and its requirements, see Nu'man al-Samra'i,
Ahkam al-Murtd fi al-'Islam (Riyadh: Daral-'ulum, 1983).
179
such views were within the realm of the Islamic faith. While heresy and apostasy were
always considered two separate categories in Islamic jurisprudence, the objectivization
of the concept of apostasy by extending its scope beyond the simple abandonment of
Islam had certainly made such distinction rather blurred. The result of this broader
definition of apostasy was the inclusion of some traditionally heretical views within the
domain of apostasy and the exposure of the holders of these views to varying forms of
religious persecution by the Muslim rulers, which could include the death penalty.
Thus, in a belief system where the spiritual and political realms are so
intertwined, any attempt to justify the removal of the state from religious disputes
would be intellectually fruitless. To view the state as the enforcer of the law of God
and to assign the ruler the duty of the guardian of faith was, by definition, to make
religious persecution inevitable. Such a tendency to persecute religious dissenters
became reinforced by Muslim thinkers' conception of apostasy, which had exposed
heretics to the most severe form of religious persecution, that is, the death penalty. For
a Muslim thinker to justify the state's neutrality in religion he or she would have to
radically alter the Islamic conception of the state and the contents of the Islamic law,
which considering the divine origins of these ideas, was not a possible task.
The main point of this section is to show how the textual frame of
reference of Islamic political thinking had determined the scope and limits of the notion
of religious toleration in that tradition. Hence, the form and substance of the Islamic
political theorists' response to religious diversity was a reflection of their frame of
180
reference and not of their historical milieu. The textual frame of reference of Islamic
political theory had authoritatively dictated the toleration of the People of the Book
and the persecution of the Pagans. The same textual world view contained some
epistemological, moral, and political assertions that prevented the Islamic political
theorists from considering toleration as a solution to the problem of religious dissent in
Islam. But what is more significant for this dissertation is that the textual frame of
reference of the Islamic political theorists gave their ideas, including the idea of
toleration, an ahistorical character. When these theorists were confronted with the
event of religious diversity, they responded to it through their textual categories and
assumptions. The Islamic political thinkers, like all political theorists, were concerned
with the logical consistency and internal coherence of their political argument. Hence,
even if these thinker were well aware of the historical necessity of either coercing the
People of the Book or tolerating Muslim heretics, they had refrained from doing so in
order not to violate their epistemological assumptions and other previously held
political and moral views. Because the categories of their textual frame of reference
took precedence over the requirements of their historical settings, their response to the
phenomenon of religious diversity remained structurally unchanged throughout history.
Furthermore, since the Islamic intellectual history has never experienced the
epistemological and ontological transitions that the European thought witnessed during
the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, the Muslim thinkers have retained the basic
premises of al-Bayan tradition until the present day. Consequently, Islamic political
181
thought in general, including the notion of religious toleration, has remained generally
the same in terms of its major questions, formal structure, and basic assumptions and
categories. It is hoped that this chapter has provided the reader with a general answer
to the research question or questions and an overview of the interpretive approach
adopted in this dissertation. The role of the textual frame of reference in limiting the
idea of rehgious toleration in Islamic political thought will be explored in more detail
when my analysis focuses exclusively on the thought of Ibn Taymiyah in the remaining
three chapters of the study.
182
Chapter Three
Ibn Taymiyah on the Question of Religious Diversity:
Preliminary Remarks
The purpose of this chapter is to introduce the reader to Ibn Taymiyah's frame
of reference within which he responded to the question of religious dissent. The
present chapter is intended to serve as a bridge between the general discussion of the
interpretive approach of this study, that was discussed in the previous chapter, and the
more focused examination of Ibn Taymiyah's doctrines on the question of religious
dissent, which will be examined in the next two chapters. The first part is a brief
discussion of Ibn Taymiyah's life and works. The second part discusses the textual
frame of reference of Ibn Taymiyah as a Bayanist political theorist. This section
examines the basic epistemological, methodological and political components of Ibn
Taymiyah's frame of reference, which will be more elaboration on what has been
already said about the textual nature of Islamic political theory. The chapter ends with
some remarks on the implications of Ibn Taymiyah's reliance on the textual categories
of the Islamic revelation on his views on religious toleration and persecution.
A Biographical Note
Taqi al-Din Ahmad Ibn Taymiyah was bom on January 22, 1262, in the Syrian
town of Harran. He was a son of a family that was known for its adherence to the
183
Hanbah legal school of jurisprudence . His grandfather Abd al-Salam and his father Abd
al-Halim had written a number of books and tracts on Hanbah jurisprudence and the
principles of jurisprudence. Because of their fear of the Mongol invasion, Ibn
Taymiyah's family had to abandon the city of Harran and move to Damascus in 1268,
where he spent the remainder of his life. After his father died in 1284, Ibn Taymiyah, at
the age of twenty-one, took over his father's post as preacher and lecturer on Islamic
theology and jurisprudence.
Ibn Taymiyah's life was a combination of scholarship, political activism, and
social and religious reformism. Because of his upbringing, Ibn Taymiyah intellectually
belonged to the Hanbah school of legal thought, which colored the style and content of
his thought. As a Hanbah jurist, he manifested a great deal of knowledge of disciplines
related to the traditions of the Prophet {'Him al-Hadith), the Quranic sciences {'Ulum
al-Qurari), and the Arabic sciences. However, while he was generally classified as a
Hanbah jurist, Ibn Taymiyah had, on a few occasions, expressed some legal and
theological opinions that deviated not only from Hanbalism, but also from the other
three legal schools of the Sunni tradition : Hanafism, Shafi'ism, and Malikism. This
deviation from the conventional views of his own school of thought appeared to be a
result of Ibn Taymiyah's rejection of the notion of blind imitation (taqlid) in forming
one's legal or theological opinions, which was commonly practiced by his
contemporaries. While Ibn Taymiyah remained paradigmaticaUy within Al-Bayan
tradition, and the vast majority of his legal and theological views were consistent with
184
the Sunni tradition, he always insisted that the Muslim jurist must be creative and use
his own independent judgment for his legal opinion and not settle for reciting the views
of the past masters of Sunni legal thought. As will be shown later in this section, Ibn
Taymiyah's commitment to reUgious reformism and methodological activism led him
into direct confrontation with both rehgious and political authorities, which exposed
him to different forms of persecution.
Ibn Taymiyah lived in a historical environment that was politically and socially
turbulent. Externally, the Islamic world was devastated by the Mongols' invasion from
the east and the Crusaders from the west. Internally, the land of Islam was divided
among several sovereign states beset by competition among their rulers, assassinations,
and social degradation. Ibn Taymiyah lived within the Mamluk Empire (1215-1517),
which had made Cairo its capital. The Mamluk state, which was controlled by non-
Arab slave soldiers, was not immune from internal strife and divisions, which were
expressed by assassination attempts, military rebellions, and social disintegration. The
Mamluk sultans were preoccupied with controlling internal rebellions from within then-
own armies, and securing the empire's eastern frontiers against the Mongols and the
western frontiers against the Crusaders.
1
It was during the reign of Mamluk ruler
Muhammad Al-Nasir (r. 1310-1342) that the major events in Ibn Taymiyah's life took
1
For more details on the historical setting of Ibn Taymiyah, see Victor Makari, Ibn
Taymiyah's Ethics: The Social Factor (Chico: Scholars Press, 1983), 7-14; and
Muhammad Abu Zahrah, Ibn Tavmivah (Cairo: Dar al-Fikr al-Arabi, 1991), 105-130.
185
place. Al-Nasir, who lost and later regained his throne, occupied a special and
important place in Ibn Taymiyah's life and thought. Ibn Taymiyah developed a
friendship with Al-Nasir, advised him and cooperated with him in making and
implementing a number of policies. As a reflection of the special relationship between
Al-Nasir and Ibn Taymiyah, the latter composed an important political treatise that was
addressed to Al-Nasir.
In an environment of great crisis, in addition to his primary vocations as jurist
and theologian, Ibn Taymiyah was forced to assume the roles of religious reformer,
military commander, and political negotiator. In 1301, he became the undeclared ruler
of the city of Damascus after its Mamluk governor had abandoned it because of his fear
of the Mongol invasion. During that period, Ibn Taymiyah performed the functions of
enforcer of the laws and keeper of the peace.
2
On another occasion, Ibn Taymiyah
headed a delegation to negotiate with the Mongolian leader Khazan to persuade him
not to invade the city of Damascus. He also participated in the conduct of a number of
wars against the invading Mongolian army. In 1304, for instance, he was in the front
lines of the Syrian army in the battle of Shaqhab, in which the Mongolian army was
defeated.
3
Furthermore, Ibn Taymiyah headed a small army of men whose purpose was
to inflict punishment on heretical sects or the Nusayri and Druz for their collaboration
2
Abu Zahrah, 37.
3
See Makari, 27-28.
186
with the Mongols, and to force them to submit to what he considered the true teachings
of Islam.
4
The majority of Ibn Taymiyah's works revolved around his religious reformism.
In fact, all of his books, treatises, and tracts could be conceived as different expressions
of Ibn Taymiyah's preoccupation with reforming the Muslim polity. The guiding
principle of Ibn Taymiyah's reformist ideology could be seen in his diagnosis of the ills
of Muslim society. For Ibn Taymiyah, the weakness of the Muslims and their
vulnerability to their enemies was caused mainly by their abandonment of the original
and pure teachings of Islam. The remedy for these social and political ills, as one might
expect, would be to return to the teachings of Islam in their original purity and
simplicity.
With such a perception of the cause and remedy for the moral and political
decay of the Islamic polity, Ibn Taymiyah pursued his reformist strategy on two levels,
which corresponded to two types of intellectual activities. First, he engaged in a
tireless effort to purify the Islamic faith from what he considered to be heretical
doctrines that corrupted the souls of the Muslims, the rulers as well as the ruled.
Therefore, he directed his critique at Islamic mysticism with its Neo-Platonic
tendencies, the speculative theologians of Islam, and Aristotelian logic, which was
advocated by the Muslim philosophers. Second, Ibn Taymiyah was preoccupied with
4
Abu Zahrah, 39-41.
187
articulating the already existing Sunni theological and legal doctrines, especially the
Hanbali version. His preoccupation with doctrinal reform not only earned him the title
of the Suppresser of Heresy (Qami' al-Bid'ah), but also made his works mainly
polemical. Ibn Taymiyah published more than three hundred works in the forms of
books, tracts, and short essays, most of which were essentially polemical exchanges
with the theologians of other Islamic sects.
As to the scope of his doctrinal reforms, Ibn Taymiyah's works covered a wide
range of theological, political, and philosophical questions. He published numerous
books and treatises on Islamic theology, jurisprudence, the principles of jurisprudence,
exegesis, and the Prophetic traditions. Also, in his polemical encounters with Muslim
philosophers, mystics, and Christian subjects of the Islamic state, he wrote works that
were intended to be refutations of Neo-Platonism, Aristotelian logic, and Christianity.
While these numerous works reflected Ibn Taymiyah's competent knowledge of these
subjects, all of these works actually revolved around a very few themes that recur
throughout his writings.
Ibn Taymiyah's intellectual activism led him into direct confrontation with the
political authorities of the time. Because some of his juridical and theological opinions
contradicted the accepted views of the time, he was subjected to religious persecution
six times in his life. Only four of these incidents are worth mentioning. Ibn Taymiyah's
prior experience with religious persecution came in 1298. He had published a tract
called Al-Risalah Al-Hamawiyah, in which he defended the Hanbali position on the
188
question of the attributes of God. His theological assertions on the subject were
considered objectionable and heretical by the Asha'rites, who represented the majority
of the Muslim Ulama at the time. In compliance with orders from the Mamluk
governor of Damascus, a council of religious scholars and judges was formed to debate
Ibn Taymiyah on his theological views expressed in that treatise. Then, in 1305, he was
sent to Cairo to be questioned by other Muslim scholars and judges on charges of
advocating anthropomorphism. The result of that encounter in Cairo was his
imprisonment for a year and a half. Only one year after his release from prison, Ibn
Taymiyah was detained in a castle in Alexandria for two years for making critical
remarks about some prominent Unionist Mystics (Al- 'Itithadiyah).
The next incidence of religious persecution in Ibn Taymiyah's life came after his
return to Damascus in 1312. During his stay in Damascus, he expressed some juridical
views on the issue of divorce that contradicted not only the views of his master, Ibn
HanbaL, but also all other legal schools within Sunnism Consequently, an official order
was issued banning Ibn Taymiyah from speaking on the subject of divorce. He
persisted in his views and challenged the ban, which led to his imprisonment. In 1326,
five years after his release from prison, Ibn Taymiyah was sent back to jail because of
his essay on the visitation of the tombs, in which he
189
considered such practice to be heretical and repugnant to the original teachings of
Islam. He remained in prison until his death in 1328.
5
It must be emphasized, however, that these episodes of religious persecution
were very mild ones. Ibn Taymiyah was never subjected to any form of physical
torture and actually lived under relatively comfortable jail conditions. In fact, in some
instances, he was put under house arrest and was allowed to lecture and to meet with
his disciples. But in none of these incidents was the severity and magnitude as great as
the religious persecution that his master, Ibn HanbaL, had been subjected to. What is
interesting about Ibn Taymiyah's experience with persecution is that, while he
expressed some unease about the use of the arm of the state by his sectarian opponents,
these events never seemed to persuade him to consider toleration as a solution to
religious dissent. It is true that Ibn Taymiyah refrained from persecuting his sectarian
adversaries when he declined the Mamluk Sultan Al-Nasir's offer to execute some of
the theologians who were involved in his persecution after he was released from his
prison in Alexandria. While Ibn Taymiyah's decision to forgive his opponents was a
reflection of a noble character, it was not an expression of a tolerant attitude toward
religious dissenters. In his reply to the sultan's suggestion to inflict physical
punishment on these Muslim theologians, Ibn Taymiyah instead complimented his
5
For more details on these and other incidents of religious persecutions of Ibn
Taymiyah, see Donald P. Little, "The Historical and Historiographical Significance of
the Detention of Ibn Taymiyah," International Journal of Middle East Studies) 4
(1973), 311-327.
190
opponents and expressed his personal forgiveness for all of them. But he mentioned
nothing in his reply about his opposition to the use of the arm of the state to coerce
one's sectarian foes to relinquish their theological views. More important, Ibn
Taymiyah's decision not to persecute his adversaries was the result of his awareness of
the Sultan Al-Nasir's poUtical motives to punish these theologians not for their
religious views, but rather for their participation with his opponents in an attempt to
cause his removal from power.
6
Ibn Taymiyah's Frame of Reference: Al-Bavan
Even though Ibn Taymiyah had expressed some divergent legal and theological
views, his ideas, methods, and style were conventional. In other words, in spite of the
fact that some of the doctrines that he advocated were not consistent with the
established views of the time, he was conventional in remaining within the epistemic
tradition of Al-Bayan. He was a typical Bayanist in his epistemological assumptions,
theological doctrines, and style of argument. As a Bayanist, Ibn Taymiyah's views,
including those on the question of religious diversity, were derived from and
conditioned by the textual categories of Islamic revelation. Furthermore, Ibn
Taymiyah's association with the Hanbali school of thought, which was known for its
reliance on the Prophetic traditions as a reliable source of religious knowledge, had
6
See Muhammad bin Abd al-Hadi, Al-'Uqud al-Durivah min Manaqib Shaykh al-Islam
Ahmad Ibn Taymiyah (n.p.: Dar al-Kitab al-Arabi, n.d.), 289.
191
reinforced the textual nature of his discourse. In the following section, the textual
frame of reference of Ibn Taymiyah will be explored by examining his epistemological
and theological assumptions and his methods.
Epistemological and Theological Assumptions
Ibn Taymiyah's first epistemological assumption was his unquestionable
certainty of the Islamic revelation. For Ibn Taymiyah, the truth about God, man, and
the universe was directly revealed by God to Muhammad.
7
Consistent with the rest of
the Muslim thinkers within the tradition of Al-Bayan, Ibn Taymiyah viewed the truth as
having linguistic form, that is, embodied in the divine texts of Islam. These texts, Ibn
Taymiyah contended, were immune from error or doubt. To question the certainty or
the credibility of the divine texts of Islam—the Quran and the traditions of the
Prophet—would mean the defection from the realm of the Islamic faith.
8
Furthermore,
Ibn Taymiyah had always insisted that religious truth was not only knowable but also
simple and well defined and did not require extraordinary efforts to be discovered.
9
Within Ibn Taymiyah's epistemological framework, religiou s truth was unique,
single, and exclusive. Muhammad was considered to be the last prophet, and his
7
See Ahmad Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa Shaykh al-'Islam Ahmad Ibn Taymiyah
(Kuwait: Maktabat Ibn Qutaybah, n.d.), 1:5-7; 19:155-156.
8
Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa. 19:88-89.
9
Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa. 1:5.
192
message was conceived of as the final expression of the Word of God. All previous
manifestations of the revealed truth, that is, Christianity and Judaism, were abrogated
by the superior message of Islam. Hence, after Muhammad, all religious beliefs,
including those that were derived from reveale d texts, became erroneous doctrines with
inferior epistemological status. Within Islam itself, religious truth was perceived by Ibn
Taymiyah, as by the majority of thinkers within Al-Bayan, as one single truth that did
not permit divisions. Consequently, the possibility of multiple religious truths with
equal epistemological status was alien to Ibn Taymiyah's epistemological outlook.
In the context of discussing the most reliable method of attaining certain
religious knowledge, Ibn Taymiyah confronted the age old question in Islam, the
question of reason vs. revelation. While he did not totally exclude reason as a source
of theological knowledge, Ibn Taymiyah was explicit in his preference of revelation as
the most reliable source of religious doctrines. For Ibn Taymiyah, the Quran, the
Prophetic traditions, and how past Muslim scholars understood them, were the most
reliable means to achieving certain religious knowledge.
10
The underlying assumption
behind Ibn Taymiyah's reliance on the divine texts as the most reliable means of
achieving certainty in religion seemed to be his conception of that truth as being simple
and well defined. Therefore, for the Muslim to know the basic doctrines of Islam, he or
she could read the divine texts of Islam and understand their meanings.
Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 19:96.
193
In regard to reason, Ibn Taymiyah was known for his claim that there was no
contradiction between religious knowledge that was derived from the divine texts
(naqil or riwayah) and religious knowledge based on reason. In fact, he published a
lengthy treatise entitled Preventing the Contradiction Between Reason and Revelation
(Dar' Ta'arudh al-'Aql wa al-Naqil). However, it would be misleading to conclude
that Ibn Taymiyah had equalized the statements of revelation with philosophical
statements. For to entertain such an idea would be to overlook the numerous works by
Ibn Taymiyah in which he condemned the formulations of the philosophers as heretical
and, in some instances, as expressions of polytheism (Shirk).
11
Ibn Taymiyah's response to the problem of reason vs. revelation was based on
the distinction between two types or conceptions of reason. First, reason could be
understood as the human mind, which is the natural reasoning faculty that every person
has. The second conception of reason referred to the different assertions concerning
God, knowledge, and the universe that were produced through philosophical
activities.
12
As a conventional Bayanist, Ibn Taymiyah was quick to remind his readers
to understand the word 'aql (reason), which appeared in some Prophetic traditions,
within the conventions of Al-Bayan tradition, especially the rules of the Arabic
language. In that context, the term 'aql referred only to reason as the reasoning faculty
11
Ibn Taymiyah, Al-Rad 'Ala al-Mantiqiyyin (Lahore: 'Idart Turjman al-Sunnah,
1976), 105.
12
See Ibn Taymiyah, Bughivat al-Murtad (n.p.: Maktabat al-'Ulum wa al-Hikam,
1988), 251-275.
194
that distinguished human beings from other creatures and not to reason as an
independent essence.
13
Therefore, when Ibn Taymiyah spoke of reason that was
consistent with revelation, he had in mind the first conception, that is, reason as the
natural instrument of thinking detached from any philosophical or theological
formulation. In fact, on one occasion Ibn Taymiyah suggested that some basic
religious doctrines, such as the existence of God, His will, and His knowledge, could be
known by reason without the aid of revelation. For Ibn Taymiyah, believing in the
divine revelation has to be preceded by believing in the existence of the revealer, that is,
God, which could be attained only through reason.
14
What he objected to was reason
in the form of different philosophical assertions concerning the nature and attributes of
God. He argued that there were some questions concerning the divine attributes and
the nature of the universe that transcended the capacity of human reason to
comprehend.
15
Furthermore, Ibn Taymiyah was critical of the philosophical methods of
attaining religious knowledge, because these methods could not lead to certainty, but to
doubt. As a proof of his claim about the unreliability of the philosophical method, he
indicated how the same group of philosophers contradicted each other on the issues of
methods and conclusions.
16
13
Ibn Taymiyah. Bughivat al-Murtad . 251-255.
14
Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa. 19:228-234.
1 5
Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa. 3: 338,339; 5:29,30.
195
One of the most noticeable characteristics of Ibn Taymiyah's conception of the
truth was the universality of its scope. Ibn Taymiyah always insisted on the principle
that Islamic revelation was intended to be addressed not only to humankind, but also to
the jinn (demons). Thus, any person who became aware of the message of Islam must
follow it, if he or she was to attain salvation and avoid eternal condemnation. Although
Ibn Taymiyah was well aware of the fact that Islamic revelation was historically
addressed to the Arabs of Mecca and Madina, he, nonetheless, always insisted that the
teachings of Islam were unlimited by time or space.
Such a claim for the universality of the Islamic revelation, on Ibn Taymiyah's
part, was a logical outcome of his textual frame of reference. In his advocacy of the
universality of the message of Islam, Ibn Taymiyah cited a number of Quranic texts
which expressed such universality in unmistakable terms.
17
In fact, his textual frame o f
reference led Ibn Taymiyah to the assertion that the jinn were divided between Muslims
and non-Muslims, and the Muslim jinn were, in turn, divided into true Muslims and
heretics. Furthermore, Ibn Taymiyah went so far as to suggest that the jinn, whom he
admitted were invisible, could be subjected to the Islamic principle of ordering good
and prohibiting vice.
18
Statements like these were considered rational ones within the
Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa. 19:5-8.
17
See Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu
c
Fatawa. 19: 38.
18
Ibn Taymiyah's assertions on the universality of Islam was a dominant theme in his
thought and occurred frequently i n his works. But the best statement of this notion by
196
discourse of Al-Bayan in which the textual categories take priority over any other
considerations. In the textual frame of reference of Ibn Taymiyah, what was textual
was actual and rational.
Based on these epistemological assumptions, Ibn Taymiyah constructed his
theological system. The notion of the oneness of God (tawhid) was the core concept
of Ibn Taymiyah's theological world view and his reformist ideology. It would not be
an exaggeration to consider Ibn Taymiyah's notion of the oneness of God as the
primary doctrine from whic h his other theological views were derived. Whether it was
his critique of those who appealed to Neo-Platonism or those who appealed to the
categories of Aristotelian logic, Ibn Taymiyah always expressed his fear that utilizing
these alien concepts to interpret the divine texts of Islam would jeopardize the doctrine
of the oneness of God.
To understand Ibn Taymiyah's conception of the oneness of God, one should
consider its antithesis: polytheism (shirk). Historically, the original message of Islam
was a reaction to polytheism which was commonly practiced by the Pagans of Mecca
and the surrounding areas. The message of Muhammad was intended to eliminate the
practice of worshipping idols as intermediaries between God and people. As an
alternative to polytheism, Muhammad introduced the notion of worshipping one unique
Ibn Taymiyah was expressed in his essay, '"Idhah Al-Dalalah fi 'Umum Al-Risalah," in
Majmu' Fatawa. 19:9-10,14-15,18,31-33.
197
God with no associates, a principle that became one of the major theological doctrines
of Islam.
Although polytheism as it was practiced by the tribe of Quraysh had practically
vanished before the death of the Prophet, it continued to exist as a textual category
which had significance and relevance to later generations of Muslim thinkers. For Ibn
Taymiyah, even though Arab polytheism was defeated by Islam, he always expressed
his concerns about its reappearance in different forms. He was particularly fearful of
some doctrines of the heretical sects of Islam which he considered to be advocating
different forms of polytheism. For instance, he was critical of those who believed in
saintly persons who could perform the functions of mediating between God and people
according to the doctrine of shafa'ah'
9
as an act of polytheism.
20
Also, one can find
the concept of the oneness of God at the heart of his criticism of mystical and rational
tendencies within Islam as advocating various forms of polytheism.
21
Ibn Taymiyah's
preoccupation with the doctrine of the oneness of God explained, to a large extent, his
19
The concept of shafa'ah literally means mediation. In Islamic theology, especially in
the mystical tradition, it referred to practice of appealing to some saintly persons to
become mediators between God and people.
20
Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa. 11: 499-502.
21
Ibn cited other acts or beliefs that would threaten the integrity of the principle of the
oneness of God. See, for instance, Maimu' Al-Fatawa. 1:21-33, 37-38, 88-89,153,
159, 163-67, 226-238.
198
insistence on the return to the original and simple teachings of Islam which were
characterized, above all, by their conformity with that principle.
For Ibn Taymiyah, the doctrine of the oneness of God had been the foundation
upon which all revealed religions from the beginning of time to the advent of Islam
were instituted. All the previous prophecies and revelations had revolved around the
idea of worshipping one God with no associates, and Islam was an integral part of the
long chain of divine revelation.
22
But while all revealed religions were unified by the
doctrine of the oneness of God, they were separated from one another by legal norms
and methods of worship.
23
Such assertion by Ibn Taymiyah was not a reflection of his
observation of history, but a consequence of his textual frame of reference. To
persuade his audience of the validity of his claim, Ibn Taymiyah did not appeal to logic
or history; instead, he made a direct reference to the Quran. He cited the Quranic
verses which stated that, 'Tor We assuredly sent Amongst every People a Messenger,
(With the Command), 'Serve Allah, and eschew EviL,'"
24
and, "Not a messenger did
We Send before thee without This inspiration sent by Us To him: that there is No god
but I; therefore Worship and serve Me."
25
In fact, Ibn Taymiyah went even further,
Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 1:154.
23
Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 3: 92.
24
Quran, 16: 36.
25
Quran, 21:25.
199
suggesting that all past Prophets, especially Abraham, were actually Muslims, since
they were advocating the basic principle, that is, the oneness of God.
26
To avoid regressing into any form of polytheism, and to maintain the integrity
of the doctrine of the oneness of God, Ibn Taymiyah demanded that every believing
Muslim must adhere to two basic principles of Islam The first principle was to
worship God as one and with no associates.
27
The second principle was to worship
God according to the ways that He legislated for us to worship Him.
28
The most
reliable source of knowing how God wanted to be worshipped, Ibn Taymiyah insisted,
was not philosophy or mystical knowledge, but the divine texts of Islam: the Quran
and the traditions of the Prophet. To deviate from these sources would be to risk
falling into heresy or polytheism.
Ibn Taymiyah's insights on the question of the attributes of God and the
problem of free will were reflections of his preoccupation with the doctrine of oneness
of God. In harmony with his conception of the divine unity, Ibn Taymiyah adopted a
moderate position on the controversial question of the attributes of God. His views on
the subject could be placed in a middle position between the two extremes of the
controversy, that is, anthropomorphism (tashbih) and deanthropomorphism (ta'til).
26
Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa. 3: 90-92.
27
Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa. 1:185.
200
The anthropomorphists had interpreted the Quranic texts describing the nature of God
by assigning God human attributes. To the contrary, the deanthropomorphists had
denied all divine attributes and interpreted the references to God's characteristics as not
referring to actual physical attributes but to the transcendent essence of God.
The position of Ibn Taymiyah can be summarized as follows: The Muslim must
conform to whatever God revealed about His attributes in the Quran, the traditions of
the Prophet, and how they were understood by the companions of the Prophet, without
asking the question "how." For Ibn Taymiyah, given the limitations of human
understanding, a complete knowledge of the nature and essence of God was
unattainable. The only thing that was known about God was His uniqueness, because
"Nothing is like unto Him, whether in His essence, His attributes, or His actions."
29
Ibn Taymiyah insisted that one must affirm all the divine names, attributes and actions
without figuration or comparing Him with His creatures.
30
In so doing, Ibn Taymiyah
had avoided, though not without ambiguities, the neutralization of the
deanthropomorphists by affirming the divine attributes as they appeared in Quran, and
the figuration of the anthropomorphists by refraining from describing God in human
terms.
Cited in Makari, 34.
See Makari, 34-35.
201
As in the case of his views on the attributes of God, Ibn Taymiyah expressed
rather moderate views on the problem of the free will. He rejected the views of the
determinists who always insisted that the actions of the person were foreknown and
predetermined by God. Likewise, Ibn Taymiyah raised his objections to the views of
the advocates of the free will, especially the Mu'tazilites, who viewed individuals as the
creators of their own actions and responsible for their consequences. Ibn Taymiyah's
solution to the problem was that even though God foreknew how the person would act,
every person had the free will to act the way he or she wanted and to be responsible for
the consequences of his or her actions.
31
Methodology
At the outset of this section, I mentioned that Ibn Taymiyah was a typical
Bayanist and hence, his thought was conventional. While the substance of some of his
juridical and theological views could throw some doubt on such an assertion, Ibn
Taymiyah's remarks on the question of the methods of attaining knowledge will
confirm the conventionality of his discourse. As a mainstream Bayanist, Ibn
Taymiyah's style of thinking revolved around the divine texts of Islam, from which he
derived the main assumptions and categories of his political theory. For Ibn Taymiyah,
reliable theological and juridical knowledge must be derived from and consistent with
31
Makari, 77-78.
202
the revealed texts of Islam In fact, Ibn Taymiyah's remarks on methodology were
similar, if not identical, to those of the founder of the principles of Islamic
jurisprudence, Al-Shafi'i. Hence, Ibn Taymiyah's juridical views, including those on
toleration, were derived from the hierarchically ordered four sources of Islamic
jurisprudence: the Quran, the traditions of the Prophet (hadith), consensus (ijma
1
), and
analogy (qiyas).
The Quran was the most authoritative source of knowledge in Ibn Taymiyah's
methodological outlook. He conceived of the Quran as the revealed Word of God that
was inerrant, eternal, and immune from doubt. Ibn Taymiyah cited the Quranic verse
2:1 which read: "This is the Book; In it is guidance sure, without doubt."
32
Since it
was an expression of God's revelation to His messenger, Ibn Taymiyah considered the
Quran to be superior to all other sources of juridical knowledge. Therefore, it could
not be abrogated by any inferior source such as the traditions of the Prophet or
consensus.
33
Furthermore, Ibn Taymiyah viewed the Quran to be the most reliable
reference in theological knowledge, and the Muslim scholar did not need to rely on any
other source such as reason or gnosis to obtain such knowledge.
34
32
Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 19: 80.
33
Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa. 20: 397-99; 19: 257.
34
Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa. 2: 46-47.
203
The Prophetic traditions came second in hierarchical order of the sources of
juridical knowledge in Ibn Taymiyah's epistemological framework. For Ibn Taymiyah
and the rest of Muslim jurists, the concept of Sunnah or the traditions of the Prophet
were not restricted to the reported utterances of Muhammad, but also included most of
his reported deeds, which became authoritative texts. While less authoritative than the
Quran, the Prophetic traditions were of equal significance as a source of textual
categories of Ibn Taymiyah's thought. Being a Hanbali in principle had reinforced Ibn
Taymiyah's reliance on the Prophetic traditions as a primary source of political
theorizing. In fact, the majority, if not all, of his views on religious persecution were
based on Prophetic texts rather than Quranic ones.
When Ibn Taymiyah used the concept of the Sunnah or the traditions of the
Prophet, he did not mean just any Prophetic tradition. Rather, he had in mind those
traditions authenticated by the authoritative scholars of Sunni Islam. The reason for
Ibn Taymiyah's selective view of the Prophetic traditions seems to be related to his
awareness of the historical circumstances that surrounded the reporting of these
traditions. Historically, the different Muslim sects and political factions had appealed
to different utterances attributed to the Prophet to support their sectarian and political
causes. In the process, some sectarians had attempted to fabricate some Prophetic
sayings, either to validate their own case or to discredit their sectarian or political
adversaries. The response to such attempts was the formation of what became known
as the science or the discipline of Hadith, which was exclusively concerned with
204
examining the validity of the Prophetic traditions in regard to their transmitters and
contents. Ibn Taymiyah accepted only those traditions that were authenticated by the
authoritative figures of Sunni Islam, which were collected in what later became
recognized as the six canonical books of Hadith.
35
The third source of Ibn Taymiyah's political ideas was ijmcf, or consensus.
Although consensus was essentially a collective form of analogical reasoning, Ibn
Taymiyah treated it as an independent source of juridical knowledge. The concept of
consensus, according to Ibn Taymiyah, referred to the agreement of the Muslim
scholars (Ulama) on a given legal issue during a given historical period.
36
Such
consensus among the Muslim Ulama had to be consistent with the Quranic and
Prophetic texts and could not exist outside them.
37
For Ibn Taymiyah, after the death
of the Prophet and dispersion of his companions throughout the Islamic empire,
consensus was never actually achieved. In later periods, the geographical separation of
the Muslim scholars prevented the achievement of consensus. Therefore, it could be
concluded that Ibn Taymiyah believed in the theoretical possibility of achieving
consensus but questioned its occurrence at the practical level.
38
See Khalid I. Jindan, The Islamic Theory of Government According to Ibn
Tavmivah , Ph.D. Diss., Georgetown University, 1979 (Ann Arbor, UMI, 1980), 86-
87.
36
See Jindan, 89.
37
Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Al-Fatawa. 19:285-87.
205
The last major source of Ibn Taymiyah's juridical thought was analogical
reasoning (Qiyas). His remarks on the scope and purpose of analogical reasoning were
basically recitations of the prominent Muslim jurists, especially Al-Shafi'i. For Ibn
Taymiyah, analogy became a legitimate source of juridical knowledge only when there
was no explicit textual reference to the question under consideration. With the
presence of the text, Ibn Taymiyah insisted, there is no place for analogy in forming
juridical opinion.
39
The first assumption of Ibn Taymiyah regarding the question of
analogy was his belief that the major texts of Islam, i.e., the Quran and the traditions of
the Prophet, contained all the general answers to the questions that the Muslim may
encounter. In order for analogy to be considered a valid method of reaching a legal
opinion, two conditions must be satisfied. First, there must not be an explicit Quranic
or Prophetic text concerning the novel case. Second, the occasioning factor ('ilah)
that was behind the issuing or the forming of the original case (asl) must be present in
the novel case (fara').
40
If one of these conditions or requirements was violated, then
the process of analogy would be considered invalid.
It must be emphasized, however, that the entire process of analogy, in Ibn
Taymiyah's methodological outlook, took place within, and not outside, the textual
For more details, see Makari, 98-100.
Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Al-Fatawa. 19:288; 20:505.
Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Al-Fatawa. 19:285-87.
206
categories of Islamic revelation. For Ibn Taymiyah, the concept of qiyas or analogy
meant simply the extension of the textual reference from the principle case to the novel
case. To recall the previous discussion of Al-Jabiri's analysis of the nature of the
analogical method in the field of the principles of jurisprudence, Ibn Taymiyah's views
on the subject were consistent with the rest of the thinkers of Al-Bayan tradition. As
will be shown in chapter five, Ibn Taymiyah's justification for the use of coercion
against heretics was based primarily on the method of analogy.
Heresy and Society
The moral relevance of heresy represented a major component of Ibn
Taymiyah's frame of reference. He classified heterodox religious views as
manifestations of moral perversion that ought to be physically punished. Generally, Ibn
Taymiyah's tendency to equate heresy with moral perversion was an outcome of his
textual frame of reference in which there was no clear distinction between what was
theological, moral, or legal. However, his inclusion of heresy within the realm of
morality seemed to be particularly associated with two conceptually related factors.
The first facto r was his organic conception of the Muslim community. The second was
his antagonistic attitude toward the idea of functionalism in religion. This section will
examine how these two ideas contributed to Ibn Taymiyah's inclusion of heresy within
the realm of morality.
207
In Islamic political thought, the Muslim community was viewed as an organic
entity that consisted exclusively of members who were united by their religious
orientation. In the words of A. Gibb, the concept of the Muslim community or Ummah
referred to "the totahty {Jama 'ah) of individuals bound to one another, not by ties of
kinship or race, but of religion, in that all its members profess their belief in the One
God, Allah, and the mission of His Prophet Muhammad. Before God, and in then-
relation to Him, all are equal, without distinction of rank, class, or race."
41
Hence,
membership in Muslim society was exclusively defined according to the religious
affiliations of its individuals. Consequently, the individual's duties, rights, rewards, and
punishments became determined according to his or her religious status. In the organic
totality of the Muslim Ummah, the individual had no autonomy and could realize his or
her existence only as a member of the community of the faithful. As Jindan rightly
observed:
The Muslims, with their concept of Ummah pushed the organic
theory of the state much further by underscoring the
importance of unity and the value of collective action. In the
organic state of the Muslims, the emphasis is not on the
"individual rights" but on "social duties," and the key word is
not "achievement" but "cooperation."
42
41
Cited in Jindan, 119.
42
Jindan, 70.
208
The tendencies of Muslim political thinkers to view Muslim society in organic
terms was a direct consequence of their reliance on the textual categories of Islamic
revelation. The divine texts of Islam emphasized not only the universality and
uniqueness of Islamic truth, but also the priority of the Muslim community over the
rights of the individual. The emphasis on the organic conception of Muslim society
was more apparent in two Prophetic traditions. The Prophet was reported to have
said: "The Muslims in their mutual affection and mercy should be as a single body: if
one member is affected, the other members suffer fever and sleeplessness." Also, the
Prophet was reported as saying: "One believer is to another like the parts of one
structure, each strengthens the others."
43
For that reason, concepts such as "individual
rights" or "autonomy" that had flourished in the liberal tradition of the West were
considered alien doctrines in Islamic political thought.
Ibn Taymiyah inherited the organic conception of the Muslim state from his
Sunni predecessors. It is true that he did not make an explicit reference to the organic
nature of the Islamic state, but such an organic image of the community seemed to be
always implied throughout his political discourse. There was no evidence that Ibn
Taymiyah had considered a non-organic conception of the Islamic state or proposed a
doctrine of autonomy or individual rights. Instead, he always emphasized the notion of
ta 'awun, which referred to solidarity or cooperation as the basic doctrine upon which
The two Prophetic traditions are quoted in Jindan, 128.
209
the Muslim community was based.
44
Within such an organic conception of society, the
hetrodox religious views of the individual would be perceived as a threat to the
consensus of the Muslim community and, hence, acquired moral relevance.
Ibn Taymiyah's hostility toward factionalism in religion was another
contributing factor to his inclusion of heresy in the category of morally objectionable
acts. While his organic perception of the Muslim community was implied or implicit,
his rejection of doctrinal factionalism was expressed in unmistakable terms. For Ibn
Taymiyah, the ideal Muslim community was a unified and cohesive community. His
conception of unity was fundamentally religious, that is, general consensus on the basic
doctrines of Islam The antithesis to Ibn Taymiyah's ideal community was a society
that was fragmented by religious and sectarian divisions. So, the presence of sectarian
and religious differences in one community was considered by Ibn Taymiyah to be a
highly undesirable and unhealthy state of affairs.
For Ibn Taymiyah, heretical doctrines were always associated with, or the cause
of, divisiveness in the Muslim social order.
45
For that reason Ibn Taymiyah always
brought up the problem of religious factionalism whenever the question of religious
dissent was considered. For instance, in his trial in Cairo, Ibn Taymiyah's opening
statement was about the indispensability of religious unity and conformity. In spite of
For a discussion of the idea of solidarity in Ibn Taymiyah's thought, see Makari,
113-114.
45
Ibn Taymiyah, Al-Istiqamah. 2nd Ed. (Cairo: Maktabut al-Sunnah, 1989), 1:42.
210
the fact that he was accused of advocating heretical doctrines and, hence, promoting
religious factionalism, Ibn Taymiyah addressed the judges of the court by saying, "Our
God is one, our Book (the Quran) is one, our Prophet is one, the principles of rehgion
(Islam) cannot tolerate divisiveness and factionalism [ emphasis mine]."
46
Ibn Taymiyah's antagonism to religious sectarian factionalism could be
interpreted as being a result of his belief in one unique and exclusive religious truth.
While the role of this epistemological consideration is indisputable, Ibn Taymiyah's
uncompromising rejection of religious diversity was mainly an upshot of the textual
character of his discourse. In the Quran, the primary and most authoritative source of
Ibn Taymiyah's world view, the idea of factionalism and diversity in religious matters
was strictly prohibited. Ibn Taymiyah was well aware of these explicit Quranic texts
and he simply followed them. For instance, in his book, Al-Istiqamah, Ibn Taymiyah,
to justify his rejection of the idea of religious diversity, cited a number of Quranic texts
that prohibited Muslims from factionalizing in matters related to rehgion.
47
The reader
will find Quranic verses such as the following:
Mankind was one single nation. And Allah sent messengers
with glad tidings and warnings; and with them He sent the
Book in truth, to judge between people in matters wherein they
differed; but the People of the Book, after the clear signs came
to them, did not differ among themselves, except through
selfish contumacy.
48
46
Quoted in Ibn Abd al-Hadi, Al-'Uaud Al-Durivah. 249.
47
Ibn Taymiyah, Al-Istiqamah. 25-26.
211
Be not like those who are divided amongst themselves and fall
into disputations after receiving clear signs; for them is a
dreadful chastisement.
49
As for those who divide their religion and break up into sects,
thou hast no part in them in the least.
50
The influence of the textual frame of reference of Ibn Taymiyah was not limited
to forcing him to reject the idea of rehgious diversity. But the textual categories of
Islamic revelation had authoritatively determined the structure of Ibn Taymiyah's
justification against factionahsm in religion. He justified this antagonism toward
rehgious factionahsm by making two conceptually related assertions that were directly
derived from his textual world view. First, Ibn Taymiyah considered the phenomenon
of factionahsm in religion to be something inevitable, and no religion, including Islam,
was immune from sectarian divisions. To support his claim about the universality and
the ineluctability of rehgious factionahsm, Ibn Taymiyah appealed to the Quranic texts
on rehgious divisions within religions that came before Islam.
51
In regard to
factionahsm within Islam, he referred to the famous Prophetic tradition which predicted
the division of Islam into seventy-two sects.
52
The second claim made by Ibn Taymiyah
4 K
Quran, 2:213.
49
Quran, 3:105.
50
Quran, 6:159.
51
He made a direct appeal to the Quranic verse 2:213.
52
Ibn Taymiyali, Minhaj al-Snnnah 6: 308-311.
212
was that even if reUgious factionaUsm was inevitable, it was, nonetheless, strictly
prohibited. Appealing to the same textual frame of reference, Ibn Taymiyah based his
antagonism toward the idea of diversity in reUgious matters on the Quranic texts cited
above. Therefore, while his assertion about the inevitabiUty of factionaUsm in reUgion
was not consistent with his rejection of it, the totahty of his response to the problem
was consistent with and certainly reflective of his textual frame of reference.
The Nature and Functions of the State
Like his other poUtical doctrines, the views of Ibn Taymiyah on the origin and
the functions of the state were derived and conditioned by his textual frame of
reference. He treated the question of poUtics within the textual categories of the
Islamic revelation and considered it as primarily a reUgious (juridical) question. In this
section, Ibn Taymiyah's basic views on the nature of the proper functions of the
Muslim ruler wiU be examined. But before proceeding with that, I should make a few
remarks on Ibn Taymiyah's understanding of the origins of poUtical association.
Ibn Taymiyah's explanation of the origins of poUtical authority was essentiaUy
utiUtarian. For Ibn Taymiyah, human beings were predisposed to live coUectively in
associations or communities. They form these associations and become united to
promote their worldly interests and to prevent harmful things. As the human
associations become formed, their members must develop a hierarchical order in which
they must obey those who have the authority to make and enforce the laws. Therefore,
213
Ibn Taymiyah perceived the pohtical association as a universal entity that existed
whenever there was human association and cooperation.
53
While every human association must develop pohtical authority, these
communities became distinguished from one another by the substance of the legal code
that each pohtical association enforced. Such a distinction was made by Ibn Taymiyah
in his brief discussion of the question of pohtical obhgation. For Ibn Taymiyah, every
human association needed certain norms and laws that were necessary for regulating
the interactions among its members. After the revelation of Islam, he contended, every
polity became obliged to embrace the revealed laws of Islam.
54
Such a claim by Ibn
Taymiyah seemed to spring from his epistemological certainty of the Islamic truth and
the superiority of Islam to other religions. He also appealed to the same divine origins
of the Islamic law to justify why the subjects of the Muslim state must render obedience
to their rulers.
In regard to the question of the necessity of the state in Islam, Ibn Taymiyah
appealed indirectly to the textual categories of Islamic revelation. There was no direct
reference in the Quran as to why the Muslims should institute a pohtical authority. But
Ibn Taymiyah found the textual justification of the need for pohtical authority in what
53
For a competent summary of Ibn Taymiyah's explanation of the origins of the state,
see the work of Jindan, 66-72.
54
Ibn Taymiyah, Al-Husbah fi Al-'Isla m (n.p.: Dar Al-kutub Al-'Arabiyah, 1967), 4-
5.
214
was implied in the very existence of the Islamic law and in some oral traditions
attributed to the Prophet. Since there were no explicit Quranic or Prophetic texts on
the necessity of political authority, Ibn Taymiyah referred to some Prophetic texts on
the need for leadership in the lower forms of human associations. He particularly cited
two traditions that required any group of Muslims (three persons or more) to assign a
leader whenever they went on a journey. From these traditions he deduced that if God
and His Prophet required Muslims to have leadership in smaller and inferior
associations, then it must follow that political authority is required for larger
associations, especially, that is, the Muslim community as a whole. However, while
he insisted on the necessity of political authority, Ibn Taymiyah was careful not to
consider its establishment as a fundamental doctrine of Islam to which every Muslim
was required to adhere. He forcefully rejected the shi 'ite doctrine of considering the
establishment of political authority (imamah) as a religious principle without which
faith would not be complete.
56
Like the majority of Sunni political thinkers, Ibn Taymiyah considered the form
of the Islamic state to be a marginal question. In all of his political writings, Ibn
Taymiyah was more concerned with the duties and functions of Muslim rulers than with
the formal structure of political authority. The peripheral status of the question of the
Ibn Taymiyah, Al-Husbah. 5.
56
Ibn Taymiyah, Minhaj al-Sunnah al-Nabawiyah, (Riyadh: Jami'at al-Imam
Muhammad bin Sa'ud al-Islamiyah, 1986), 1: 73-105.
215
form of government, in Ibn Taymiyah's thought, could be explained in reference not to
sociological or historical considerations, but rather to the textual frame of reference of
his poUtical thinking. In that frame of reference, there was no mention of the formal
structure of the Islamic polity. The Prophet died without designating his successor or
uttering anything concerning the formal structure of the Islamic polity. The Quran did
not state what form the Islamic government should take except some references to the
idea oishura (consultation), which referred to a process of decision-making rather than
a form of government. Historically, the Islamic polity took different formal structures
and the Muslim rulers came to power through different means, which varied from
elections to heredity. It is true that Ibn Taymiyah had expressed his preference for the
practices of what were known as the rightful caliphs , especially Abu Baker and 'Umar,
but he, nonetheless, was willing to tolerate other modes of governing as long as norms
of the Islamic law were observed.
The most salient feature of Ibn Taymiyah's state was, with risking the fall into
anachronism, its totalitarianism. He constructed a polity in which the distinction
between public and private morality and law was virtually nonexistent. Generally, Ibn
Taymiyah viewed all the functions of the Islamic polity to be religious in their intents.
Therefore, the end of poUtical authority in Islam was to assure the supremacy of the
Word of God and the observance of His laws. Since the primary duty of the Muslim
government was maintaining the integrity of the Islamic faith, then, Ibn Taymiyah
216
argued, the sword of the ruler must be put to the service of religion.
57
For Ibn
Taymiyah, when politics became divorced from the teachings of religion, the whole
polity would go into a state of decay.
58
Consequently, the source of totalitarian tendencies within Islamic political
thought came from Muslim thinkers' perception of the state as the enforcer of Islamic
law {shah 'ah). The egalitarianism of Islam at the theological level existed side by side
with a legal code that was totalitarian in character. As mentioned frequently in chapter
two, Islamic law was considered to be a comprehensive way of life which regulated all
manifestations of human behavior. Thus, since the enforcement of that legal code was
the primary function of the Islamic state, the jurisdiction of such a polity was extended
to include areas such as taxation, waging war, and individual matters such as sexuality
and worship. It was, therefore, the contents of the legal code of Islam that caused the
jurisdiction of the state to be extended to all areas of social, economic, and religious
affairs of the Muslim community.
Again, Ibn Taymiyah's insights on the different duties of the Muslim ruler were
conventional. In most cases, he was repeating what other Bayanist political thinkers
had said on the subject. For Ibn Taymiyah, the functions of the Islamic state were
derived from the source of its legitimacy, that is, its guardianship of the Islamic faith
57
See Ibn Taymiyah, Al-Husbah. 1-2, 6, 8-9, and Maimu' Fatawa. 28:361-63, 364.
58
Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa. 28:395-97.
217
and the enforcer of God's law. By virtue of its being the agent of enforcing the law of
God, the jurisdiction of Ibn Taymiyah's state extended to include both public and
private aspects of human behavior. His two major political treatises, Al-Siyasah al-
Shar'iyah and al-Husbahfi al-Islam, were exclusively concerned not with the form of
the Islamic government or the process of decision-making, but rather with the duties or
functions of the Muslim ruler. In these two works, Ibn Taymiyah gave a detailed
description of the functions of the Islamic state. He used the term wilayah, which
could take the meaning of a duty or function that the Muslim ruler was supposed to
perform. He assigned to the Islamic states all the functions that were related to
maintaining public order. According to Ibn Taymiyah, the Muslim ruler was
responsible for waging war, promoting the cause of God, and regulating the economic
activities of the community, which included regulating prices, preventing monopoly,
and punishing those who commit fraud. Furthermore, the Islamic government was
responsible for punishing those who violated the criminal laws of Islam
59
There was
nothing unusual about Ibn Taymiyah's assigning these functions to the Islamic state. In
fact, these functions have been known to be traditionally associated with and
monopolized by the state, whether in its primitive or modern forms.
However, what is most relevant to the core of this study were Ibn Taymiyah's
views of the role of political authority in religious controversies. As I pointed out
For a summary of Ibn Taymiyah's understanding of the functions of the Islamic
state, see Makari, 137-141.
218
earlier, Ibn Taymiyah considered the whole question of politics to be a religious
question, and all the activities of the state were religious in their original intents. In
addition, he conceived the primary duty of the Islamic state to be the enforcement of
the revealed law of Islam and the preservation of the purity of the Islamic faith. As a
consequence of these premises, the Muslim ruler was placed in the middle of the
religious and moral affairs of the community.
For Ibn Taymiyah, therefore, it was the duty of the Muslim ruler to punish those
individuals who expressed heterodox religious doctrines. For instance, in his book, Al-
Husbahfi al-Islam, Ibn Taymiyah assigned the Muslim ruler, or his representative, the
duty of preventing those with unorthodox religious views from corrupting the Islamic
faith.
60
It is interesting to note that Ibn Taymiyah referred to heretical views as forms
of fraud or deception in religion (ghish).
61
Hence, the Muslim ruler was expected to
check "exaggerations in religion," e.g., the deification of
humans, the rejection of the names and miracles of God,
permissiveness in law, the distortion of the Quran, the denial of
the omnipotence of God, the manifestations of magic and
witchcraft, the elevation of prophets and religious teachers to
sainthood, and the expectation of miracles from them.
62
60
Ibn Taymiyah, Al-Husbah. 43.
61
Ibid.
62
Makari, 143. Also, see Ibn Taymiyah, Al-Husbah. 43.
219
Because Ibn Taymiyah stated these manifestations of religious dissent in general
terms, he included most of his sectarian adversaries in his statement. His reference to
insulting the companions of the Prophet as heresy and injurious to the Islamic faith
seemed to be directed to the Shi'ites, who were known to be critical of some of the
Prophet's companions. Also, his reference to the elevation of some religious teachers
to the status of sainthood was a reference to the mystical tendencies within Islam.
From these statements, it is obvious that Ibn Taymiyah found it theologically and
morally justifiable for the state to punish those who manifest theological views that
were considered objectionable.
63
In conclusion, Ibn Taymiyah's response to the question of religious dissent was
constructed within a conventional Bayanist frame of reference. His political ideas were
derived mainly from the textual categories of Islamic revelation. In general, Ibn
Taymiyah considered the question of politics, including the problem of religious
dissent, as a juridical issue that needed to be treated within the epistemological and
methodological assumptions of Islamic jurisprudence. Parallel to this epistemological
assertion, Ibn Taymiyah viewed the Muslim community as a unified organic totality in
which individuals are bound by their religious orientations. Finally, Ibn Taymiyah,
following mainstream Bayanist political theorists, considered the primary function of
the state to be the enforcement of Islamic law, part of which was the preservation of
See Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Al-Fatawa. 28:308.
220
the purity of the Islamic faith. Certainly, a frame of reference like this produced a
response to the problem of reUgious dissent that was radically different from the
development of the idea of religious toleration in the European context. The following
section will be devoted to examining how the components of Ibn Taymiyah's textual
frame of reference shaped his views on the question of religious diversity.
Implications on the Idea of Religious Toleration
The most obvious implication of Ibn Taymiyah's textual frame of reference on
his response to the problem of religious diversity could be seen in his conception or
definition of reUgious dissent. As a typical Bayanist pohtical theorist, he divided the
human race into two exclusive categories: beUevers (Muslims) and nonbeUevers.
Then, Ibn Taymiyah divided the nonbeUevers into two major groups: the People of the
Book and the Pagans.
64
The beUevers, or the Muslims, were divided by Ibn Taymiyah
into the foUowers of the true teachings of Islam, whom he caUed Ahl al-Haq (foUowers
of the truth), and those who deviated from the original teachings of Islam, whom he
caUed heretics, or Ahl al-Bida'. Then, Ibn Taymiyah placed the Muslim dissenters into
different categories according to the severity of their reUgious errors, which mainly
included heretics, zandiqs, and apostates.
65
These categorizations of reUgious
64
Ibn Taymiyah, Tqtidha al-Sirat al-Mustaqim fi Mukhalaft 'Ashab al-Jahim (Riyadh:
Maktabat al-Rushd, 1993), 1:63-64.
65
Those categories will be defined in chapter five.
221
dissenters within Islam were used loosely and sometimes interchangeably by Ibn
Taymiyah to identify his sectarian opponents without clarifying their exact meanings.
The reason for such ambiguity could be explained by pointing out that the textual frame
of reference of Ibn Taymiyah never gave precise definitions of these categories, as in
the case of Pagans or the People of the Book. With their ambiguities, Ibn Taymiyah
used these concepts to describe his sectarian opponents, which included the different
Shi'ite sects, the Mu'tazilites, the Asha'rites, the Muslim mystics (sufi), and some other
sects, such as the Kharijites, who actually had disappeared before Ibn Taymiyah's time.
The other implication of Ibn Taymiyah's textual frame of reference could be
seen in his recommended remedies for the problem of religious dissent. Ibn Taymiyah's
response to religious diversity was no different from other political theorists within the
epistemic tradition of Al-Bayan. As will be shown in the next chapter, the textual
categories of Islamic revelation authoritatively forced Ibn Taymiyah to consider
toleration as a policy toward the People of the Book. He insisted on the principle of
refraining from coercing the People of the Book to convert to Islam, regardless of the
requirements of his historical environment. Relying on the same textual frame of
reference, Ibn Taymiyah advocated the idea of forcing those individuals who were not
included in the category of the People of the Book to choose between converting to
Islam and the sword.
With respect to Muslim religious dissenters, Ibn Taymiyah generally advocated
the use of coercion to force them to submit to the true teachings of Islam. While his
222
views on the treatment of the People of the Book were very explicit and direct, Ibn
Taymiyah's response to the problem of rehgious dissent within Islam was somewhat
fragmented and less systematic. In most cases, Ibn Taymiyah recommended, in very
explicit terms, the punishment of individual heretics, including putting them to death.
In other instances, his advocacy of persecuting Muslim heretics was implied in his
views of the substance of rehgious dissenters' doctrines as manifestations of deviations
from the original teachings of Islam or as unbelief. If Ibn Taymiyah's views are taken
to their logical extremes, the result would be subjecting these religious dissenters to
some form of rehgious persecution. In contrast, Ibn Taymiyah never considered
religious toleration as a remedy for sectarian antagonism in Islam. The principle of
rehgious toleration, as it is meant here, is not some fragmented an d accidental remarks
by Ibn Taymiyah on the necessity of applying caution when accusing the individual of
heresy or unbelief. Rather, the idea of rehgious toleration refers to the purposeful and
logically coherent argument against the employment of the political authority to force
the submission of rehgious dissenters. Such a concept of rehgious toleration was never
considered in any major or secondary work by Ibn Taymiyah.
Ibn Taymiyah's advocacy of punishing Muslim heretics was an inevitable
outcome of his textual frame of reference. In other words, his previously held
epistemological assumptions, his conception of the nature of the Islamic community,
and his understanding of the proper functions of the state made rehgious persecution
something imminent. Likewise, the major components of Ibn Taymiyah's frame of
223
reference made any attempt to legitimize sectarian diversity within Islam an exceedingly
difficult if not impossible task. In other words, Ibn Taymiyah would not be capable of
justifying the notion of tolerating Muslim heretics without violating the basic
components of his textual frame of reference.
Ibn Taymiyah's conception of the nature of truth in religion was a major
conceptual obstacle that prevented him from justifying religious toleration as a moral
ideal. Coming from an epistemological tradition in which the religious truth was
perceived as revealed, unique, exclusive, and universal meant the exclusion of the
possibility of having multiple religious truths with equal epistemological status. To
recall the European experience, considering the possibility of having multiple religious
truths (skepticism) was historically the epistemological prerequisite of justifying the
idea of religious toleration. But within Ibn Taymiyah's epistemological outlook, the
potential of having two or more conflicting theological claims was excluded.
Furthermore, coming from a textual frame of reference that was inherently resistant to
skepticism in religion had reinforced Ibn Taymiyah's tendency to exclude the possibility
of error on both sides of the religious controversy. In fact, Ibn Taymiyah went even
further than the majority of the Muslim jurists when he contended that juridical
opinions must be based on certainty, not doubt.
66
Ibn Taymiyah, Al-Istiqamah, 1: 47-69.
224
Approaching the problem of religious diversity with such an absolutist
conception of the truth made the idea of religious toleration an alien concept to Ibn
Taymiyah's discourse. Any divergent religious doctrine would be considered by Ibn
Taymiyah as erroneous and heretical. Since certainty was reserved for only an
interpretation of the Word of God, all other theological views would be placed in an
inferior epistemological status to that of orthodoxy. For Ibn Taymiyah, to advocate the
equalizing of conflicting theological claims would imply not only a form of skepticism
but also the advocacy of factionalism, an idea that was strictly prohibited in the Quran.
Ibn Taymiyah's conception of the Muslim community as an organic entity
founded exclusively on faith was another obstacle to considering religious toleration as
a solution to the sectarian conflicts within Islam. To view Islamic society as a
collectivity of individuals bound by their adherence to the Islamic faith was to make the
religious views of each member morally relevant to the well-being of the Muslim
community. Since the religious consensus of all Muslims on the fundamental doctrines
of Islam was considered by Ibn Taymiyah as the key to the survival of the community
of believers, then any dissenting religious view would certainly be perceived as a threat
to the cohesion of the Islamic society. Consequently, individuals with heterodox
theological views would be considered, by Ibn Taymiyah and other Bayanist thinkers,
as social rebels who would undermine the very foundation of the Muslim polity.
Ibn Taymiyah's preoccupation with the doctrine of the oneness of God added
more rigidity to his organic perception of Islamic society. As previously mentioned, the
225
doctrine of the oneness of God represented the core of Ibn Taymiyah's theological
system and reformist ideology. Judging from his polemical exchanges with other
Muslim theologians, it was obvious that Ibn Taymiyah considered the doctrine of the
oneness of God to be the major principle on which the doctrinal consensus of the
community must be founded. For that reason, he allowed a considerable space in his
theological treatises for articulating his views on the subject of the oneness of God.
The most common style that Ibn Taymiyah adopted to express his views on the subject
was criticism of the doctrines that were not consistent with the principle of the oneness
of God. By so doing, Ibn Taymiyah found himself in a confrontational state with the
majority of the Muslim sects of his time, whether they were the Asha'rites, the mystics,
or the Shi'ites.
The result of Ibn Taymiyah's endeavors to defend his theological position was
the emergence of a well-defined and articulated doctrinal system. But while the
existence of well-defined views would be considered something positive in some
instances, it worked to the disadvantage of the case for religious toleration. For the
larger and more defined the articles of faith are, the higher the potential of having
sectarian opponents and the more people there are to be labeled heretics. Ibn
Taymiyah had well-defined and distinctive views on most theological questions, from
God's attributes and actions to the visitation of the tombs. The clarity and
distinctiveness of his doctrine of the oneness of God made his definition of religious
consensus very narrow. Consequently, the margin for dissenting theological opinions
226
was substantially increased. Hence, for Ibn Taymiyah, to defend the notion of religious
toleration would mean the violation of his conception of the ideal Muslim community
as doctrinally united and coherent.
Providing the Muslim ruler with the functions of enforcing the divine laws of
Islam and preserving the integrity of the Islamic faith was another factor that prevented
Ibn Taymiyah from considering religious toleration as a defensible moral principle. To
recall this study's working definition of religious toleration stated in chapter one, the
removal of the state from the realm of theological disputes was an essential ingredient
of the concept of religious toleration. To consider maintaining the purity of the Islamic
faith as the primary duty of the Muslim ruler was to make religious persecution the
inevitable solution to the problem of religious diversity. The result of such perception
of the proper role of the state was to consider heretics to be not only religious
dissenters but also political criminals. Furthermore, given the totalitarian character of
Islamic law, the jurisdiction of the Islamic state was extended to include the punishment
of those who held certain religious views which were considered contrary to the
established orthodoxy. In this context, the removal of the state from religious affairs
would be the only way to prevent the occurrence of religious persecution. But
considering Ibn Taymiyah's textual frame of reference, in which religion and politics
were so intertwined, the removal of the state from the realm of religion was
unthinkable.
227
In conclusion, Ibn Taymiyah's response to the problem of religious diversity
was constructed within the textual categories of the epistemic tradition of Al-Bayan.
His epistemologicaL, moral, and pohtical views were generally conventional or typical
Bayanist views. This Bayanist frame of reference gave rise to rather peculiar ideas on
religious toleration and persecution that were shaped and limited by, not the historical
milieu of Ibn Taymiyah, but by the authoritative texts of Islam The influence that the
textual frame of reference of Ibn Taymiyah had on the formal structure and the
contents of his justification of religious persecution and toleration will be examined in
the remaining two chapters of this dissertation.
228
Chapter Four
Ibn Taymiyah on Religious Dissent:
The Case for Toleration
The aim of this chapter is to examine Ibn Taymiyah's conception of toleration
for religious dissent. Like the rest of political theorists within al-Bayan tradition, Ibn
Taymiyah considered the People of the Book to be the only reUgious dissenters who
were eligible for religious toleration. Hence, his views on toleration were expressed in
the context of his discussion of that particular religious group. The purpose of the
present discussion is to show how Ibn Taymiyah's textual frame of reference, not the
requirements of his historical milieu, authoritatively structured the style and substance
of his justification of reUgious toleration. To accompUsh the purpose which this
chapter is intended to serve, it is divided into four major sections. The first section
examines the essence of the textual concept of the People of the Book. The
Scripturaries as reUgious dissenters wiU be dealt with in section two. Ibn Taymiyah's
conception of the nature and the limits of reUgious toleration will be delineated in parts
three and four, respectively.
The People of the Book as a Textual Category
As previously mentioned, Ibn Taymiyah foUowed the conventional Islamic
view of dividing the human race into two exclusive categories: the Muslims and the
229
unbelievers. The latter category was then divided into two major categories: the
People of the Book and the Pagans. Originally, the category of the Pagans was limited
to the polytheistic tribes of Mecca and the surrounding areas. But in later times it was
extended to include any non-Muslim who was not categorized as a member of the
People of the Book.
The concept of the People of the Book was exclusively a textual category.
The Muslim theologians and jurists derived the term People of the Book from divine
texts of Islam, mainly the Quran and the Prophetic traditions. But while it was referred
to in the Prophetic traditions, the category of the People of the Book was mainly a
Quranic construct. It appears in the Quran thirty-one times, and in most cases the
reference is negative, that is, describing them as unbeUevers, distorters of the Word of
God, and the like. In its original textual context, the category of the People of the
Book referred primarily to the Christians and Jews with whom the Prophet had
frequent contacts. But later, other religious groups, some of whom did not possess a
revealed scripture, were included in the category of the People of the Book. In
general, it included Jews, Christians, Sabians, Samaritans, and Magians (Zoroastrians).
From a technical point of view, the Magians did not resemble either the Muslims or the
Christians and Jews, and they never possessed a scripture. Nonetheless, they were
classified as Scripturaries by the vast majority of Islamic thinkers. To rationalize the
inclusion of the Magians in the textual category of the People of the Book, some
230
Muslim jurists, like Abu Yusuf, suggested that the Magians had at one time possessed a
divine scripture which was eventually lost.'
Ibn Taymiyah, who came from the same frame of reference, simply
inherited the extended definition of the People of the Book from his predecessors. For
Ibn Taymiyah, the category of the People of the Book included all of the above-
mentioned religious groups. Consistent with the established views within the Sunni
tradition on the subject, Ibn Taymiyah considered Christians and Jews to be the primary
religious groups in the textual category of the People of the Book.
2
But he also
included the Magians in that category, not because they had possessed a scripture
which was lost, but because it was reported that the Prophet had treated them as the
People of the Book in requiring the Magians of Hajr (a town in the northeast of today's
Saudi Arabia) to pay a tribute (jizyah) in exchange for toleration. Therefore, such
treatment of the Magians by the Prophet implied his inclusion of them within the
category of the People of the Book.
3
Although all these religious groups never
disappeared from Ibn Taymiyah's discourse, his encounters were actually limited to
Christians and Jews. To be sure, most of bis remarks on the status of the People of the
1
See Khadduri, War and Peace. 176, f.n.2.
2
Ibn Taymiyah, Al-Istiqamah, 69.
3
Ibn Taymiyah, Al-Jawab al-Sahih limn Baddal Din al-Masih (The Right Reply to
Who Changed the Religion of the Messiah) (Cairo: Matba'at al-Madani, 1959), 112-
14.
231
Book under Muslim rule were mainly about Christians, not Jews. When he mentioned
the Jews it was usually in the context of his discussion of the Christian rehgion or the
status of the Christians in the Islamic state.
The People of the Book as Religious Dissenters
Since Ibn Taymiyah derived his views on the People of the Book from the
divine texts of Islam, he always perceived them as religious dissenters. He considered
the Scripturaries to be infidels {kuffar), who must be subjected to the Islamic doctrine
of jihad and will be punished by God on the Day of Judgment. His classification of the
People of the Book as religious dissenters was based on two grounds. First, because of
their denial of the universaHty of the message of Islam Second, because they
advocated certain theological doctrines that were considered heretical and contrary to
the original teachings of Jesus. Those two considerations will be examined in the
following sections.
As previously mentioned, Ibn Taymiyah's views on the People of the Book
were expressed in the context of his discussion of Christianity and the status of
Christian subjects of the Islamic state. Ibn Taymiyah's conception of Christianity as a
heretical and distorted rehgion was found in his multi-volumed work: Al-Jawab al-
Sahih limn Badal Din al-Masih (The Right Reply to Those Who Changed the Rehgion
of the Messiah). He composed that work as a reply to or refutation of a Christian
priest, Paul of Antioch, who wrote an essay known as al-Risalah al-Qubrusiyah (the
232
Cyprian Epistle). In that treatise, Paul of Antioch gave his reasons for not converting
to Islam He stated six reasons, which Ibn Taymiyah summarized as the following:
"1. The claim that Muhammad was not sent to Christians but
only to the people of Ignorance (Jahiliyah) among the Arabs,
and that this can be proved from the Qur'an as well as
rationally.
2. The claim that the Quran praises the Christian religion,
and that this means that the Christians should not abandon
their religion and need not be converted to Islam.
3. The claim that the prophecies of the past such as exist in
the Torah and Psalms as well as the Gospels confirm their faith
in the Trinity, hypostases (aqanini), and Incarnation, etc.; and
that these doctrines are true and they are contradicted neither
by reason nor scriptures.
4. The propounding of rational and scriptural arguments in
favor of the Trinity, etc.
5. The claim that Christians are monotheists and the
apologies for the use of words that apparently suggest the
plurality of gods, such as the word aqanim, etc.; and the claim
that the use of such words is similar to Muslim use of
statements that suggest anthropomorphism.
6. The argument that Jesus came after Moses with perfect
teachings and there is no need of an addition after perfection,
since anything that comes after it is redundant and religiously
unacceptable."
4
In his reply to Paul of Antioch, Ibn Taymiyah expressed his views on
Christianity in considerable length. In his reply, Ibn Taymiyah attempted to refute the
4
Ibn Taymiyah, Al-Jawab, 1:20. The translation is that of Muzammil Siddiqi,
"Muslim views of Christianity in the Middle Ages; an Analytical Study of Ibn
Taymiyah's work on Christianity" (Ph. Diss. Harvard University, 1978), 148.
233
six claims stated in Paul of Antioch' essay. Through his commentary on the basic
Christian doctrines, such as Trinity and Incarnation, and his defense of the universality
of the Islamic revelation, Ibn Taymiyah expressed his general conception of Christianity
and, to less extent, Judaism. Hence, most of his views on Christianity and Judaism as
dissenting religions were to be found in that particular work.
Ibn Taymiyah's certainty of the superiority of Islam over other revealed
religions was the main premise upon which his views on Christianity and Judaism were
founded. Whether it was his discussion of the substance of basic Jewish and Christian
doctrines or his views on how the followers of these two religions ought to be treated
by the Muslims, Ibn Taymiyah's commitment to the uniqueness and superiority of
Islamic revelation was unmistakable. To recall Ibn Taymiyah's conception of reUgious
truth, he considered past divine revelations to be revolving around the principle of the
oneness of God. All past revelations, including Judaism and Christianity, were different
manifestations of the principle of worshipping one God with no associates. Ibn
Taymiyah restated the same assertion in his opening remarks on Christianity.
5
However, Ibn Taymiyah's belief in the unity of all revealed religions did not
lead him to advocating the equality of all revealed religions. Instead, he contended that
since all past prophets were propagating the same principle, that is, the oneness of God,
then they were all Muslims.
6
Such an assertion by Ibn Taymiyah was not based on
5
Ibn Taymiyah. Al-Jawab. 1:5.
234
either his study of the historical development of other reUgions or his comparison of the
contents of the divine texts of these reUgions. Instead, Ibn Taymiyah's Islamization of
other reUgions was a direct outcome of his textual frame of reference. In other words,
Ibn Taymiyah's assertion concerning other revealed reUgions was a result of his
reliance on the authoritative Quranic texts which stated the same idea.
7
With the advent of Islam, aU previous revelations became abrogated. God
made Muhammad the concealment of aU the prophets, and his message was seen by Ibn
Taymiyah as the final expression of the Word of God. Islam, therefore, gained a
superior status over other reUgions. Like the rest of the Bayanist thinkers, Ibn
Taymiyah arranged aU reUgions in hierarchical order, on the top of which Islam stood
as the ultimate truth. Since Islam was the final expression of God's revelation, then
every person who became aware of it must adhere to it. The reason for that was the
notion that Islam was the only reUgion acceptable to God. Ibn Taymiyah wrote
The reUgion with which God Himself is pleased is the reUgion
of Islam With it He sent the previous and later messengers.
He would not accept from anyone a reUgion other than this
one, neither from those who lived before nor from those of
later times. This is the reUgion of the prophets and their
foUowers.
8
6
Ibn Taymiyah, Al-Jawab. 1:12.
7
Ibn Taymiyan, Al-Jawab, 1:9.
8
Ibn Taymiyan, Al-Jawab. 1:11. The translation is that of Siddiqi, 179.
235
To support his claim, he appealed to the Quranic verse 3:85 which read:
'Tf anyone desires a rehgion other than Islam (submission to Allah) never will it be
accepted of him; and the Hereafter he will be in the rank of those who have lost."
9
It
was based on these premises that Ibn Taymiyah approached the subject of Christianity
and Judaism.
The greatest sin of the People of the Book was their disbelief in
Muhammad as the messenger of God to humankind.
10
Ibn Taymiyah made special
reference to the Christians, for whom he composed the previously mentioned treatise.
According to Ibn Taymiyah, the Christians refused to accept the message of Islam on
three considerations. First, they thought Muhammad was sent to the pagan Arabs of
Mecca, and not to all people. Second, the Quran always complimented their rehgion,
which implied that Muhammad had approved of their religious beliefs and practices as
true rehgion. Finally, Christ came after Moses with a perfect rehgion, which eliminated
the need for a new prophet.
11
Considering Ibn Taymiyah's views on the nature and
scope of the truth, i.e., Islamic revelation, nothing could be more objectionable than
these Christian views. Of course, Ibn Taymiyah forcefully opposed such claims and
insisted on the universality of the message of Islam. But it is beyond the scope of the
9
Ibn Taymiyah cited this verse in Al-Jawab. 1:228.
10
Ibn Taymiyah, Al-Jawab. 1:23-24; Al-Sarm al-Maslul 'ala Shatim al-Rasul (n.p.: n.p.,
1400 A.H.), 248-49.
11
Ibn Taymiyah, Al-Jawab, 1:20-21.
236
present study to discuss Ibn Taymiyah's reply to these assertions.
12
What needs to be
emphasized here is that the Scripturaries' rejection of the universality of Muhammad's
message placed them in the category of religious dissenters who, according to the
Islamic world view, would be subjected to rehgious persecution.
The People of the Book's rejection of the universality of the Islamic call
was not their only sin. Ibn Taymiyah found most of the religious doctrines of the
Scripturaries to be highly objectionable. He was particularly critical of the theological
doctrines of the Christians. Ibn Taymiyah believed that the Christians advocated a
false, heretical religion which they had invented after Jesus was gone.
13
For Ibn
Taymiyah, later generations of Christians had distorted and altered the original
teachings of Christ that were consistent with the teachings of Islam. Most of the major
Christian doctrines, Ibn Taymiyah insisted, especially the doctrine of Trinity, had no
biblical support and were contrary to human reason. In fact, Ibn Taymiyah went
further by suggesting that some of the Christians' beliefs and practices were
manifestations of polytheism (shirk).
14
12
While Ibn Taymiyah's Al-Jawab Al-Sahih, has not been translated into English yet;
Siddiqi in his previously mentioned work focused exclusively on that particular work by
Ibn Taymiyah.
13
Ibn Taymiyah, Al-Jawab. 1:23; Majmu
c
Fatawa. 23:611.
14
Ibn Taymiyah, Al-Jawab. 1:117-126; 2:32-35.
237
The Scripturaries' alteration or distortion (tahrif) of the Jewish and
Christian divine texts was the most commonly cited charge against them by the
Muslims. The origin of such accusation was purely Quranic. The charge of alteration
or distortion against the People of the Book occurs four times in the Quran.
15
In
general, the Quran accused the Christians and Jews of intentionally and purposefully
altering their original scriptures to avoid believing in Muhammad and the messenger of
God whose appearance was foretold by these scriptures. However, the Quran did not
specify whether the alteration was textural, that is, change in wording, or in the
meaning of certain texts. The majority of Muslim theologians suggested that the
alteration was textual as well as exegetical.
16
Ibn Taymiyah's views on the question of the Scripturaries' tampering with
their divine texts were consistent with those of the majority of Bayanist thinkers. He
also appealed to some Quranic texts as proof of the occurrence of distortion of the
original texts of Christianity and Judaism. Ibn Taymiyah also held the notion that the
alteration of the Jewish and Christian scriptures was in wording or textual and in
meaning. But he seemed to give more emphasis to alteration that had occurred at the
exegetical level than at the textual level.
17
He was rather conventional in asserting that
15
Quran: 2:75; 4:46; 5:13; and 5:41. See Siddiqi, 203.
16
See Siddiqi, 202-203.
17
See Siddiqi, 203-204.
238
one of the motives of the Scripturaries in altering their divine texts was to hide the
predictions of these texts about the coming of Muhammad.
18
In addition, he found the idea of alteration to be a very powerful
conceptual tool to prove the superiority of Islam over Jewish and Christian revelations.
Ibn Taymiyah contended that the Scripturaries' interpretation of the Quranic verse
(5:69)
19
as advocating the equality of Islam and other revealed rehgions was erroneous.
Instead, he argued that the reference to the Christians and Jews in that Quranic text
meant Christianity and Judaism in their pure and original forms prior to their alteration
by later generations of Scripturaries.
20
Because of these distortions, Ibn Taymiyah
believed, Christians and Jews became followers of false rehgions that must be subjected
to the Islamic doctrine of jihad.
21
Sources of Ibn Tavmivah's Justification of Religious Toleration
Throughout his treatment of the status of the People of the Book, Ibn
Taymiyah appealed frequently to the divine texts of Islam. Whether it was his
Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa, 28:615.
19
The verse read, "Those who believe (in the Quran), those who follow the Jewish
(scriptures), and the Sabians and the Christians, any who believe in Allah and the Last
Day and work righteousness, - On them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve."
20
See Ibn Taymiyah, Al-Jawab, 63-64.
21
Ibid.
239
discussion of the scope and meaning of tolerating the Scripturaries or the limits of that
policy, Ibn Taymiyah's style of argument was fundamentally textual. In general, the
views of Ibn Taymiyah on the subject of religious toleration were derived from three
textual sources: the Quran, the Prophetic traditions, and the covenant of 'Umar. All of
his ideas on the subject could be traced back to these three sources. Even when he was
commenting on certain historical events, his remarks were derived from and based on
the above-mentioned three textual sources.
The Quran was the primary and most authoritative source of the Islamic
political thinkers' views on the subject of religious toleration. For these thinkers, it
represented the ultimate point of reference of any theological or juridical issue
concerning the status or the beliefs of the People of the Book. In regard to the idea of
toleration as a moral ideal, the vast majority of theologians and jurists within the al-
Bayan epistemic tradition based their defense of it primarily on the Quranic verse
(9:29). According to that Quranic text, the Muslims were given the divine command to
Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold
that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His
Messenger, nor acknowledge the Religion of the Truth, from
among the People of the Book, until they pay the jizya [poll-
tax] with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.
That Quranic text became the most authoritative and unquestionable source
for justifying the doctrine of tolerating the People of the Book as the defensible moral
and theological ideal. It has authoritatively and forcefully shaped Islamic political
240
thinkers' views on the subject of reUgious toleration in general, and the proper
treatment of the Scripturaries under Islamic rule in particular. For centuries, Muslim
theologians and jurists had engaged in relentless efforts to interpret its meaning, and to
develop some legal and theological views concerning the status of the Scripturaries in
the Islamic polity. The profound influence of that Quranic text on Muslim discourse
could be seen in Islamic thinkers' recourse to it at the outset of any juridical or
theological discussion of the People of the Book. Indeed, that Quranic verse became a
standard starting point for most Muslim jurists who dealt with any question relating to
the status of the Scripturaries under Muslim rule.
22
Ibn Taymiyah was no exception. He made frequent appeals to the Quranic
texts to support his theological or juridical views on the status of the People of the
Book. It was from th e Quran that he derived his assertions about the Scripturaries as
unbelievers and advocates of erroneous and heretical religious doctrines. It was also
the Quran that represented the very foundation of his belief in the superiority of Islam
over all other revealed religions. In regard to justifying toleration, like the rest of the
Bayanist thinkers, Ibn Taymiyah appealed directly to the Quranic text 9:29 on more
than one occasion. He found it to be the unquestionable source of justifyin g tolerating
the People of the Book as reUgious dissenters. As wiU be shown in the discussion of
For example, Ibn Qiayym al-Jawziyah, the author of one of the popular books on the
status of the Scripturaries in the Islamic state, started his treatise by citing the Quranic
verse 9:29. See Ibn Qiayym al-Jawziyah, Ahkam Ahl al-Dhimah (The Categorizations
of the Protected People) 2nd ed. (Beirut: Dar al-'UmLilmalayin, 1981), 27-31.
241
his views on the meaning of religious toleration, Ibn Taymiyah's treatment of the
subject was determined, in its formal structure and content, by that Quranic verse.
The Quranic texts concerning the People of the Book were not the only
source of Ibn Taymiyah's defense of religious toleration. He found in some of the
practices of the Prophet another authoritative textual justification for not coercing the
Scripturaries to convert to Islam Ibn Taymiyah made a special reference to the
agreement between the Prophet and the Christians of Najran (a city in southwestern
Saudi Arabia). According to that agreement, the Prophet consented to allowing the
Christians of Najran to keep their religious faith and places of worship in exchange for
paying him an annual tribute (jizyah). That was the first covenant between the Muslims
and the Scripturaries. Also, Ibn Taymiyah found the Prophet's acceptance of the poll-
tax from th e Magians as a textual evidence of treating them as Scripturaries despite the
fact that they did not possess a divine scripture. These two events were later
transformed by Muslim jurists and theologians, including Ibn Taymiyah, into
authoritative texts that were used to justify the principle of tolerating the People of the
Book.
23
The so-called covenant of 'Umar was the last major textual source of Ibn
Taymiyah's justification of religious toleration. He frequently mad e recourse to it to
support his views on the status of the People of the Book in the Islamic state. Like the
See Ibn Taymiyah, Al-Jawab. 1:52-53.
242
majority of political thinkers within the tradition of al-Bayan, he utilized 'Umar's
covenant to explain the details concerning the application of the general principle of
religious toleration stated in the Quranic verse 9:29.
What was the covenant of 'Umar? It is misleading to speak of one
covenant of 'Umar. History books revealed more than one covenant of 'Umar. While
all contained similar ideas and served one single theme, each version of the covenant of
'Umar was different from the others with respect to length, contents, and wording.
The existence of multiple versions of the covenant of'Umar led some commentators to
question its historicity and its relation to 'Umar. Khadduri, for example, suggested that
the text of'Umar's covenant was not the product of'Umar's time but the work of later
generations.
24
A. S. Tritton went even further by stating that
The conclusion forced on one is that no one knew what the
covenant of'Umar was; and that any collection of peace terms
might be glorified with his name. It would seem that it was an
exercise in the schools of law to draw up pattern treaties.
25
The covenant was associated with 'Umar because, in all its different
versions, it originated in a letter from the second Muslim caliph to the Christians of
Syria. In one instance, the letter of 'Umar was a reply to a letter from some
Christians.
26
In another instance, 'Umar's letter was addressed to the commander of
Khadduri, War and Peace. 194.
Tritton, 12.
Tritton, 5.
243
the Muslim army in Syria, Abu 'Ubaidah.
27
Later generations of jurists developed it
into a more standardized and formalized pattern of treaty between the Muslim rulers
and the Scripturaries under their rule. Tritton translated three of the several recorded
forms of the covenant of 'Umar. Ibn Taymiyah appealed to different forms of the
covenant of 'Umar, though he did not cite all of them. Rather than reproducing the
three versions of the covenant here, it would be more appropriate to list the rights an d
the obhgations of the People of the Book which the different versions of 'Umar's
covenant asserted. In its different forms the covenant of 'Umar revolved around four
subjects: the poll-tax (jizyah), religious practices and places of worship, economic
interactions, and social conduct. The terms covering these four areas are listed
below.
28
I. The Poll-Tax (Jizyah)
1. "Every free adul t male of sound mind shall pay poll-tax," the amount of which
is determined by the Muslim rulers, at the beginning of each year.
2. Children, women, lunatics, and slaves are not required to pay poll-tax.
3. "If a lunatic becomes sane, a boy grows up, a slave is set free," and remained
a Scripturary, he becomes required to pay poll-tax.
27
Tritton, 6.
28
I have relied exclusively on Tritton's translations of the different versions of the
covenant of'Umar. See Tritton, 5-16.
244
4. The Scripturary "shall not leave his town 'til he has paid and shall not appoint
a substitute to pay it."
5. "A poor man is liable for his jizyah (poll-tax) 'til it is paid; poverty does not
cancel any of [his] obligations nor abrogate the protection given [to him]."
n. Religious Practices and Places of Worship
1. The Muslim rulers guarantee to the Scriptiiraries their rights to practice then-
own religions, and the safety of their places of worship.
2. The Scriptiiraries must refrain from expressing unfitting views about the
Prophet, God's Book, or His religion.
3. The Scripturaries must refrain from displaying any expression of idolatry or
promoting it.
4. The Scripturaries must not learn the Quran or teach it to their children.
5. The Scripturaries must not hinder anyone among their co-religionists from
converting to Islam.
6. The Scripturaries are prohibited from displaying a cross on their places of
worship or in the public roads or Muslims' markets.
7. The Scripturaries are required to beat the bells (ttakus) of their churches
gently and quietly.
8. The Scripturaries are prohibited from building a new church, convent,
hermitage or cell, or repairing the places of worship that are decaying.
245
m. Economic Interactions
1. The Muslim rulers guarantee the Scripturaries the safety of their property
against any person, Muslim or otherwise.
2. The protection does not extend to forbidden things, such as blood, carcasses,
wines, pigs, and the like.
3. The Scripturaries are prohibited from selling commodities that are forbidden
in Islam to the Muslims.
4. If a Muslim buys a forbidden commodity from a Scripturary, the Muslim ruler
is under no obligation to force the Muslim to pay, since in Islam, forbidden
commodities do not have price.
5. The Scripturaries are not allowed to keep slaves who have been the property
of Muslims.
6. If the Scripturaries travel with merchandise, they must pay one-tenth to the
Muslim ruler.
IV. Social Conduct
1. The Scripturaries must wear distinctive clothing which makes them
distinguishable from the Muslims. They are required to wear the zunnar
(girdle) around their waists, and wear a tall, colored qalnsuwah (headgear).
2. The Scripturaries must cut their hair in the front.
3. The Scripturaries are not allowed to engrave their names in Arabic, or use
Muslim names.
246
4. The Scripturaries must use different saddles and ride their horses in a manner
that is different from that of the Muslims.
5. The Scripturaries must use the side of the road whenever they meet Muslims,
and must not take the chief seats in assemblies when Muslims are present.
6. The houses of the Scripturaries must not be higher than the houses of
Muslims.
7. The Scripturaries are not allowed "to keep weapons or swords [or to] wear
them in a town or on journey in a Muslim land."
8. It is prohibited for the Scripturaries to light fires with their dead in roads
where Muslims are present, or to raise their voices at their funerals or to bring
them near Muslims.
9. The Scripturary man is not allowed to marry a Muslim woman.
10. The Scripturaries are allowed to move freely in the Muslim land. But they are
prohibited from enterin g Mecca under any conditions.
V. Criminal and Civil Codes
1. The Scripturaries must live "under Muslim laws and no other."
2. The Scripturaries have the choice to settle their civil disputes in Muslim
courts or in their own courts.
3. If a Scripturary "killfs] accidentally a Muslim or an ally, Christian or not, then
the relatives (of the homicide) shall pay blood money, as among the
Muslims."
247
4. The Scripturary who commits murder "shall be killed unless the heirs wish to
take blood money, which shall be paid at once."
5. The Scripturary who commits theft "shall have his hand cut off, if this is the
punishment, and shall pay fine."
6. If the Scripturary commits a slander, he "shall be punished if the punishment
is fixed; i f not, he shall be punished according to the Muslim law."
VI. Termination of the Agreement
29
The Muslim ruler can terminate the protective status of the Scripturary who
A. "commits fornication with or marries a Muslim woman."
B. "robs a Muslim on the highway."
C. "turns a Muslim from hi s religion."
D. "helps. . .[the Muslims'] enemies as soldier or guide to Muslim weaknesses,
or shelters their spies."
These rules were derived from thre e versions of the covenant of 'Umar that
the author had access to. Other versions of the covenant may reveal more rights and
A direct reference to these rules of terminating the protective status of the People of
the Book was found in only one version of the covenant of 'Umar. However, these
rules seemed to be arbitrary and incomplete. The Muslim jurists had expressed varying
views on the issue of terminating the agreement with the People of the Book. Some
jurists considered a Scripturary's refusal to pay the poll-tax as the only cause for
terminating his protective status. Other jurists added other reasons, some of which are
cited above. The question of terminating the agreement between the Scripturaries and
the Muslims will be examined in more detail when I discuss Ibn Taymiyah's views on
the limits of religious toleration.
248
obligations of the People of the Book. The purpose of stating the terms of the
covenant of 'Umar is to clarify the discussion of Ibn Taymiyah's use of it in his
justification of religious toleration.
Ibn Taymiyah referred to the covenant of 'Umar in three of his works. In
his book, Al-Jawab Al-Sahih (The Right Reply), Ibn Taymiyah quoted the covenant of
'Umar in its concise form
30
He also referred to it in his short essay on whether the
, decision of the Muslim ruler of Egypt to demolish some churches was legitimate or not.
He again quoted the covenant in its entirety to support his position on the issue.
31
The
third place in which Ibn Taymiyah appealed to the covenant of 'Umar was his
discussion of the punishment of the person who blasphemed the Prophet. However, in
that context his reference was rather brief and partial since he quoted only the term
prohibiting the Scripturaries from advocating any form of polytheism
32
Judging from
his quotations of the document, Ibn Taymiyah appeared to have access to the covenant
of 'Umar in its concise version. He relied on the version of the covenant that was
narrated by Masruq bin 'Utbah through Sufyan al-Thuri who quoted a letter from the
second Caliph 'Umar to the Christians of Syria in which he stated these conditions.
33
30
Ibn Taymiyah, Al-Jawab. 1:105-106.
31
Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa. 28:652-53.
32
Ibn Taymiyah, Al-Sarm, 208.
33
Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 28:652.
249
Ibn Taymiyah was well aware of the existence of multiple versions of the
covenant of 'Umar. He stated that the document had been widely circulated by the
Muslims for generations in its concise and detailed forms.
34
But the existence of
multiple versions of the text, which varied in length and wording, did not seem to
concern Ibn Taymiyah or to cause him to question its historical authenticity or its
relation to 'Umar. For Ibn Taymiyah, the covenant of 'Umar was an authentic and
authoritative text according to which the status of the People of the Book ought to be
defined. But Ibn Taymiyah's not questioning the historicity of the covenant of 'Umar
should not concern the historian of Islamic political thought. What is relevant to this
study is not the historicity of the covenant of 'Umar. Rather, the important thing is that
Ibn Taymiyah believed firmly in its authenticity, and it had a profound impact on his
views on religious toleration.
It must be emphasized, however, that while, in theory, the covenant of
'Umar was not as authoritative as the Quranic or the Prophetic texts on the subject, it
played an equal role in shaping Ibn Taymiyah's conception of religious toleration. In
the epistemic tradition of al-Bayan, the conduct of the companions of the Prophet
became transformed by later generations of Muslim scholars into a transhistorical and
authoritative text. For Ibn Taymiyah, the actions of the Caliph 'Umar towards the
Scripturaries was one form of consensus (ijtna') among the companions of the Prophet.
Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 28:651.
250
Therefore, the covenant of 'Umar, Ibn Taymiyah contended, became obligatory to later
generations of Muslims. In addition to the notion of consensus, Ibn Taymiyah alluded
to two prophetic traditions which required the Muslims to follow the examples of the
Prophet's companions, especially Abu Baker and 'Umar.
35
As will be shown in a later
section, the covenant of 'Umar will have a considerable impact on Ibn Taymiyah's
conception of the limits of tolerating the People of the Book.
The Meaning and the Scope of Religious Toleration
Ibn Taymiyah's conception of the nature and the boundaries of rehgious
toleration were similar, if not identical, to established views on the subject within the al-
Bayan world view. In general, he advocated the idea of permitting the Scripruraries to
maintain their rehgious beliefs and places of worship in exchange for paying a poll-tax
to Muslim authorities and living under some legal restrictions. However, while Ibn
Taymiyah's justification of tolerating the People of the Book was consistent with that
of other Bayanist theorists, on a few occasions he expressed some slightly different
views. The purpose of this section is to examine Ibn Taymiyah's views on what
constituted the doctrine of tolerating the People of the Book in terms of its meaning
and scope.
Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 28:651.
251
Ibn Taymiyah's understanding of the idea of toleration was consistent with
the general definition of the concept of religious toleration. It had all the basic
components and all the prerequisites of the doctrine of religious toleration in its most
general form. As previously mentioned, Ibn Taymiyah expressed his objections to most
theological doctrines of the Scripturaries in unmistakable terms. For Ibn Taymiyah, the
People of the Book were religious dissenters not only because they advocated heretical
doctrines and polytheism, but also because of their refusal to accept Islam as the only
true religion. Furthermore, he believed that the People of the Book were condemned
by God as infidels who were destined to go to hell on the Day of Judgment. As
unbelievers, the People of the Book were considered a legitimate target of the Islamic
doctrine of the holy war (jihad).
However, in spite of all that, Ibn Taymiyah argued against the notion of
coercing the People of the Book to convert to Islam. He always expressed his
commitment to the principle of tolerating the Scripturaries as a moral and theological
ideal. In none of his numerous writings did Ibn Taymiyah express his intention to
abandon the doctrine of toleration of the People of the Book. He was well aware of
how the Scripturaries had collaborated with their co-religionists, the Crusaders and the
Mongols, against the Muslims. He was particularly resentful of the Christians' siding
with the Mongols that resulted in disastrous consequences for the Muslims.
36
Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 28:646. It was reported that when the Mongols
conquered Baghdad in 1260 and massacred its civilian population, they treated the
252
However, such actions by the Scripturaries, which certainly would have excluded the
ones who committed these acts from the policy of religious toleration, never led Ibn
Taymiyah to question his commitment to the principle of tolerating People of the Book.
He always forcefully insisted on the doctrine of permitting the People of the Book to
preserve their religious convictions and places of worship. Coercing the Scripturaries,
Ibn Taymiyah argued, was strictly prohibited in Islam
37
In the context of his
discussion of the status of the People of the Book, he alluded to every famous
Prophetic tradition according to which the Prophet was reported to have said,
"Beware, if anyone wrongs a contracting man, or diminishes his rights, or forces him to
work beyond his capacity, or takes from him anything without his consent, I should
plead for him in the Day of Judgment."
38
For Ibn Taymiyah, it was the moral and religious obligation of the
Muslim ruler to provide the Scripturaries, who adhere to the conditions and rules of
their treaty with the Muslims, with protection from internal and external threats. For
instance, in his letter to the Cypriot Archbishop Sergius, Ibn Taymiyah suggested that it
Christians of the city favorably. In later times, some of the Mongol leaders were
married to very influential Christian wives. Also, Ibn Taymiyah seemed to be aware of
how some Christian sects, Nestorians, Armenians, and Georgians, had collaborated
with the Mongol army in capturing some Islamic towns such as Arbil and Damascus.
See Siddiqi, 92-94.
37
Ibn Taymiyah, Al-Jawab. 1:107-108.
38
Ibid.
253
was the responsibility of the Muslim ruler to assure the release of the Scripturaries if
they were taken as prisoners of war by the Muslims' enemies. He wrote
All Christians know well how I asked the Tatars [Mongols] to
release our prisoners. Ghazan and Qutlushah were willing to
release them and I talked to our Prince about them. He
[Ghazan] permitted the release of the Muslims and said to me,
"But with us some Christians whom we captured in Jerusalem;
they will not be released." I said to him: "All Jews and
Christians who are in your hands are our protectees and we
must have them... So we tried to have considerable number of
Christians released. This is our conduct and our beneficence.
39
One is struck by the degree to which the textual frame of reference of Ibn
Taymiyah had shaped his argument for rehgious toleration. Such impact of the textual
categories of Islamic revelation was not limited to the contents of Ibn Taymiyah's
argument against the idea of coercing the Scripturaries to embrace Islam. But it also
extended to the formal structure of his justification. Throughout his discussion of the
status of the Scripturaries, Ibn Taymiyah made direct appeals to Quranic and Prophetic
texts, and to the practices of the second Muslim Caliph 'Umar. But among all these
texts, the Quranic verse 9:29 was the major text that authoritatively determined the
contents and the formal structure of Ibn Taymiyah's argument for rehgious toleration.
As previously mentioned, Ibn Taymiyah's justification of tolerating the
People of the Book consisted of three elements. First, he perceived the Scripturaries as
rehgious dissenters who advocated erroneous rehgious beliefs. The second element of
Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa. 28:617-18. The translation is that of Siddiqi, 189.
254
his argument was that the Scripturaries were legitimate targets of the Islamic doctrine
of jihad. The final elemen t of Ibn Taymiyah's advocacy of religious toleration was the
suspension of the doctrine of jihad against the Scripturaries and granting them the right
to retain their erroneous religious convictions if they consented to pay the poll-tax.
These three elements did not originate with the historical context of Ibn Taymiyah or
that of his predecessors. Instead, they were a direct outcome of Ibn Taymiyah's
reliance on the Quranic verse 9:29 as the major source of his defense of the principle of
religious toleration. That Quranic text 9:29 consisted of three assertions which
corresponded to the three components of Ibn Taymiyah's justification of tolerating the
Scripturaries. First the Quranic verse started with God's command to the Muslims to
fight the Scripturaries as unbelievers who must be forced to accept Islam as the true
religion. Then, the Quranic verse stated the reasons as to why the Scripturaries were
considered religious dissenters. The Quran stated four reasons for considering the
People of the Book as religious dissenters, though Muslim thinkers, including Ibn
Taymiyah, cited more reasons than these four, because they appealed to other Quranic
verses. According to that Quranic text, the Scripturaries were considered religious
dissenters because they "believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden
which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the Religion
of the Truth." Then, the verse ended with enjoining Muslims to suspend the doctrine
of jihad if the Scripturaries agreed to pay a tribute. These three assertions were
included in any argument for religious toleration by the majority of Islamic thinkers,
255
regardless of the requirements of their historical milieu.
40
As a conventional Bayanist,
the basic components of Ibn Taymiyah's justification of religious toleration
corresponded to the above-mentioned three assertions that appeared in the Quranic
verse 9:29.
The issue of the poll-tax, which was always a major question in the
literature on religious toleration in Islam, appeared to be a marginal question in Ibn
Taymiyah's writings. The Bayanist political thinkers who dealt with the status of the
Scripturaries under Islamic rule devoted a significant space of their writings to
explaining the meaning and purpose of the poll-tax. The main questions were who was
required to pay it and whether the poll-tax was meant as compensation for not
subjecting them to the doctrine of jihad or as punishment for their unbelief.
41
However, these questions appeared to be peripheral issues for Ibn Taymiyah. In spite
of the fact that he composed a very lengthy work on Christianity, as well as a few short
In fact, it was common practice among the Muslim jurists and theologians to make
lengthy commentaries on that Quranic verse with the aim of deriving different juridical
opinions concerning the status of the Scripturaries under Islamic rule. In such
commentaries, they engaged in hermeneutical activities, the outcome of which was the
emergence of a sub-field in Islamic jurisprudence called Ahkam ahl al-Dhimah (The
Categorizations of the Protected People). For examples of such works, see Fakhr al-
Din al-Razi, Al-Tafsir al-Kabir (The Expanded Commentary) (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-
'Emiyah, 1990), 16:23-27; and Al-Qurtubi, 8:109-116.
41
See, for example, Al- Qurtubi, 8:110, and Abi Bakr M. Ibn al-Arabi, Ahkam al-
Our'an (The Categorizations of the Quran) (Beirut: Dar al-M'rifah, n.d.), 2:920.
256
tracts on the status of the Scripturaries in the Islamic polity, Ibn Taymiyah gave the
questions related to the poll-tax very little attention.
In his brief discussion of the poll-tax, his views on the subject were
consistent with those of other Muslim jurists and theologians. For Ibn Taymiyah, the
poll-tax was required of every adult, free, physically and mentally capable male who
was included in the category of People of the Book. By implication, slaves and
individuals who were mentally and physically unfit were exempted from paying poll-
tax. In regard to women and children, Ibn Taymiyah suggested that they were not
required to pay poll-tax because they were considered properties.
42
With respect to the
priests who chose to live in their convents and devote their lives to worship, Ibn
Taymiyah thought that they ought to be exempted from poll-tax.
43
However, he
forcefully insisted that those priests who played active roles in their communities, and
could provide their co-religionists with assistance against the Muslims, must be forced
to pay poll-tax like any other protected person.
44
Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 28:660. According to the Islamic norms of war, the
Muslims, upon attaining victory over their enemies, may take some of the women and
children as slaves. For that reason, Ibn Taymiyah considered these segments of the
population as properties. For a more general discussion of the idea of enslavement by
war in Islam, see Khadduri, War and Peace. 130-32.
43
Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 28:659-60.
Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 28:660.
257
The meaning of rehgious toleration granted to the Scripturaries was
confined to the Muslim ruler's refraining from coercing them to embrace Islam For
Ibn Taymiyah, the Muslim ruler was required to permit the Scripturaries to retain their
rehgious beliefs regardless of how heretical and objectionable these beliefs were.
However, he suggested that tolerating the People of the Book meant only allowing
them to keep their religions, and not accepting their doctrines as true or equal to Islam.
Furthermore, tolerating the Scripturaries on the part of the Muslims would not relieve
them from being punished by God on the Day of Judgment, for their erroneous
doctrines and their rejection of Islam. It was not the duty of Muslim rulers, he
contended, to inflict punishment on individuals for their unbelief. In general, the
purpose of the worldly authorities' punishing unbelievers and rehgious dissenters was
not for their unbelief, but to prevent them from harmin g Muslims.
45
The concept of saghar occupied a central place in Ibn Taymiyah's
understanding of the meaning of rehgious toleration. The concept of saghar was
derived from the term saghirun that appeared in the famous Quranic text 9:29 in the
adjectival form to describe the Scripturaries. In its literal meaning, the adjective saghar
referred to the person who accepted living in a state of humihty and indignity.
However, there was no consensus among Muslim jurists and theologians regarding the
Ibn Taymiyah, Al-Sarm al-Maslul ala Shatim al-Rasule (n.p.: n.p., 1400 A.H.
(1980)), 247.
46
See Al-Fiyruzabadl Al-Oamus al-Muhit. 2:72.
258
exact meaning of the concept of saghar.
47
For the vast majority of Islamic thinkers, the
concept ofsaghar did not mean forcing the Scripturaries to live in a state of indignity
and humility. Rather, it referred to the condition of making the Scripturaries live under
Islamic rule and according to its laws. In other words, the concept of saghar was
defined by these jurists and theologians as Muslims' domination or subjection of the
Scripturaries.
48
Other Muslim jurists and theologians interpreted the concept ofsaghar
to mean hving in a state of inferiority and humility.
49
In their attempts to interpret the word saghirun, these thinkers were not
engaged in a scholastic exercise in exegesis. The Muslim thinkers' understanding of the
meaning of the concept ofsaghar would have significant legal implications. If it meant
only the Scripturaries being dominated by the Muslims and living according to their
The same lack of consensus is seen among the different translators of the Quran into
the English language. M. M. Pickthall translated the term saghirun as "being brought
low," Holy Quran (New Delhi: Kutub Khara Ishayat-ul-Islam, n.d.). The same term
translated by E. W. Lane, S. Lane-Poole and A. H. G. Sarwar as "acknowledge their
subjection," The Koran (New York: Crescent Books, n.d.). T. B. Irving translated it
as "act submissive," The Our'an (Brattleboro: Amana Books, 1985). In Khadduri's
War and Peace, the term saghirun was translated as "and they be humbled," 178.
48
For example, see Ibn al-Qiayim al-Jawziyah, Ahkam ahl al-Dhimah ,1:24-25;
Muhammad Ibn Muflih, Al-Mubi
c
fi Sharh al-Mugni
c
(Beirut: Al-Maktb al-Islami,
1974), 3:404; Ibn Hazm, Al-Mnhlli (Beirut: Al-Maktb al-Tijari, n.d.), 7:345-47; and
Abd Allah A. Ibn Qudamah, Al-Mughni (Cairo: Maktabt al-Kuliyat al-Azhariyah, n.d.),
8:537.
49
See, for example, Mansur Y. Al-Bahuti, Kash af al-Qina
c c
n Matn al-'Igna' (Beirut:
Dar al-Fikr, 1982), 3:116-18; Shams al-Din al-Ramli, Nihavat al-Muhtai 'Da Sharh al-
Minhaj (n.p.: Al-Maktabah al-Islamiyah, n.d.), 8:80; and Abi al-Qasm al-Zamakhshari,
Al-Kshaf (Beirut: Dar al-Ma'rifah, n.d.), 2:148.
259
rules, then the Muslim ruler would be expected to treat them with dignity and leniency.
But if it were interpreted as forcing the Scripturaries to live in a state of inferiority and
humility, then the Muslim ruler would be required to enforce the symbolic meaning of
the poll-tax by treating them with indignity and humiliation. Such implications on the
treatment of the Scripturaries was apparent in regard to the methods of collecting the
poll-tax. The theologians and jurists who defined the concept saghar to mean indignity
and humility, suggested that the poll-tax collector must humiliate the Scripturaries
verbally and physically. For these thinkers, in the process of extracting the poll-tax
from the People of the Book, the poll-tax collector must show its symbolic aspect by
exercising some rituals of physical and verbal humiliation. On the other hand, the
jurists who interpreted the concept of saghar as the supremacy of Muslims over the
Scripturaries insisted that the poll-tax must be extracted from them with dignity and
according to humane means.
50
But what is of relevance to this study is that, regardless
of which meaning of the word saghar the thinker chose, these thinkers' occupation
with its meanings was an indication of how the text, not the historical milieu, shaped
Muslim thinkers' views on religious toleration.
For Ibn Taymiyah, the concept of saghar meant having the Scripturaries
live in a state of indignity and inferiority. Although there was no evidence that Ibn
Taymiyah advocated the principle of verbally and physically humiliating the
For a brief discussion of some Muslim thinkers' views on how the poll-tax ought to
be collected, see Lewis, The Jews of Islam, 14-16.
260
Scripturaries in the process of collecting the poll-tax, he emphasized the general
symbolic aspect of the doctrine of tolerating the People of the Book. He suggested
that after realizing the objective ingredients of toleration, that, the Muslim ruler
refraining from coercing the Scripturaries to convert to Islam in exchange for their
paying a tribute, the tolerated people were expected to live in a definite emotional state.
The Scripturaries, he insisted, must be forced to live in a state of humility and
inferiority. Ibn Taymiyah entertained the notion that it was the duty of the Muslims to
remind the People of the Book of their inferiority to the Muslims and the superiority of
Islam to their religions.
51
Ibn Taymiyah's emphasis on the subjective aspect of tolerating the
Scripturaries, i.e., forcing them to live in humility, was reinforced by other texts. While
the Quranic text 9:29 was the primary source of his views on the subject, these other
texts performed the role of interpreting the general principle stated in that verse. He
particularly found the practices and utterances of the second Muslim Caliph 'Umar to
be a very rich textual source of justifying his negative conception of the term saghar.
He cited two incidents in which 'Umar was reported to have ordered the governors of
Iraq and Syria to fire two Christian clerks despite the fact that these two clerks were
very skillful and needed by the Muslims. On that occasion, 'Umar was quoted as
saying, "Do not dignify them after God had humiliated them, do not trust after God had
51
Ibn Tavmivah. Al-Sarm, 11-12.
261
mistrusted them, and do not believe them after God had disbelieved them."
52
For Ibn
Taymiyah, 'Umar s utterances and conduct were transformed into authoritative texts,
according to which the status of the People of the Book had to be defined.
Ibn Taymiyah's views on the nature of tolerating the Scripturaries were
shaped, to a great extent, by his preoccupation with the symbolism of religious
toleration and his reliance on the covenant of 'Umar. Most of his views on how the
tolerated people should conduct their social and religious affairs were rather restrictive.
The reason for that was Ibn Taymiyah's reliance on the textual categories of Islamic
revelation as the source of his ideas on the subject. Therefore, Saddiqi's assertion that
Ibn Taymiyah's strictness was the outcome "of his own time and the socio-political
conditions in which he was living"
53
was not quite accurate. When Ibn Taymiyah
insisted that Muslim rulers must treat the Scripturaries with strictness, he did not justify
his attitude as historically necessary. Rather, he made direct appeal to the covenant of
'Umar and insisted that enforcing its contents was the religious duty of the Muslim
ruler.
Against the doctrine of having the Scripturaries live in a state of
humiliation, and the covenant of 'Umar, Ibn Taymiyah went into the details of stating
the rights and obligations of the Scripturaries. Ibn Taymiyah was aware that the
Quranic text 9:29 was confined to the notion of tolerating the Scripturaries as religious
Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 28:643-44.
Siddiqi, 189.
262
dissenters in exchange for paying poll-tax. Likewise, the Prophetic traditions stated the
same principle in its generality without any reference to restricting their religious or
social conduct. All of Ibn Taymiyah's views on the rights and obligations of the
Scripturaries were either directly or indirectly derived from the practices of 'Umar and
the covenant attributed to him.
In agreement with the rest of the Bayanist thinkers, Ibn Taymiyah held the
notion that the Scripturaries must be distinguished from the Muslims in then-
appearance as an integral part of the policy of toleration. Citing the covenant of
'Umar, Ibn Taymiyah argued that it was the religious duty of Muslim rulers to force the
Scripturaries under their rule to wear clothes that set them apart from the Muslim
population. According to Ibn Taymiyah, the Scripturaries were prohibited from
resembling the Muslims in regard to the colors of their clothes, the way they cut their
hair, and the way of riding their horses.
54
He expressed his uncompromising position
on the subject on two separate occasions. On the first occasion, he was asked if it was
permitted for the Muslim ruler to waive the requirement of the Scripturaries' wearing
distinguishable clothes, in order to prevent the Muslim masses from harassing and
humiliating them in the streets. His reply was that the Muslim ruler was obliged to
enforce the dress code on the Scripturaries all the time, regardless of the undesirable
consequences of that policy.
55
In the second instance, it was reported that some of the
54
Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 28:654.
263
Scripturaries in Egypt expressed their willingness to pay a substantial sum of money to
Al-Nasir, the Muslim ruler at that time, in exchange for relieving them from the dress
code imposed on them. While some Muslim jurists were willing to accept the offer, Ibn
Taymiyah expressed his opposition to it, and he succeeded in persuading the Caliph Al-
Nasir not to accept the Scripturaries' offer.
56
Based on the same textual frame of reference, Ibn Taymiyah introduced
another restriction on the Scripturaries. He suggested that, as part of the policy of
tolerating them, the Scripturaries must not be permitted to serve in the administration
of the Islamic state. He warned the Muslim rulers not to trust the Scripturaries as
advisors or clerks. Ibn Taymiyah justified his argument by briefly referring to the
historical experience of the Muslims with some Scripturaries who collaborated with the
Mongols and the Crusaders.
57
But his reference to history was a marginal element in
his argument for the exclusion of the Scripturaries from government positions. The
core of Ibn Taymiyah's justification was based on two Quranic texts that prohibited the
Muslims from relyin g on Christians and Jews as allies.
58
In fact, he suggested that even
Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 28:658.
56
Ibn abd al-Hadi, 297.
57
Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 28:646.
58
These Quranic texts were the Quranic verse 5:51 which read, "O ye who believe!
Take not the Jews and the Christians for your friends and protectors. They are but
friends and protectors to each other. And he amongst you that turns to them (for
264
if the Muslim ruler needed the Scripturary for his skills, he was supposed to hire a less
qualified Muslim clerk because conformity with the Quranic texts was more important
than achieving some worldly ends.
59
Ibn Taymiyah went even further by suggesting
that rulers who promoted the Scripturaries to high governmental posts were not true
Muslims, but were heretics, hypocrites, weak, and hated by their subjects. He referred
particularly to the Fatimid rulers of Egypt who treated their Christian and Jewish
subjects favorably.
60
To the contrary, Ibn Taymiyah maintained, Muslim rulers who
excluded the Scripturaries from governmental positions and enforced the requirements
of the covenant of'Umar were powerful and loved by their subjects.
61
In regard to the Scripturaries' places of worship, Ibn Taymiyah recited
what the covenant of 'Umar stated before. For Ibn Taymiyah, the Scripturaries were
allowed to keep their places of worship without repairing them or building new ones.
Muslim rulers were required to assure the safety of these places of worship.
62
However, Ibn Taymiyah contended that only the places of worship that were covered
by the original agreement with Scripturaries were entitled to protection. The Muslim
friendship) is of them . . ." and the Quranic verse 3:118 that read, "O ye who believe!
Take not into your intimacy those outside your ranks: they will not fail to corrupt you."
59
Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 28:646.
60
Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa. 28:635-38.
61
Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa. 28:639, 643, 654-55.
62
Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 28:652.
265
ruler had the option of demolishing churches and synagogues that existed in the areas
that the Muslims conquered by force. And the Muslim ruler certainly could demolish
all the Scripturaries' places of worship that were constructed after the Muslim conquest
of their lands.
63
As previously mentioned, according to the Islamic notion of toleration, the
Scripturaries would be allowed to keep their religious beliefs. Ibn Taymiyah stated the
same position. He always maintained the principle that the Scripturaries had the right
to preserve their reUgious convictions regardless of how heretical and erroneous these
convictions were.
64
Furthermore, Ibn Taymiyah's conception of the scope of religious
toleration was extended to include not only the reUgious beUefs of the Scripturaries but
also their intentions. He claimed that, judging from the substance of their reUgious
teachings, the Scripturaries would inflict physical harm on the MusUms and destroy
their reUgion, if given the opportunity to do so.
65
Such evil intentions, Ibn Taymiyah
suggested, ought to be included within the scope of the principle of tolerating the
People of the Book.
However, Ibn Taymiyah was rather unambiguous in asserting that the right
of the Scripturaries to express their reUgious beUefs had to be tempered by the
Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa. 28:634, 640, 647.
Ibn Taymiyah, Al-Sarm. 246,248.
Ibn Taymiyah, Al-Sarm. 207.
266
superiority of Islam over their religions. For Ibn Taymiyah, while the Scripturaries
were permitted to keep their faith, they must not express it in ways that were offensive
to the Muslims. Even if certain religious opinions or symbols were part of their original
religious teachings, they were not to be expressed freely and with no restrictions. Ibn
Taymiyah made direct appeal to the covenant of 'Umar to restrict the Scripturaries'
right to practice and express their religious beliefs, which was also stated in the famous
Quranic verse 9:29 and the Prophetic traditions. Among the restrictions he cited was
the one requiring the Scripturaries to beat their church bells gently to refrain from
expressing their religious beliefs that were considered blasphemous to Islam and the
Prophet.
66
In regard to Scripturaries' evil intentions about the Muslims, Ibn Taymiyah
suggested that such intentions must remain within the realm of thought. However, if
these intentions became translated into action, verbal or otherwise, then the
Scripturaries would be excluded from the domain of religious toleration.
67
In addition
to that, he cited more of the restrictions concerning how the Scripturaries could
practice their religious beliefs, all of which were derived directly from the covenant of
'Umar.
68
Ibn Taymiyah, Al-Sarm. 207.
Ibid.
See, for example, Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 28:652-53.
267
Considering Ibn Taymiyah's restrictive conception of the principle of
tolerating the People of the Book, one could wonder if he held any notion of religious
toleration at all. It is undeniable that, if all Ibn Taymiyah's views on the subject were
implemented, the Scripturaries would live under unpleasant living conditions, to say the
least. However, despite the strictness of his views, Ibn Taymiyah was advocating some
form of religious toleration. Within Ibn Taymiyah's world view, the Scripturaries were
not completely free or equal to Muslim subjects of the state. But still, they were
tolerated, since they were not coerced to abandon their rehgious convictions and to
convert to Islam. To recall the definition of rehgious toleration stated in chapter one, it
meant refraining from coercion, physical or otherwise, to force a person to abandon his
or her rehgious beliefs, without reference to equality or liberty. Ibn Taymiyah never
questioned tolerating the People of the Book as a moral and theological principle. But
his textual frame of reference, in its totality, was inclined more towards restricting
rather than expanding the ideal of tolerating the Scripturaries. This point should
become clear when Ibn Taymiyah's conception of the limits of rehgious toleration is
examined in the next section.
The Limits of Religious Toleration
As in the case of his conception of the nature and the scope of the principle
of tolerating the Scripturaries, Ibn Taymiyah's justification of the limits of that principle
was primarily textual. In addition to the restrictions that he placed on the idea of
268
religious toleration, Ibn Taymiyah appealed to the textual categories of Islamic
revelation to justify the termination of the protective status of the Scripturaries. The
aim of this section is to examine how Ibn Taymiyah's textual frame o f reference shaped
his views on the limits of tolerating the People of the Book.
Ibn Taymiyah's conception of the limits of religious toleration was
expressed in the context of his discussion of how a blasphemer of the Prophet ought to
be treated. In that work, he devoted considerable space to discussing the proper
punishment of the Scripturary who blasphemed the Prophet of Islam. Since he
considered the punishment of the blasphemer of the Prophet of Islam to be death, Ibn
Taymiyah had to justify the suspension of the doctrine of toleration, according to which
the Scripturary's right to life was guaranteed. That led him to consider the general
question of terminating the protective status of the People of the Book under Muslim
rule.
Ibn Taymiyah was aware of the diversity of Muslim jurists' views on the
question of terminating the principle of religious toleration granted the Scripturaries.
Like any other issue in al-Bayan tradition, the lack of textural reference to the question
of terminating religious toleration for the Scripturaries gave rise to diverse juridical
opinions on the subject. For some Muslim jurists, such as Malik, al-Shafi'i, and Ibn
Hanbal, the only cause for terminating the protective status of the Scripturaries was
their failure to pay poll-tax.
69
Also, for Ibn Hanbal and Malik, the Scripturaries would
269
lose their protective status if they blasphemed God, His Book, His Prophet, and His
religion.
70
Other jurists stated eight actions that would cause the termination of the
policy of tolerating the People of the Book. These eight actions were "agreement to
fight the Muslims, fornication with a Muslim woman, an attempt to marry one, an
attempt to pervert a Muslim from his religion, robbery of a Muslim on the highway,
acting as a spy for unbelievers or sending them information or acting as guide to them,
and the killing of a Muslim man or woman."
71
The same diversity of opinions existed in regard to the question of how the
Scripturary who blasphemed the Prophet ought to be punished. For Ibn HanbaL if a
Scripturary uttered blasphemous views about the Prophet, he must be punished by
death, and his protective status would be terminated.
72
Other jurists, such as Abu
Hanifah, did not consider the Scripturary's blasphemy of the Prophet to be a sufficient
cause to end his protective status, though he could be punished.
73
Ibn Taymiyah expressed his agreement with his master, Ibn HanbaL, on the
question of terminating the protective status of a Scripturary on the basis of his
expressing views that were injurious to the Prophet's person. Ibn Taymiyah contended
69
Tritton, 16.
70
Ibid.
71
Tritton, 16-17. Ibn Taymiyah cited the same points in Al-Sarm. 5.
72
Ibn Taymiyah, Al-Sarm 5-6.
73
Ibn Taymiyah, Al-Sarm. 10-11.
270
that the Scripturary who insulted the Prophet of Islam must be put to death without
being given the opportunity to repent.
74
Even converting to Islam would not exempt
the Scripturary who blasphemed the Prophet from punishment.
75
He also appeared to
agree with other jurists on the eight actions which would cause the suspension of the
doctrine of tolerating the Scripturaries. However, after reviewing the jurists' views on
the general question of when the policy of tolerating the Scripturaries could be ended,
his argument focused exclusively on justifying the exclusion of the Scripturary who
blasphemed the Prophet from the principle of rehgious toleration. In spite of the fact
that Ibn Taymiyah's views were confined to the discussion of the proper punishment of
the Scripturary who blasphemed the Prophet, his views on that particular issue should
be an indication of the structure of his overall conception of the limits of rehgious
toleration.
Ibn Taymiyah's justification for excluding the Scripturaries who
blasphemed the Prophet from the domain of rehgious toleration was typical Bayanist,
with respect to its premises and style. He carried out his argument within the
traditional methods and categories of al-Bayan tradition. In order to persuade his
audience, Ibn Taymiyah frequently made recourse to the authoritative texts of Islam.
He explicitly expressed his intention of proving that the Scripturary who blasphemed
74
Ibn Taymiyah, Al-Sarm. 301-305, 308-309.
75
Ibn Tavmivah. Al-Sarm. 450.
271
the Prophet must be excluded from the principle of reUgious toleration based on textual
evidence derived from the Quran, the Prophetic traditions, consensus, and analogy.
76
As discussed in chapter two, these were the four sources of the theological and
religious knowledge in al-Bayan epistemic tradition.
Ibn Taymiyah's reliance on the Quranic texts to justify the termination of
the principle of toleration for the Scripturaries on the basis of blaspheming the Prophet
was indirect. He was aware that Quranic texts were about stating the principle of
tolerating the Scripturaries and not about restricting or limiting it. The famous Quranic
text 9:29 was silent about the question of when the protective status of the
Scripturaries may be ended. The same could be said of the proper punishment of the
blasphemer of the Prophet among the Scripturaries. To make that verse support his
conclusion, Ibn Taymiyah derived from it three components which he considered to be
the requirements of the doctrine of tolerating the People of the Book. These three
elements consisted of tolerating Scripturaries who would agree to pay poll-tax and live
in a state of humility. The violation of any one of these elements would be a sufficient
cause to terminate the protective status of the Scripturaries. It was the last component,
that is, the requirement of living in a state of humility and inferiority, that Ibn Taymiyah
appealed to, to make the Quranic text indirectly support his argument. For Ibn
Taymiyah, expressing blasphemous and insulting views about the Prophet by the
Ibn Taymiyah, Al-Sarm 11.
272
Scripturaries was not a reflection of a state of humility and inferiority. On the contrary,
the ability of the Scripturaries to openly blaspheme the Prophet of Islam was a sign of
dominance and superiority.
77
Since blaspheming the Prophet was considered a
manifestation of superiority, and hence, a violation of the doctrine of saghar (humility),
then the Muslim ruler would be justified in terminating the protective status of the
Scripturary and exposing him to punishment. In other words, Ibn Taymiyah suggested
that the Scripturaries' expressing any kind of superiority would be a violation of the
original intent of the Quranic text 9:29, which conditioned the principle of religious
toleration with having the Scripturaries live in a state of humility and indignity.
The Quranic text 9:29 was not the only authoritative text that Ibn
Taymiyah appealed to for determining the limits of tolerating the Scripturaries. He
particularly appealed to portions of the Quranic verses 9:6-12, which read
How can there be a covenant before Allah and His Messenger,
with the Pagans, except those with whom ye made a treaty
near the Sacred Mosque . . . But if they violate their oaths after
their covenant, and attack your faith, fight ye the chiefs of
unfaith: for their oaths are nothing to them: that thus they may
be restrained.
Ibn Taymiyah was well aware of the fact that these Quranic texts were
addressing the Pagans of Mecca, not People of the Book.
78
But he suggested that the
77
Ibn Taymiyah, AJ-Sarm, 11-12.
78
Ibn Taymiyah, Al-Sarm. 13, 15.
273
general meaning of these texts could be extended to include the textual category of the
People of the Book as unbelievers. For Ibn Taymiyah, the divine command to fight th e
unbelievers was rationalized not only on the basis of the unbelievers' violation of their
covenant with the Muslims, but also for their attack on the Muslim religion.
79
Since the
blaspheming of the Prophet was one form of attacking Islam, then the Scripturaries
who committed such an act would be included in these Quranic texts.
80
Finally, Ibn Taymiyah appealed to the notion of opposition {muhadah) to
the Prophet which appeared in the Quranic text 9:62. The Quranic text read, "Know
they not that for those who oppose Allah and His Messenger , is the Fire of Hell?
Wherein they shall dwell. That is the supreme disgrace." To blaspheme the Prophet,
Ibn Taymiyah argued, was one manifestation of opposing God and His Prophet, which
would legitimize the termination of the protective status of the Scripturary and expose
him to physical punishment.
81
Unlike the Quranic texts, the Prophetic texts were found by Ibn Taymiyah
to be a very rich textual source of justifying the termination of the principle of
tolerating the Scripturaries. He cited fifteen Propheti c traditions, in some of which the
Scripturaries were punished by death for blaspheming the Prophet. I shall limit the
Ibn Taymiyah, Al-Sarm. 14-16.
Ibn Taymiyah, Al-Sarm. 16.
Ibn Taymiyah, Al-Sarm. 20-26.
274
discussion to only three of these Prophetic traditions. In the first Prophetic text, it was
reported that a blind Muslim man killed a Jewish woman, who was his concubine and
the mother of his two children, for making derogatory remarks about the Prophet.
When Muhammad became aware of the incident, he approved of the blind man's
i- 82
action.
The second Prophetic tradition that Ibn Taymiyah cited was the
assassination of a prominent Jewish leader from the tribe of bani al-Nazir called Ka'b
Ibn al-Ashraf. According to that Prophetic tradition, Ibn al-Ashraf went to Mecca to
visit the leaders of the tribe of Quraysh after they lost the battle of Badr against the
Muslims in 624. After his return to Madina, Ibn al-Ashraf was quoted as speaking
poetry that was insulting to the Prophet. As a response to Ibn al-Ashraf s remarks, the
Prophet was reported to have sent some of his companions to kill Ibn al-Ashraf.
83
The
third Prophetic tradition that Ibn Taymiyah cited was the incident involving a Jewish
woman called 'sma bint Marwan. 'Sma bint Marwan composed a piece of poetry in
which she criticized Muhammad. At the request of the Prophet, some of his
companions assassinated her as a punishment for her criticism of the Prophet.
84
Ibn Taymiyah, Al-Sarm. 61-70.
Ibn Taymiyah, Al-Sarm. 70-92.
Ibn Taymiyah, Al-Sarm, 95-104.
275
Based on these Prophetic texts, besides other traditions, Ibn Taymiyah
argued that the policy of tolerating the Scripturaries could be terminated on the basis of
blaspheming the Prophet. To make these texts more relevant to his conclusion, Ibn
Taymiyah emphasized three common elements in the Prophetic traditions he cited.
First, he emphasized the fact that all three individuals involved in these incidents were
Jews, and hence, they were sub-groups within the textual category of the People of the
Book. Second, these three individuals were granted toleration or protective status by
the Prophet. Third, all of the three individuals were put to death at the request of the
Prophet.
85
On the other hand, he forcefully excluded all other considerations that were
historically associated with these incidents and might be considered the reasons for
punishing these individuals. Ibn Taymiyah insisted that these three individuals were put
to death solely for their insulting remarks about the Prophet and not for other
considerations. For instance, he dismissed the suggestion that Ibn al-Ashraf was
assassinated because he contacted the Meccan enemies of the Muslims, and not
because of his blasphemous views of the Prophet. Ibn Taymiyah argued that Ibn al-
Ashraf s contact with the Meccans was not the reason for his assassination, since the
person who accompanied him was not assassinated.
86
The result of Ibn Taymiyah's
reliance on these Prophetic texts was the construction of one more textual justification
85
Ibn Taymiyah, Al-Sarm. 65, 67, 69, 73, 92, 100-101, 102.
86
The name of the other person who accompanied Ibn al-Ashraf to Mecca was Ibn al-
Akhtab. See Ibn Taymiyah, Al-Sarm.680-82.
276
for ending the protective status of the Scripturaries and drawing more limits on the
scope of the principle of religious toleration.
The third textual source of Ibn Taymiyah's justification for the limits of
religious toleration was consensus (ijma'). As mentioned in the previous chapter, Ibn
Taymiyah restricted the definition of consensus to the agreement of the companions of
the Prophet on a certain legal ruling. Hence, for Ibn Taymiyah, the actions of these
individuals, especially the leading figures among them, were considered as
transhistorical and authoritative texts which could be used as a major source of legal
and theological doctrines. With regard to the question of the limits of religious
toleration, he appealed to sayings attributed to the first and second Muslim Caliphs,
Abu Bakr and 'Umar, according to which the Scripturaries were prohibited from
expressing disrespectful views about the Prophet. Furthermore, Ibn Taymiyah recalled
some instances in which these two Caliphs had threatened some Scripturaries with
death if they did not refrain from blaspheming the Prophet of Islam.
87
The last textual source of Ibn Taymiyah's effort to delineate the limits of
tolerating the Scripturaries on the basis of blaspheming the Prophet was analogy
(qiyas). He did not find an explicit textual reference to terminating the protective
status of the Scripturaries on the pretext of blaspheming the Prophet in either the
Ibn Taymiyah, Al-Sarm. 200-206.
277
Quran or the covenant of 'Umar. Because of that, Ibn Taymiyah appealed to the
analogical method to textually support his conclusion.
The core of Ibn Taymiyah's analogical reasoning was that, while
prohibiting the Scripturaries from verbally insulting the Prophet was not expUcitly
stated in the Quran or the covenant of 'Umar, it was, nonetheless, implied in the
original agreement between the Muslims and the Scripturaries. In other words, Ibn
Taymiyah believed that the requirement of refraining from blaspheming the Prophet
was too obvious to be stated in the original statement of the principle of toleration for
the People of the Book. To clarify his argument, he drew the analogy between other
types of contractual agreements, such as commercial and marriage contracts and the
agreement of toleration between the Muslims and the Scripturaries. In a marriage
contract, for instance, it was presumed that the man and the woman were of equal
religious and legal status, that, Muslims and free, without stating that in writing. If one
of these conditions was violated, the marriage would be considered invalid, even
though the condition was not stated in the original contract.
88
Analogous to that, Ibn
Taymiyah argued, was the toleration pact between the Muslim rulers and the People of
the Book among their subjects. He insisted that the Caliph 'Umar or any other early
Muslim ruler who granted the Scripturaries toleration must have required them to
refrain from saying things that would be injurious to the Islamic faith, even if it was not
Ibn Taymiyah, Al-Sarm. 213.
278
stated in writing.
89
Therefore, Ibn Taymiyah concluded, since blaspheming the Prophet
was a manifestation of insulting Islam, then committing such an act would be
considered a direct violation of the original agreement with the Scripturaries. Then, it
would be legitimate for the Muslim ruler to terminate the protective status of the
Scripturaries and expose them to punishment.
90
In the context of his discussion of the limits of toleration, Ibn Taymiyah
confronted the inevitable and problematic question: What if the Scripturaries' critical
views of the Prophet were among the basic teachings of their rehgion that were
supposed to be protected by the original agreement? Were not the Scripturaries, after
all, tolerated for advocating different forms of polytheism and insulting God by
claiming that God begot a son?
91
Then, would not punishing a Scripturary for
blaspheming the Prophet violate the Islamic principle of toleration, which asserted his
or her right to maintain his or her religious beliefs regardless of how objectionable these
beliefs were?
Ibn Taymiyah's reply to that question was that blaspheming the Prophet
was a sufficient cause to end the policy of tolerating the Scripturaries, whether such
blasphemous views were part of their religious creed or not.
92
He justified his position
Ibn Taymiyah, Al-Sarm. 214.
Ibn Taymiyah, Al-Sarm. 213.
Ibn Taymiyah, Al-Sarm. 247-84.
279
on two grounds. First, Ibn Taymiyah suggested that the toleration agreement between
the Muslims and the Scripturaries involved a compromise on both sides. The Muslims
agreed to refrain from subjecting the Scripturaries to the Islamic doctrine of jihad and
to allow them to keep their religions. In exchange, the Scripturaries agreed to pay poll-
tax to the Muslim rulers. But he also suggested that the Scripturaries, besides paying
poll-tax, were required to refrain from advocating their erroneous views publicly.
93
Second, Ibn Taymiyah reminded his readers that tolerating the Scripturaries
was not a universal and unrestricted principle. For him, rehgious toleration of the
Scripturaries did not imply granting them the freedom to do and say whatever then-
religion commanded them. Had that been the case, Ibn Taymiyah contended, the
Scripturaries would have been given the right to burn mosques and the Quran, and to
kill the Muslims, which were among their rehgious principles.
94
He insisted that the
Prophet and his companions after him did not have such an unrestricted conception of
toleration when they signed the original agreement with the Scripturaries. But instead,
the original intentions of texts about rehgious toleration were to allow the Scripturaries
to exercise their religions privately and among themselves without publicly expressing
the aspects of their rehgious behefs that were offensive to the Muslims.
95
Furthermore,
92
Ibn Taymiyah, Al-Sarin, 536.
93
Ibn Tavmivah. Al-Sarm, 252.
94
Ibn Taymiyah. Al-Sarm. 242.
280
Ibn Taymiyah reminded his readers that the Prophet and his companions after him
required the Scripturaries to pay poll-tax and to wear different clothes even though
they violated the basic religious doctrines of the Scripturaries.
96
Two general conclusions could be drawn from Ibn Taymiyah's views on
religious toleration. Both conclusions are about the impact of Ibn Taymiyah's textual
frame of reference on his treatment of the question of how the Muslim ruler ought to
treat the Scripturaries among his subjects. The impact of Ibn Taymiyah's textual
categories on his justification of religious toleration was apparent with respect to its
style as well as its substance.
The style of Ibn Taymiyah's justification of tolerating the People of the
Book as a moral and theological principle was essentially textual. His argument started
with a text, was guided by a text, and ended with a text. Ibn Taymiyah's definition of
the Scripturaries, his conception of their nature, and the limits of tolerating them were
all derived from and based on the textual categories of al-Bayan tradition and its
epistemological assumptions. Throughout his effort to justify the doctrine of religious
toleration, Ibn Taymiyah moved from one authoritative text to another. To define the
People of the Book as targets of religious toleration, he relied on the authoritative texts
of the Quran and the Prophetic traditions. In his formulation of the nature and the
scope of religious toleration, Ibn Taymiyah made direct appeals to the Quranic and
Ibn Taymiyah, Al-Sarm. 242-43.
281
Prophetic texts on the subject. In regard to the details of enforcing the principle of
reUgious toleration as a policy, he relied mainly on the covenant of 'Umar and other
secondary texts.
The same could be said about Ibn Taymiyah's conception of the limits of
reUgious toleration. Although the original texts on the subject did not contain expUcit
references to the limits of tolerating the Scripturaries, Ibn Taymiyah made recourse to
other Prophetic and, to a less extent, to some Quranic texts to delineate the limits of
reUgious toleration. In some instances, he engaged in very detailed exegetical efforts to
make some Quranic texts relevant to his conclusions. Within Ibn Taymiyah's
justification of reUgious toleration, references to practical, i.e., poUtical or economic
considerations, were very rare. Moral and philosophical concepts such as conscience
and reason were simply nonexistent.
The impact of the textual frame of reference of Ibn Taymiyah on the
substance of his justification of reUgious toleration was very profound. Att the contents
of his argument were determined by the textual categories of Islam. His reUance on the
authoritative texts of Islamic revelation gave Ibn Taymiyah's justification of reUgious
toleration an ahistorical character. He rarely mentioned historical events in his writings
on the subject. In spite of the fact that he had lived in areas that had sizable Christian
communities, he rarely referred to them. When he was asked to give his opinion on a
given event in which the Scripturaries were involved, he immediately appealed to the
divine texts of Islam with no reference to the practical detaUs surrounding the problem.
282
By giving the historical events of his time a textual character, Ibn Taymiyah
transformed them into abstract and ahistorical concepts. The reason for that was
related to the totality of his world view. In al-Bayan tradition, for an event to have
significance and relevance, it had to be textualized.
It was apparent from the discussion of Ibn Taymiyah's conception of the
nature and limits of religious toleration, that he tended to be more restrictive than
some of his contemporaries.
97
The restrictive nature of Ibn Taymiyah's conception of
religious toleration was a consequence of his textual world view, and not a reflection of
his historical milieu. This is not to deny, however, that Ibn Taymiyah was suspicious
and distrustful of the Scripturaries of his time. For that reason he was more interested
in restricting and limiting the doctrine of toleration than expanding it. But even when
Ibn Taymiyah was restricting the doctrine of religious toleration for the Scripturaries,
he appealed to the divine texts of Islam, not to the requirements of his historical setting.
His tendency to define the principle of religious toleration in restrictive terms was the
inevitable outcome of Ibn Taymiyah's reliance on the textual categories of al-Bayan
epistemic tradition. On one hand, the Quranic verse 9:29 and some Prophetic texts
stated the principle of tolerating the Scripturaries in very general terms. On the other
Such a tendency was apparent in the previously mentioned encounter between Ibn
Taymiyah and Muslim jurists in Cairo when some of these jurists agreed to relieve the
Scripturaries from th e dress code in exchange for a large sum of money. See p. 25.
283
hand, Ibn Taymiyah relied on other texts, especially the covenant of 'Umar, which
actually reduced the general statement of religious toleration to a very narrow and
restricted concept. The covenant of 'Umar was reinforced by other Quranic and
Prophetic texts that asserted the superiority of Islam over other religions.
98
Hence,
considering the textual character of Ibn Taymiyah's tliinking, his conception of
religious toleration would have remained the same even if he had lived in a different
historical environment.
See Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa. 19:107-111, 28:626.
284
Chapter Five
Ibn Taymiyah on ReligiousDissent:
The Case for Persecution
Ibn Taymiyah's conception of religious persecution was expressed mainly
in the context of his views on the question of religious diversity within the Islamic faith.
He generally recommended the use of coercion as a solution to the problem of sectarian
diversity in Islam. While he placed some limits on the principle of religious
persecution, it was rather remarkable that reUgious toleration, as it is defined in this
study, was never proposed by Ibn Taymiyah as a possible solution to the problem of
sectarian conflicts in Islam. To recall the proposition stated in chapter two, the lack of
any notion of reUgious toleration in his remarks on reUgious diversity in Islam could be
explained in reference to his textual frame o f reference, which was more hospitable to
the idea of suppressing reUgious dissent than tolerating it. In the previous chapter, it
was shown that Ibn Taymiyah advocated reUgious toleration for the Scripturaries
because of the existence of expUcit and authoritative Quranic and Prophetic texts that
required him to do so. But the same textual frame of reference that gave rise to the
notion of tolerating the Scripturaries also gave rise to the idea of reUgious persecution
for the Muslim reUgious dissenters. However, while the impact of Ibn Taymiyah's
Bayanist frame of reference on his conception of reUgious toleration was direct, its
impact on his views on reUgious persecution was indirect. It was the totaUty of that
285
textual frame of reference with its epistemological, moral, and political premises that
contributed to Ibn Taymiyah's movement toward rehgious persecution as a remedy for
rehgious dissent.
The main objective of this chapter, therefore, is to examine how Ibn
Taymiyah's reliance on the textual categories of al-Bayan epistemic tradition structured
his response to rehgious dissent, that is, his justification of rehgious persecution. To
relate the contents of this chapter to the main theme of this dissertation, I shall examine
the impact of Ibn Taymiyah's textual frame of reference on his argument for rehgious
persecution, along the lines of the general components of the justification of rehgious
persecution in its most general form. Any treatise on rehgious persecution usually
revolved around three major questions. The first question was: What constituted
rehgious dissent, or who was a rehgious dissenter? The second question was: Why
should the ruler, or whoever had a monopoly over the use of coercion in the
community, suppress rehgious dissent? The final questio n was: How should rehgious
dissenters be coerced, or what were the forms of rehgious persecution? Ibn
Taymiyah's justification of rehgious persecution will be delineated along the lines of
these three questions. Therefore, the present chapter is divided into four sections. The
chapter will start with Ibn Taymiyah's conception of rehgious dissent in Islam. Then,
the epistemological, moral, and pohtical dimensions of his argument are examined in
the second section. The third section deals with his views concerning the forms of
286
religious persecution in Islam. The chapter ends with Ibn Taymiyah's conception of the
limits of the use of force against Muslim rehgious dissenters.
Ibn Taymiyah's Conception of Religious Dissent
Ibn Taymiyah's conception of rehgious dissent in Islam was a product of
the totality of his textual frame of reference. As previously stated, the divine texts of
Islam were silent about the essence and the treatment of rehgious dissent within Islam
itself References to rehgious dissent in Islam in these texts were limited to some
warnings against factionalizing in religion and the harmful effects of heresy on the
Muslim community. Nowhere in the Quran or in the Prophetic traditions was the
question of what constituted rehgious dissent answered. The lack of a text-based
definition of rehgious dissent within Islam could explain the vagueness surrounding Ibn
Taymiyah's definition of rehgious dissent in Islam. He never gave a precise and general
definition of heterodoxy in Islam in terms of its substance and criteria. His
understanding of the meaning of rehgious dissent was expressed in the form of his
scattered remarks on the doctrines of different Muslim sects.
In general, Ibn Taymiyah's definition of rehgious dissent in Islam was
primarily doctrinal rather than institutional. Rehgious dissent appeared to be closely
related to his perception of truth in religion as exclusive, knowable, and universal.
Within Ibn Taymiyah's world view, the criteria and essence of rehgious truth was not
institutional, i.e., determined by a visible and well-defined rehgious order. But rather,
287
religious truth for Ibn Taymiyah had primarily a textual character. The divine texts of
Islam and how they were understood by the early generations of Muslims were
considered to be the ultimate criteria of religious truth. Ibn Taymiyah frequently
insisted that any theological or juridical opinion had to be in conformity with and have
bases in the divine texts of Islam.'
Based on such textual perception of religious truth, Ibn Taymiyah appeared
to understand religious dissent as any theological or juridical opinion which had no
bases in the divine texts of Islam.
2
What he meant by the divine texts of Islam were not
only the Quran and the Prophetic texts but also how the early generations of Muslims,
especially the companions of the Prophet, had interpreted these texts. In one place he
defined heresy or innovation (bid'ah) as any religious doctrine or practice that was not
consistent with the dictates of the Quran and the Prophetic traditions and the consensus
of the pious Muslim ancestors.
3
Certainly, he was well aware of the fact that the ones
whom he called religious dissenters claimed that their theological views could be traced
back to the divine texts of Islam. But he always insisted on the notion that his
opponents misinterpreted these Quranic and Prophetic texts by overextending their
1
See for example, Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 4: 140-143; 5: 5-15; 19: 155.
2
Ibn Taymiyah made such assertion frequently in the context of his attempts to refute
the theological claims of his sectarian opponents. See for example, Ibn Taymiyah,
Maimu' Fatawa. 4:87, 153 ; 19:73.
3
Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa. 18: 346.
288
meaning beyond the conventions of the Arabic language and the original intentions of
these texts.
4
For that reason, Ibn Taymiyah frequently added the consensus of the early
generations of Muslims as a qualifier to his assertion that the Quran and the Prophetic
traditions were the only criteria of religious truth.
5
The most remarkable feature of Ibn Taymiyah's conception of heresy was
the lack of any notion of an institutionalized orthodoxy. Throughout his discussion of
religious dissent in Islam, Ibn Taymiyah never made reference to any visible religious
order that was entrusted with the power of determining what religious truth or error
was. When he appealed to the consensus of the companions of the Prophet as an
indicator of how the divine texts of Islam ought to be interpreted, Ibn Taymiyah was
not actually referring to a religious hierarchy with well-defined rules and norms.
Instead, what he meant by consensus of the companions of the Prophet was nothing
more than an aggregate of theological opinions which had developed during a certain
period of time.
Ibn Taymiyah's resistance to the idea of an institutionalized orthodoxy was
seen in his dismissal of the ruling of a given judge on a theological or juridical matter as
a method of settling religious controversies. While he did not deny the Muslim judge
4
See for example his critique of the Unionists' conception of reason as an independent
essence in his work Bughyat al-Murtad, 250-275. Also see Ibn Taymiyah, Par'
Ta'arudh al-
c
Aql wa al-NaqL 1: 222-229.
5
Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 5:7-8, 11-12.
289
the right to express his views on theological or juridical disputes of the day, Ibn
Taymiyah, nonetheless, forcefully rejected the implication of the judge's ruling as the
criteria of the truth in religion, simply because it was sanctioned by the power of the
court. Even if the ruling of the judge acquired the power of the law, Ibn Taymiyah
contended, it would not be considered a true religious doctrine if it lacked a basis in the
divine texts of Islam. For Ibn Taymiyah, controversies related to theological and
juridical matters were supposed to be settled in accordance with the teachings of the
Quran and the Prophetic traditions, and between Muslim scholars with equal status, but
not with the dictates of an institution, a court of law, or otherwise.
6
He contended that
the opinion of the judge was called the "ruling of the judge" which could be right or
wrong but it could not be transformed into an obUgatory theological or juridical
doctrine simply because it was sanctioned by the court.
7
For that reason, Ibn Taymiyah
always accused his sectarian opponents of misinterpreting the divine texts of Islam and
not of defying an institutionalized religious authority.
It must be emphasized, however, that Ibn Taymiyah's conception of the
textual character of religious truth did not imply that every error in religious matters
was to be labeled religious dissent. While every religious dissent implied a doctrinal
error, not every doctrinal error was perceived as a manifestation of religious dissent
6
See Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 3:238-41.
7
Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 35: 376.
290
that was liable to punishment. Based on Ibn Taymiyah's remarks on the subject of
religious dissent in Islam, he appeared to have two conditions in mind which had to be
present in order for a doctrinal error to be considered religious dissent. The first
condition was related to the sectarian identity of the theologian or the jurist. Ibn
Taymiyah tended to equate doctrinal error with religious dissent when the opponent
was affiliated with a Muslim sect other than the Sunni sect. The reason for that seemed
to be his belief that theologians for dissenting sects willingly and purposefully
misinterpreted the divine texts to serve their sectarian motives.
8
By contrast, he
expressed a great deal of reluctance and caution in labeling theologians from his own
sect who held religious views different from his own as religious dissenters. Even
though he made it very explicit that these theologians and jurists were advocating
erroneous doctrines, he never questioned their motives or intentions, and he attempted
to find excuses for their errors, such as their unawareness of the existence of certain
Prophetic texts and other considerations.
9
The second condition was concerned with
the nature of the theological question in dispute. For Ibn Taymiyah, some juridical and
theological questions were considered controversial by their very nature. They were
controversial, Ibn Taymiyah suggested, because of the absence of any explicit texts
concerning them. Consequently, errors in these matters would be considered one form
Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa, 7: 119; 16:440-41. Also, see Iqtidha' al-Sirat al-
Mustaqim, 1: 73-74.
9
Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa. 4: 195; 19: 213,216-17, 226-27.
291
of independent reasoning ,or ijtihad, that would not be extended to the realm of
religious dissent.
10
Ibn Taymiyah's tendency not to equate every doctrinal error with religious
dissent did not imply skepticism in religion or the possibility of having multiple religious
truths with equal epistemological status. He never abandoned the notion of one
exclusive truth and considered any theological opinion with no textual basis to be an
error that was epistemologically inferior to the truth, regardless of the sectarian
affiliation of its holder. He restricted the label of religious dissenters, that is, those who
were liable to physical punishment to the individuals who persisted in their errors in
matters related to non-controversial questions to serve some questionable sectarian
motives. Such emphasis on the sectarian motives of the individual theologian, and the
nature of the subject in dispute would play a very significant role in Ibn Taymiyah's
conception of the limits of religious persecution.
Although Ibn Taymiyah did not hold any notion of an institutionalized
orthodoxy, he, nonetheless, believed in the existence of a unified and objective body of
religious truth. He never gave a comprehensive list of what constitutes that truth. But
on some occasions, Ibn Taymiyah gave a partial list of doctrines, mostly in general
terms, that were considered to be the main ingredients of the Muslim belief. The denial
of any of these doctrines would be sufficient reason to label the person a religious
Ibn Taymiyah, Matmu' Fatawa. 19: 126-27; 35: 100, 104.
292
dissenter.
11
Ibn Taymiyah's inclusion of some of what was considered by the majority
of Muslim jurists and theologians as practical questions (al-Masa 'il al- 'amaliyah), in
his conception of the essence of reUgious truth,
12
resulted in a wider definition of
religious dissent.
Against his perception of the truth, Ibn Taymiyah perceived different
degrees of religious dissent. The criterion of the severity of reUgious dissent was its
closeness or remoteness from what Ibn Taymiyah considered to be the true and
fundamental teachings of Islam. The more violations there were of the basic doctrines
of Islam by a given Muslim sect, the more severe the reUgious dissent of that sect
became. For instance, he considered the heretical views of some of the extremist
Shi'ite sects to be more severe than those of the Kharijites, who beUeved in the Quran
and performed the five daUy prayers.
B
Also, he beUeved that the heretical sect of the
Mu'tazUites was better than the Shi'ites because they did not utter insulting remarks
about the companions of the Prophet.
14
Ibn Taymiyah's conception of the essence of reUgious dissent was not
different from the general conception of heresy in Islamic or non-Islamic contexts.
11
See, for example, Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa, 35:164.
12
Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa. 19: 207-208; and al-'Istiqamah. 1:53-68.
13
Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa. 28:483.
14
Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 13:97-98.
293
ReUgious dissent, Ibn Taymiyah suggested, was not the denial of the whole scheme of
religious truth. Instead, it meant the denial of some parts of the doctrinal system of
Islam or the addition of novel (textless) doctrines to it. The religious dissenter, unlike
the unbeliever, was the one who expressed views that were considered unconventional
and, at the time, claimed to be a believing Muslim. Hence, the essence of heresy, for
Ibn Taymiyah and other Bayanist theorists, was its tendency to compete with the true
teachings of Islam concerning the true understanding of the Word of God. Since
religious dissenters always insisted on the notion that they were devout Muslims and
supported their theological claims with numerous textual references from the Quran
and the Prophetic traditions, Ibn Taymiyah suggested that the essence of religious
dissent was the fusion of truth with error. For that reason, he argued, heresy appeared
to be similar to the truth, even though it was its antithesis.
15
Closely related to the essence of religious dissent were Ibn Taymiyah's
views on the question of who was the true Muslim. In theory, the pronouncement of a
declaration of faith {shahadah) was considered sufficient cause to consider the person a
Muslim.
16
Even though religious dissenters declared themselves to be Muslims, since
they pronounced the declaration of faith, Ibn Taymiyah insisted that pronouncing the
profession of faith would not make the person a true Muslim. Faith, Ibn Taymiyah
15
See for example, Ibn Taymiyah, Par' Ta'arudh al-
c
Aql wa al-NaqL 2: 104.
16
The declaration of faith took the following formula: "I testify that there is no God
but Allah, and Muhammed is His servant and messenger."
294
contended, meant believing in God and following His commands. Thus, Ibn Taymiyah
always insisted on the notion that the verbal declaration of faith had to be confirmed by
deeds.
17
The problem with religious dissenters, Ibn Taymiyah believed, was that while
they declared their faith in God, they held certain reUgious doctrines and acted in ways
that were inconsistent with the basic teachings of Islam.
18
Although Ibn Taymiyah was
very careful not to exclude all reUgious dissenters from the realm of Islam, he
considered them to be deviant Muslims and assigned them different labels, all of which
implied one or another form of reUgious defection.
Ibn Taymiyah's tendency to distinguish between the verbal pronouncement
of faith by an individual and his or her beUef system and conduct led him to the
inevitable result, i.e., the objectification of reUgious dissent. The reUgious dissenter
became no longer the person who identified himself or herself as such. Rather,
reUgious dissenter was a label given to the individual by his sectarian, and always
hostile, opponents, because he or she held theological views that were considered
inconsistent with theirs. Ibn Taymiyah's objectification of reUgious dissent was a
logical outcome of his epistemological outlook. As previously stated, Ibn Taymiyah
beUeved in the existence of a weU-defined body of reUgious truth which took primarily
Ibn Taymiyah wrote extensively on the question of who was a Muslim and how it
related to other labels. The most detaUed account of this theological question was given
in his book, Al-'Iman (Faith) Hashim al-Shathli, ed. ( Cairo: Dar al-Hadith, n.d.),
especiaUypp. 69-204.
Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 35:106.
295
textual form. Such reUgious truth was conceived by Ibn Taymiyah to have an objective
existence from its holder. To deny part of it or to advocate reUgious views that were
not consistent with it would be considered one or another kind of reUgious dissent,
regardless of what the holder of the dissenting view conceived of himself or herself.
No discussion of Ibn Taymiyah's conception of reUgious dissent could be
complete without considering his views on its origins. He provided his readers with
more than one explanation for the rise of reUgious dissent within Islam. In none of
these explanations was reUgious dissent perceived as something positive. The most
common explanation for the rise of dissenting sects in Islam was attributing the
phenomenon to undesirable outside influences. Such external influences took two
forms. The first kind of outside influence was transmitted by some personaUties such
as AbduUuh Ibn Saba', a Jew who converted to Islam. Ibn Saba' and others were, Ibn
Taymiyah insisted, responsible for the Shi'ite heresies with the intention to destroy
Islam from within.
19
The second form of external influences took the form of the
Muslims' exposure, willingly or unwillingly, to other beUef systems, reUgious as weU as
philosophical. For instance, Ibn Taymiyah beUeved that the translating of Greek works
during the reign of the Abbasid CaUph al-Ma'mun was a major factor that contributed
to the spread of heretical movements in Islam.
20
He also attributed the spread of the
See Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 35:184.
Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 2:84.
296
heretical practices within the mystical movements in Islam to the influence of
Christianity.
21
Besides the external influences, Ibn Taymiyah gave an interesting
historical explanation, though closely related to his epistemological outlook, for the
origin and the degree of severity of religious dissent in Islam. He argued that the
further from "the light of the prophecy" the heresy was, the more severe it became; and
the closer to the time of the Prophet the heresy was, the weaker it became.
2
All of Ibn
Taymiyah's explanations were based on the conviction that religious dissent was an
objectionable act, religiously and morally, which was incompatible with being a true
Muslim.
Forms of Religious Dissent
As in the case of his definition of religious dissent, Ibn Taymiyah did not
give a systematic account of the different forms of religious dissent in Islam. In spite of
extensive commentary on the different dissenting sects, Ibn Taymiyah's views on the
forms of religious dissent in Islam remained unclear and less than coherent.
Considering his Bayanist outlook, the lack of any explicit reference to the forms of
religious dissent in his textual frame of reference appeared to be the reason behind
some of the ambiguities in Ibn Taymiyah's views on the subject. His views on the
21
Ibn Taymiyah, Iqtida al-Sirat. 1:77.
22
Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 28:489-91.
297
different manifestations of religious dissent within Islam were expressed either in the
context of his polemic exchanges with other Muslim sects or in his justification of
coercing religious dissenters in Islam.
From his different remarks on the topic, Ibn Taymiyah seemed to view
religious dissent in terms of two broad categories: historical and textual. The
distinction between those two categories is mainly epistemological. The historical
categories referred to the actual heretical sects of Islam, which included the sects that
existed during Ibn Taymiyah's time, and the other sects which had become extinct
centuries before. His knowledge of these categories of religious dissent was derived
from his own historical environment or from the literature of Sunni heresiographies.
Considering their historical character, these categories of religious dissent were treated
by Ibn Taymiyah as concrete religious entities that were differentiated from one another
by the substance of their doctrines.
The textual categories referred to the different labels given to Muslim
religious dissenters by the Muslim jurists and theologians. Ibn Taymiyah's source of
knowledge about these categories was the divine texts of Islam. Not all of these
categories, it must be emphasized, were directly derived from the divine texts of Islam,
that is, the Quran and the Prophetic traditions. But these categories had acquired a
textual status after being frequently used by generations of Muslim jurists and
theologians over an extended period of time. The textual categories were abstract,
universal, and transhistorical. There were fewer in number than the historical
298
categories, and their primary function was to summarize or to systemize rehgious
dissent in its varying historical forms.
Considering the scope of Ibn Taymiyah's reformist ideology, almost all the
rehgious sects of Islam were included in his writings. He wrote commentaries on the
major Muslim sects of the Kharijites, Murji'ites, Shi'ites, and Mu'tazihtes. While these
four sects represented the four historical categories of rehgious dissent, Ibn Taymiyah
did not give these four sects equal treatment in his writings. Some of these sects, such
as the Murji'ites and the Kharijites were practically nonexistent in his life time.
Rehgious dissent in his time came mainly from Shi'ism and its subsects and from the
mystical tendencies in Islam. His theory of persecution was directed mainly to the
Shi'ite heretical sects in general and extremist Shi'ites in particular. The Ash'arites,
who represented the dominant theological trend of the time, were not considered by
Ibn Taymiyah to be rehgious dissenters as the Shi'ites or the Mu'tazihtes were,
although he entered into a confrontation with some of them on the question of the
divine attributes, which led to his imprisonment.
The mystical tendencies in Islam represented to Ibn Taymiyah different
kinds of rehgious dissent. The most severe form of heterodoxies that came from
mysticism were the mystical formulations that were derived from the Gnostic tradition
or al-'Irfan, which has always been the traditional competitor of al-Bayan tradition. He
found two mystical doctrines, the notions of Union and the Unity of Existence, to be
the most severe kind of rehgious defection to come from the mystical camp. The
299
mystics of the Unity of Existence were indebted for their belief systems to the Muslim
theologian Ibn al-Arabi (1165-1240). For Ibn al-Arabi, the whole Being could be
reduced to one divine essence. All the infinite beings were considered different
manifestations of the one divine substance.
23
The doctrines of the Unionist mystics
(Itihadiyah) were best represented by the views of the al-Hallaj (858-922), who
believed that the union between God and the human soul could be achieved through the
process of illumination.
24
He considered the holders of these doctrines to be not only
heretical but also expressions of zandaqah.
25
In addition to the advocacy of these
heterodox doctrines, Ibn Taymiyah found some of the religious practices of the Muslim
mystics, especially the practice of elevating some saintly persons ('awliya) to the status
of intermediaries between God and His creatures, to be forms of polytheism. Also, in
connection with the Gnostic epistemic tradition, Ibn Taymiyah considered the
formulations of the philosophers to be one or another kind of unbelief or polytheism .
But when Ibn Taymiyah used the term "philosophers," he had in mind both the
23
For Ibn Taymiyah's views on Ibn al-Arabi and the doctrine of Unity of Existence, see
Majmu' Fatawa. 2: 122-285.
24
See Massignon, The Passion of al-Hallaj. 3:20-25.
25
Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa. 2: 131-33.
26
Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa. 11: 499-502.
27
Ibn Taymiyah, Al-Radd
c
Ala al-Mantiqiyyn. 101.
300
advocates of Neo-Platonism as well as the Muslim philosophers who came from the
Aristotelian tradition, though he gave more attention to the former.
28
The last historical category of religious heterodoxy were the Mongols, or
the Tatars, as Ibn Taymiyah preferred to call them The Mongols were actually an
invading army and an established empire, and they could hardly be considered a
religious group. Since Mongols were exclusively occupied with their political survival,
which could explain their conversion to Islam, they never formulated any well-defined
theological system. Besides, the Mongols of Ibn Taymiyah's time declared themselves
to be Muslims. However, he forcefully insisted that they were reUgious dissenters on
the basis of their heretical views and by virtue of their own conduct.
29
As will be
shown later, the Mongols will be placed in the category of the zardiqs, or hypocrites, in
order to legitimize their treatment as reUgious dissenters.
In comparison with the historical categories, the textual categories of
reUgions were smaUer in number and they appeared in Ibn Taymiyah's writings with
less frequency than those of historical categories. Unlike the historical categories, the
textual categories were more general in scope and were usuaUy considered in the
context of assigning different punishment for reUgious defectors in Islam Because of
the totaUstic and inclusive nature of Islamic law, the textual categories of reUgious
In fact, Ibn Taymiyah did not seem to distinguish between the two epistemic
traditions, and he treated both of them as two sides of the same inteUectual trend.
29
See, for example, Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 28:504-505.
301
dissent included a wide range defections from Islamic norms. Some of these categories
such as 'as/ (disobedient) or fajir (deviant), implied deviations from the religiously
sanctioned moral norms of Islam, in which the purely theological issue had a rather
marginal place. Central to Ibn Taymiyah's views on religious persecution were four
textual categories: heretic, zandiq, apostate, and Khahjite. The first three categories
were textual by virtue of their epistemological origins, i.e., being derived from the
divine texts of Islam The fourth category had historical as well as textual character.
In the following sections, Ibn Taymiyah's conception of the scope and essence of each
category will be delineated.
Throughout the discussion of Ibn Taymiyah's views on rehgious
factionalism, the concept of rehgious dissent was used instead of the term heresy or
heretic. This was done for a purpose. For Ibn Taymiyah and other Bayanist thinkers,
heresy (bida'ah) was considered only one manifestation of rehgious dissent. Rehgious
dissenters in Islam could be labeled heretics as well as other labels, which could have
different legal consequences. However, because heresy had a very broad and inclusive
meaning, the other textual categories could be considered as different manifestations of
heresy. It is true that Ibn Taymiyah always implied some heretical elements in his
definitions of the other textual categories of rehgious dissent, and he did not always
maintain a clear and rigid distinction between these categories. But since he generally
considered each one of these textual categories to be different from the other, with
302
respect to its essence and legal consequences, it seems appropriate to treat heresy as a
separate and distinct form of religious defection in Islam.
Ibn Taymiyah never gave a precise definition of heresy. He expressed his
conception of heresy and heretics through the text, that is, through his commentaries
on the theological doctrines of other Muslim sects. From these commentaries, heresy
appeared to mean to Ibn Taymiyah any theological doctrine or religious practice that
had bases in the traditions of the Prophet or his companions.
30
Hence, heresy was
considered something novel or alien to the original teachings of Islam. For that reason
it was called bida 'ah, which literally meant innovation or novelty. Since Ibn Taymiyah
considered his theological system to be derived from and consistent with the sayings of
the Prophet and the opinions of his companions, any doctrine or practice that was not
consistent with his own were labeled heresies.
Unlike the other textual categories of religious dissent, heresy came in
different forms and degrees of severity. Heresy, Ibn Taymiyah argued, could take
doctrinal as well as practical or behavioral form. The reason for that, as it was
previously stated, was Ibn Taymiyah's rejection of the majority of the Bayanist
thinkers' distinction between the theoretical and theological questions, in which
certainty was required, and the practical questions, in which doubt was considered
legitimate. Ibn Taymiyah forcefully insisted that certainty was required in both domains
Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 18: 346.
303
of religious knowledge and, hence, heresy could exist in matters that were considered
practical rather than doctrinal.
31
The category of heresy was given a rather broad meaning, which was
extended to include the vast majority of Muslim religious dissenters. Within this
textual construct, Ibn Taymiyah Usted Muslim heretical sects that adhered to doctrinal
views that were considerably diverse and, in some instances, antithetical to one another.
One could find th e Mu'tazilites, the Murji'ites, the Shi'ites, and Kharijites, as hostile to
each other as they were, to be placed by Ibn Taymiyah in the textual category of
heresy.
32
Furthermore, the category of heresy, according to Ibn Taymiyah, was broad
enough to include almost all kinds of religious dissent, which could vary from very
mild, such as Sunni heresy,
33
to a very severe religious heterodoxy, such as that of the
Kharijites and some of the extremist Shi'ites.
34
The second textual category of religious dissent that appeared in Ibn
Taymiyah's writings was zandiq. There has been no consensus among the
contemporary commentators on the exact meaning of the label of zandiq (n.
31
Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 6:56-57.
32
Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 35: 414.
33
"Sunni heresy" is a contradiction in terms. Although Ibn Taymiyah seemed to
believe in the possibility of heresy within Sunnism, he never explained how heresy and
sunnah (a tradition of the Prophet) could ever co-exist although the two concepts
excluded one another.
Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu" Fatawa. 28: 553-555.
304
zandaqah). The lack of such consensus seems to be related not only to the non-Arabic
origin of the word but also to the fact that its usage by different Muslim rulers,
theologians, and jurists throughout Islamic history gave the term zandiq more than one
meaning. According to Lewis and Massignon, the word zandiq was of an Iranian
origin that found its way into Islamic theological and juridical literature. It referred to
individuals who held heterodox interpretations of the Zoroastrian divine texts and
introduced unorthodox teachings into that religion. Later, under the Sasanian rule, the
label zandiq was applied mainly to the followers of the Manichaen religion.
35
In Islamic
history, the concept of zandiq was used mainly to identify individuals who were
suspected of being adherents of Manichaenism, although expressed their nominal
commitment to Islam
36
Among the Muslim jurists and theologians within al-Bayan
tradition, the term zandiq became a label for any person whose commitment to Islam
was questionable.
Ibn Taymiyah did not appear to be interested in either the origin or the
different meanings of the concept of zandiq. He simply retained the conventional
meaning of zandiq, which he considered to be equivalent to or synonymous with the
Quranic category of hypocrite (munqfiq). Hence, Ibn Taymiyah defined zandiq as a
See Lewis, Islam in History. 285; and Louis Massignon, Zgndik, Encyclopaedia of
Islam. M. Th. Houtsma et aL eds. (New York: E. J. BrilL 1987), VIA: 1228-29.
36
This meaning had gained currency during the reign of the ' Abbasid Caliph al-Mahdi
and his famous inquisitional policy against the zandiqs of his time.
305
person who expressed his or her outwardly adherence to Islam but concealed or hid his
or her commitment to another religion.
37
By virtue of its association with the Quranic
concept of hypocrisy, the term zandiq implied the existence of an evil intention on the
part of the reUgious dissenter to destroy Islam from within. For that reason, Ibn
Taymiyah used the term zandiq to describe the Fatimid rulers of Egypt and, more
important, the Mongol leaders and their followers.
38
As will be shown in the next
section, the concept of zandiq would be a very effective conceptual tool in textually
justifying the use of coercion against the Mongols.
The textual category of apostasy was the only category that could be
traced back directly to the Quran and the Prophetic traditions. However, as previously
stated, the Quran reference to apostasy was limited to threatening with eternal
condemnation the Muslims who intended to abandon Islam and to return to their
former religions. The Prophetic traditions on the question of apostasy were also
limited to subscribing the death penalty to the person who willfully decided to
relinquish the Muslim faith. However, these textual references to apostasy were very
brief, and the concept of apostasy in these texts was defined in a restrictive and narrow
sense. Ibn Taymiyah, who was well aware of the limits of these Quranic and Prophetic
texts, held the extended or objective definition of apostasy, which was held by the
37
Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa. 28:483, 555.
38
Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 35:128, and Ibn Abd al-Hadi, 149-150.
306
majority of the jurists in al-Bayan tradition.
39
For Ibn Taymiyah, therefore, the
religious dissenter could be labeled an apostate if he or she denied one of the basic
doctrines of Islam or performed certain acts that were considered contrary to such
doctrines, even if the person did not declare his intention to abandon Islam.
40
Finally, there was the textual category of the Kharijites. Originally, the
Kharijites were a historical category. But in his defense of the use of coercive means
against religious dissenters in Islam, Ibn Taymiyah appealed frequently to the conduct
of the companions of the Prophet toward that dissenting sect. The Kharijites were the
only dissenting sect in Islam that could be traced back to a Prophetic tradition, though
not directly. Among the Sunni Muslim thinkers, there seemed to be a consensus that
the Kharijites were the ones that were meant in the Prophetic tradition that predicted
the appearance of an extremist religious group, the fighting of whom would be the duty
of all Muslims. Ibn Taymiyah cited that Prophetic tradition in more than one of his
writings, in its concise and long versions.
41
According to one version of that tradition,
the Prophet was reported to have said
During the last days there will appear some young foolish
people who will say the best words but their faith will not go
beyond their throats (i.e., they will have no faith) and will go
out from (leave) their religion as an arrow goes out of the
39
For more details on the Islamic conception of apostasy, see chapter two of this study,
176-77.
40
Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 28:519, 534-35, 35:105.
41
See Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa. 28:404.
307
game. So, where-ever you find them, kill them, for who-ever
kills them shall have reward on the Day of Resurrection.
The main transmitter of that Prophetic tradition was the fourth Muslim
Caliph Ali who conducted a number of bloody wars against the Kharijites. The Caliph
Ali, who recited the Prophetic tradition during his military campaign against the
Kharijites, beheved that the appearance of the Kharijites was foretold by the Prophet of
Islam Because of Ali's assertion, Ibn Taymiyah considered the Kharijites to be a
textual and, hence, abstract and transhistorical category of religious dissent in Islam
In the context of his discussion of the textual categories of religious
defection, Ibn Taymiyah was forced to deal with the well-known Quranic category of
the Transgressors {ahl al-Baghi). He always insisted that the Quranic category of
Transgressors was not a type of religious dissent. Ibn Taymiyah forcefully dismissed
the notion of including some of the dissenting religious groups such as the extremist
Shi'ites and the Mongols in the Quranic category of Transgressors. The reason for
that, Ibn Taymiyah contended, was that the Transgressors were mainly political rebels
who had what he called a reasonable {sa 'igh) interpretation of some doctrines of Islam.
The heretical sects of Islam, he argued, were motivated by their sectarian biases and did
not have a reasonable interpretation of any Islamic doctrine.
42
For Ibn Taymiyah, the
main distinction between the two categories was the political nature of the
Transgressors against the religious nature of religious dissenters. To recall the
Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 28:486-87, 515-16, 541-42.
308
definition of religious persecution: it meant the use of coercion to force a person to
abandon his or her religious views. Since the textual category of the Transgressors
referred to purely political rebels, it had no conceptual relevance to Ibn Taymiyah's
justification of religious persecution, which could explain his exclusion of it from his
argument.
No discussion of Ibn Taymiyah's views on the forms of religious dissent
can be complete without considering his conception of excommunication, or takfir.
The Islamic notion of takfir simply meant the labeling of a person as an unbeliever or
the exclusion of the person from th e realm of Islam. It is similar to the Christian notion
of excommunication. But the main difference between the two conceptions of
excommunication was that in the Islamic context it was doctrinal whereas in the
Christian context it was institutional. Ibn Taymiyah used the concept of
excommunication to label his sectarian opponents in more than one place, and he was
well aware of its worldly or the legal consequences as well as its afterworldly
punishments and rewards.
43
But despite the centrality of the concept of
excommunication in the overall theological systems of Ibn Taymiyah, it assumed a
rather marginal conceptual role in his justification of the employment of coercion
against the Muslim religious dissenters in Islam. While the concept of unbelief (kuJUr)
was certainly one form of severe religious dissent, the label was more appropriate to
See Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa. 12:467-8.
309
describe the non-Muslims than the Muslim religious dissenters. Whenever Ibn
Taymiyah came close to excommunicating a religious dissenter, he preferred to place
him or her in the category of either apostasy or zandaqah rather than excluding that
person from the realm of Islam. Because of the severe consequences of the
excommunication, Ibn Taymiyah appealed to it to determine the limits of reUgious
persecution rather than to defend it.
Before concluding this section, a final remark should be made regarding
the relationship between the textual and the historical categories in Ibn Taymiyah's
overall discourse. The two categories of reUgious dissent were both the result of Ibn
Taymiyah's exclusive and absolutist perception of the reUgious truth. Each category of
reUgious dissent, whether textual or historical, was perceived as one manifestation of
deviating from and, hence, threatening an existing body of reUgious truth. However,
while the common denominator between these two forms of reUgious dissent was their
deconformity with Ibn Taymiyah's conception of the truth, the same cannot be said
about their role in his justification of reUgious persecution. Throughout Ibn
Taymiyah's argument for the employment of coercion against reUgious dissenters, the
textual categories always assumed conceptual primacy over the historical categories.
What is meant by conceptual primacy is that when Ibn Taymiyah attempted to justify
the use of coercive means to bring reUgious dissenters, the historical categories, to
submission, he always appealed to the textual categories. Considering the centraUty of
the text in al-Bayan rationaUty, the supremacy of the textual categories of reUgious
310
dissent over the historical should come as no surprise. In Ibn Taymiyah's textual frame
of reference, for the historical categories of religious dissent to have relevance and
significance, they had to be included in and elevated to the textual categories. This
point should become clear when Ibn Taymiyah's justification of religious persecution is
examined in the next section.
Ibn Taymiyah's Justification of Religious Persecution
It may be appropriate to introduce Ibn Taymiyah's justification of the use
of coercion against rehgious dissent by recalling two points made in chapter two. It
was stated that the notion of the use of the poUtical authority to impose rehgious
conformity flourished within a frame of reference that consisted of three elements:
certainty about rehgious truth, the inclusion of doctrinal errors in the realm of morality,
and a theocratic perception of the function of the state. By contrast, the notion of
rehgious toleration was defended within a frame of reference that was based primarily
on skepticism, moral relativism, and secularism. From these two observations, it was
argued that the Muslim poUtical thinkers operated within a textual frame of reference
that was built on epistemologicaL moral, and pohtical assumptions that were inherently
inhospitable to the notion of toleration of reUgious dissent within Islam.
Ibn Taymiyah's argument for rehgious persecution was, in its formal
structure, consistent with the frame of reference of the idea of reUgious persecution in
general. That is, while Ibn Taymiyah's justification of the use of coercive means
311
against heterodoxy was different from that of his Christian counterparts with respect to
its substance, it was remarkably similar to their's in regard to its overall formal
structure. The argument of Ibn Taymiyah had generally three dimensions:
epistemological, moral, and political. Although these three elements were not equal in
terms of their conceptual utility, combined, they represented the foundations of Ibn
Taymiyah's defense of rehgious persecution. In the following sections, these
epistemological, moral, and political dimensions will be examined in depth. But before
delineating Ibn Taymiyah's argument, a word on the targets or subjects of rehgious
persecution is in order.
In theory, every one who was included in the category of rehgious dissent
would be a target of rehgious persecution. That is, if Ibn Taymiyah's views on
different Muslim sects were taken to their logical end, one cannot think of any outcome
other than rehgious persecution. He explicitly argued for the use offeree against some
Shi'ite sects, the Mongols, and some individual Muslim mystics. Considering the large
number of rehgious dissenters in his historical milieu as well as his belief system, his
views on the subject were rather limited. But in spite of that, his views on these
particular cases were general enough to be extended to other dissenting rehgious
groups. Therefore, his remarks on these limited cases of heterodoxy were fairly
representative of his argument for rehgious persecution as a whole.
312
Truth vs. Error: the Epistemological Dimension
Ibn Taymiyah's conception of the rehgious truth, his epistemological
outlook, overshadowed the other two of his defenses of rehgious persecution. In fact,
the moral and political dimensions of his argument were derived from and based on the
epistemological dimension. The cornerstone of Ibn Taymiyah's defense of persecution
was that rehgious dissent, in its different manifestations, was essentially a threat to an
existing body of rehgious truth. The employment of coercion against heterodoxy
became, therefore, an action by the Muslim ruler to protect that body of rehgious truth
or to punish a doctrine that deviated form it.
The centrality of Ibn Taymiyah's conception of the truth in his argument
could be seen in the statement with which he always introduced his defense of rehgious
persecution . In each treatise on the use of force against Muslim rehgious dissenters,
Ibn Taymiyah summarized his argument by asserting that "every sect deviated from an
evident doctrine of Islam, it must be fought even if [its members] declared their faith in
Islam."
44
Such a statement was intended to serve as the general premise of Ibn
Taymiyah's justification of subjecting persons with heterodox views to physical
punishment. He appealed to it in his defense of persecuting some Muslim sects that
held different, if not conflicting, heretical doctrines such as the Shi'ites and the
Mongols.
Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa. 28:356, 468, 502, 510, 545.
313
Ibn Taymiyah's tendency to introduce his defense of persecution with the
above mentioned statement was indicative of two epistemological assumptions. First, it
indicated the existence of a well-defined doctrinal system or truth. The second
assumption was the belief that such a body of reUgious truth had to be adhered to in its
entirety; it could not tolerate divisiveness. To recall Ibn Taymiyah's conception of the
essence of reUgious dissent, he viewed it not as the rejection of the whole scheme of
reUgious truth but as the rejection of some of its contents or the addition of novel ones.
For that reason, Ibn Taymiyah thought it sufficient for the Muslim ruler to punish these
sects who tended to be eclectic in their adherence to the teachings of Islam. He
justified his assertion by aUuding to the Quranic text which stated, "and fight them on
until there is no more persecution and the reUgion becomes Allah's"
45
Ibn Taymiyah
suggested that, according to that Quranic verse, the teachings of Islam, which were
included in the word reUgion, had to be adhered to entirely, and the denial of one basic
doctrine would be sufficient to subject the person to physical punishment.
46
But what were the contents of that body of reUgious truth? Ibn Taymiyah
never gave a comprehensive Ust of the contents of the reUgious truth in the context of
his defense of the principle of reUgious persecution. Instead, he gave only a partial and
incomplete Ust of doctrines, the denial or the questioning of which could expose the
Quran, 2: 193.
Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa. 28:469-70,511.
314
person to one or another form of religious persecution, mostly the death penalty.
Among the doctrines that he mentioned were some basic tenets of Islam, such as the
fasting of the month of Ramadan, performing the five daily prayers, and the paying of
the alms tax (zakat). In addition, Ibn Taymiyah cited practices that were prohibited in
Islam, such as the drinking of wine and the practice of fornication as among the basic
components of the Muslim scheme of truth, the denial of which would be considered an
expression of religious dissent.
47
But he also included in his list some doctrines that
were general and not well-defined. For instance, he considered the following to be
deviating from the basic doctrines of Islam: holding controversial views concerning the
attributes of God, refraining from enforcing the principle of the enjoining of the good
and the prohibition of vice, and being critical or making insulting remarks about the
companions of the Prophet.
48
Did Ibn Taymiyah's definition of the substance of the religious truth
resemble the notion of the fundamentals of faith that was held by the European
thinkers, especially Erasmus and CastaUon? Ibn Taymiyah's Ust of the basic Muslim
doctrines appeared to resemble the notion of the fundamentals of faith in the European
thought. However, the two principles were different in regard to substance and the
conceptual purpose that each one of them was intended to serve. With respect to
47
Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 28:468-69.
48
Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 28: 511.
315
substance, the notion of the fundamentals of faith held by Erasmus and other European
thinkers consisted of a handful of essential Christian teachings on which the majority of
warring Christian sects had agreed. Ibn Taymiyah's idea of the basic doctrines of
Islam, by contrast, was considerably broader and consisted of a large number of
theological doctrines which included some controversial questions.
49
In regard to the
conceptual role that each principle was supposed to play, the European idea of the
fundamentals of faith was exclusively employed in the context of defending religious
toleration and limiting the scope of reUgious persecution. In the case of Ibn Taymiyah,
the reverse was true. His notion of the basic doctrines of Islam was utilized to justify
the Muslim ruler's power to punish reUgious dissenters and to expand the scope of
reUgious persecution.
Based on such perception of reUgious truth, Ibn Taymiyah contended that
all the heretical sects were to be punished for their deviation from the truth and for
other considerations. The primary purpose for the use of force against reUgious
dissenters was either to protect a given body of reUgious truth or to punish the ones
who deviated from it. This notion appeared in aU of his treatises on the use of the
power of the state to punish the Shi'ites, particularly the extremist Shi'ite sects of the
mountain of Kasrawan.
In one place, Ibn Taymiyah considered beUeving that the Christians and Jews were
better than the Muslims was a violation of a basic doctrine of Islam which would
legitimize the subjection of that person to physical punishment. See Ibn Taymiyah,
Maimu' Fatawa. 28:468.
316
As Abu-Izzeddin has observed, the campaign of the Mamluk Caliph al-
Nasir against the extremist Shi'ites of the mountain of Kasrawan was motivated by
political and military reasons rather than sectarian considerations
50
. But Ibn Taymiyah,
who was aware of the political motives of the Mamluk ruler, insisted that force against
the Shi'ites of Kasrawan had a primarily rehgious purpose. They were punished, Ibn
Taymiyah contended, for their heretical beliefs and for disobeying the teachings of God.
Throughout his argument, Ibn Taymiyah referred to the heretical beliefs of the Shi'ite
sub-sects of the Nusayris and the Druz, who represented the bulk of the persecuted
population of that area, as the main reasons for subjecting them to persecution. He
accused the Nusayris of not adhering to the basic doctrines of Islam, such as not
performing the five dail y prayers, and fasting during the month of Ramadan.
51
He went
even further by suggesting that the Nusayris, because of the severity of their heresies,
were apostates who were worse than the unbelieving of the Christians and Jews.
52
He
made similar remarks about the heretical beliefs of the Druz, accusing them too of
being apostates.
53
Najla Abu-Izzeddin, The Druz: A New Study of their History, Faith and Society
(Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1984), 158-59.
51
Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa. 28:552.
52
Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa. 35:149-50, 151.
53
Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 35:161-62; 28:400.
317
Ibn Taymiyah's perception of persecution as an action to protect what he
thought of as the truth, was evident in his remarks on what the Muslim ruler was
required to do after the heretical sects of Kasrawan were defeated. He believed that it
was the religious duty of the Muslim ruler to implement a policy of re-education of the
members of these sects, to bring them back into mainstream Islam. Among the pohcies
he recommended to the Caliph al-Nasir were the sending of Sunni preachers to lead the
members of these sects in the daily prayers and the enforcement of other Sunni
doctrines. Also, he recommended that these sectarians be forced to learn the Quran
and the Prophetic traditions.
54
Besides these functions, the Muslim ruler was required
to take all the necessary measures to prevent the re-emergence of these heretical
doctrines, which included the punishment of the individuals who advocated them.
55
It
is needless to say, therefore, that had Ibn Taymiyah perceived the campaign of al-Nasir
against the sects of Kasrawan as a purely military or political action, he would never
have advocated the pohcies of enforcing what he considered to be the true teachings of
Islam.
The same epistemological assumption about the truth in religion was
authoritatively operative in Ibn Taymiyah's justification of the use of force against the
mainstream Shi'ite sects, the Twelvers.
56
For Ibn Taymiyah, the Shi'ites were to be
54
Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa. 28:407-408.
55
Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa. 28:408.
318
punished by the Muslim ruler, and that punishment could include the death penalty, for
mostly doctrinal considerations. He accused the Shi'ites of promoting erroneous
religious doctrines that would corrupt the religion of Islam." Among the Shi'ites',
heretical views that justified their persecution were the ones that contradicted or
deviated from the body of religious truth stated earlier. The greatest heresy of the
Shi'ites was their blaspheming of the companions of the Prophet and accusing some of
them of being unbelievers. In addition, he found the Shi'ite notions of considering the
Imamate (leadership) a fundamental doctrine of Islam and restricting it to one infallible
person to be a teaching alien to Islam and closer to Judaism than to Islam.
58
At one
point, Ibn Taymiyah ignored the distinction between mainstream Shi'ites like the
Twelvers, and the extremist sects, such as the Nusayris and the Druz, and thought of
them as advocating the same heretical beliefs.
59
It appears that Ibn Taymiyah perceived
The Twelvers have always represented the majority of the Muslim Shi'ites. They
were also called the Imarnis because of their belief in the infallible and divinely guided
leader (Imam) as one of the fundamental doctrines of Islam without which the person's
faith would be incomplete. The name of the Twelvers originated in their restricting the
legitimate rulership to twelve descendents of the Prophet starting with the Iman AJi
and ending with al-Mahdi, who they believed had gone into hiding or occupation in 874
and will return at the End of Time. For more details on the subject, see Moojan
Momen, An Introduction to Shi': Islam: The History and Doctrines of the Twelver
Shi'ism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), chapters 3, 7, and 8.
57
Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa. 28:488.
58
Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 28:474-80.
319
all the Shi'ites to be deviating from the truth; the differences between them were a
matter of degree, not substance.
In spite of the fact that the Mongols were actually military and political
leaders who could hardly be considered a religious sect, Ibn Taymiyah, nonetheless,
considered the substance of their religious teachings to be the primary reason for the
use of force against them. Of course, Ibn Taymiyah was mainly concerned with the
actions of the Mongols as occupiers of the Muslim land. However, the idea of the
Mongols as religious dissenters assumed a central place in his justification of the use of
force against them. To show that the Mongols were religious dissenters, Ibn Taymiyah
gave a very lengthy account of their heretical doctrines. He asserted that they did not
believe in the obligatory nature of the five daily prayers and other basic Islamic
doctrines.
60
Ibn Taymiyah also accused the Mongols of elevating their leader Jankiz
Kham to the status of God and making him superior to the Prophet Muhammad.
61
In the beginning of his essay Ibn Taymiyah maintained the distinction between the
different types of Shi'ites. He classified the different Shi'ite sects according to the
severity of their heretical doctrines and assigned each sect one form of physical
punishment, i.e., religious persecution. He generally divided them into three groups.
The first wer e the Extremists who elevated Ali to the status of God, and the second
were the Blasphemers who blasphemed the companions of the Prophet. The third
category was the Preferers which included the Shi'ites who believed that the fourth
Muslim Caliph was better than the other three Muslim Caliphs, and hence, he was more
eligible to lead the Muslim community. See Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 35:184-86.
60
Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa. 28:520.
61
Ibid.
320
Another deviation from the truth by the Mongols, Ibn Taymiyah argued, was their
tendency to give priority to political loyalties over religious affiliations as the criterion
for the distribution of rewards and punishments under their rule. He was especially
critical of the views of one of their advisors, who claimed that Christianity and Judaism
were epistemologically equal to Islam. He was equally resentful of the Mongol rulers'
policy of permitting some Muslim heretics to serve in their administration.
62
In fact,
what Ibn Taymiyah found to be religiously objectionable in these policies was nothing
more than what would be called religious toleration. For these doctrinal
considerations, Ibn Taymiyah contended that the Mongols must be fought not as an
invading army but as religious dissenters.
Ibn Taymiyah expressed the same concern with the integrity of the truth in
his justification of the execution of the Muslim mystic al-Hallaj. In his brief
commentary on the event, he cited al-Hallaj's heterodox views as the main reason for
his execution. Even though Ibn Taymiyah was aware of the fact that al-Hallaj's
execution by the Abbasids was politically motivated, Ibn Taymiyah simply ignored that
aspect and insisted that the purpose of that action was to prevent al-Hallaj from
threatening the integrity of the Muslim faith.
63
Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 28:525-26.
Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa. 35:108-109.
321
In all of these cases, Ibn Taymiyah always maintained the truth-error
dichotomy in which the former assumed supremacy over the latter. That was apparent
in his tendency to include each religious dissenter in one of the textual categories of
religious dissent. Or, as previously stated, he elevated religious dissidents, as they
historically manifested themselves in the forms of the different Muslim sects and
individual heretics, to the textual categories of religious dissent, in the juridical and
theological literature of Islam. Such a tendency could be explained in reference to
mechanisms of Bayanist rationality in which everything had to be textualized in order to
have relevance and significance. Therefore, in order to justify the punishment of these
religious dissenters, Ibn Taymiyah had to elevate them to the textual or religio-legal
categories of religious dissent, as they were articulated in Islamic jurisprudence.
However, Ibn Taymiyah's use of the textual categories of religious dissent
served another conceptual purpose besides providing textual justification for punishing
religious heterodoxy. While the name of each Muslim sect was a reference to the
substance of its doctrines which set it apart from other Muslim sects, the inclusion of
that sect in the textual category of religious dissent was a reference to its deviation
from a certain perception of the truth. For Ibn Taymiyah, to classify a religious
dissenter as a heretic, apostate, zandiq, or Kharijite, was to determine the degree of the
deviation of his or her heterodox doctrines from th e true teachings of Islam Since Ibn
Taymiyah's conception of the essence of religious dissent was doctrinal, not
institutional, then the textual categories of religious dissent were founded mainly on the
322
epistemological assumption of the distinction between truth and error and the
superiority of the former over the latter.
Religious Dissent and the Cohesion of the Community:
the Moral Dimension
Equating heterodox religious views with moral perversion was the second
major element of Ibn Taymiyah's justification of religious persecution. His tendency to
associate religious dissent with perversion was an inevitable outcome of his textual
frame of reference. In that frame of reference, the distinction between doctrinal errors
and moral and legal norms was rather blurred. Such a tendency was particularly related
to his epistemological outlook. Ibn Taymiyah's dichotomy between truth and error
was extended to the realm of conduct, that is, morality. Based on the epistemological
dichotomy of truth vs. error, Ibn Taymiyah constructed the moral dichotomy of
righteousness vs. perversion where the former was perceived as superior to the latter.
The moral relevance of heterodoxy and, hence, the legitimacy of its
suppression, was articulated mainly in Ibn Taymiyah's conception of the nature of the
Muslim community. In my discussion of the frame o f reference of the idea of religious
toleration in chapter two, it was suggested that the notion of equating errors in
doctrinal matters with perversion was conceptually linked with the organic conception
of the society. It was then proposed that one of the factors that contributed to the
Muslim political thinkers' movement in the direction of recommending persecution for
323
Muslim religious dissenters was their organic conception of the community. As it was
stated in chapter three, Ibn Taymiyah held a conventional, that is, Bayanist, conception
of the human association. The Muslim community, for Ibn Taymiyah, consisted mainly
of individuals who related to one another through their reUgious orientations. Since he
viewed the Muslim community to be essentially a reUgious construct, Ibn Taymiyah
considered the cohesion and survival of the Muslim community to be determined by the
reUgious consensus of its members. Holding heterodox reUgious views became,
therefore, some kind of a threat to the cohesion and continuity of the community.
Consequently, reUgious dissent had practical impUcations and, hence, became moraUy
relevant.
Since heterodoxy always had undesirable practical consequences, Ibn
Taymiyah attributed the holding of dissenting theological views to be of defective
moral character.
64
He not only objected to the contents of the Muslim dissenters'
doctrines but also questioned their motives. Accusing Muslim reUgious dissenters of
intentionaUy attempting to undermine Islam from within was quite a common theme in
Ibn Taymiyah's writings on the subject. That is, reUgious dissenters, by creating
divisions among the Muslims, created hatred and enmities among the members of the
community, which weakened them and made them vulnerable to their enemies.
65
For
64
Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa. 28: 479, 520, 535.
65
Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa. 28: 478-79,488.
324
that reason, Ibn Taymiyah believed that uprooting heresy from Muslim society was
necessary for its very survival. His preoccupation with the harmful effects of religious
dissent on the cohesiveness of the Muslim community could be seen in his assertion
that punishing religious dissenters was used not only to protect the integrity of the truth
but also to prevent them from underminin g the Islamic community.
66
This perception of the moral content of religious dissent with its
epistemological underpinnings appeared frequently i n Ibn Taymiyah's efforts to justify
the use of force against Muslim religious dissenters. Nowhere in his writings on
religious dissent in Islam does Ibn Taymiyah consider something that resembled the
notion of the sincerity of conscience or the presence of good intentions as motives for
the convictions or the actions of members of the heretical sects of Islam. Neither was
he willing to consider some historical factors, such as oppression, social injustice, and
political motives, as possible explanations for some heretical sects of Islam acting the
way they did. Ibn Taymiyah appeared to suggest, as had all of the advocates of
religious persecution had done before him, that because of their being heretics, the
Muslim sectarians acted in ways that contradicted the ethical norms of the Muslim
community. Such charges were leveled by Ibn Taymiyah against the Shi'ites,
moderates and extremists, and the Mongols. The essence of this assertion was that the
expression of heterodox views by individuals was a reflection of an evil intention to
Ibn Tavmivah. Maimu' Fatawa. 10:374-75; 12:498-500.
325
commit acts that were hazardous to the welfare of the community. Such association
between holding unconventional theological views and behaving immorally was
expressed by Ibn Taymiyah in unmistakable terms in his views on the Shi'ites and the
Mongols.
Although he never stated it explicitly, Ibn Taymiyah saw the connection
between religious dissent and perversion in the conduct of the heretical sects to be
revealing itself in two forms. The first form was seen in the behavior of the religious
sects when they dominated minorities, which was exemplified in the conduct of the
Shi'ite sects. The second form of moral perversion was seen, by Ibn Taymiyah, in the
conduct of religious dissenters when they were dominant or in control, which was a
reference to the Mongols. The following sections will be devoted to examining Ibn
Taymiyah's views on these two manifestations of the connection between heterodoxy
and perversion.
When the heretical sects were in a state of subjugation, Ibn Taymiyah
argued, they were more likely to collaborate with the enemies of the Muslims. He
pointed out how the extremist Shi'ite sects of the mountain of Kisrawan collaborated
with the Mongols and Crusaders and fought on their side against the Muslim armies.
Ibn Taymiyah reminded his audience of how members of these sects not only
collaborated with the enemies but they also captured Muslim men and women and sold
them to non-Muslims as slaves.
67
He went even further by suggesting that the Shi'ites
326
in general were the most important reason for the defeat of the Muslims against the
Mongols and Crusaders.
68
The conduct of the Mongols was an example of the moral perversion of
religious dissenters when they were the ruling class or the dominant group. He focused
on the conduct of the Mongol soldiers after they had conquered Muslim lands. Ibn
Taymiyah recounted how the Mongols massacred a significant number of civilians and
took an equal number as slaves. In addition, he reminded his audience of how Mongol
soldiers raped Muslim women in the mosques of Damascus and Jerusalem. He also
made the observation that whenever the Mongols became dominant, the moral and
doctrinal teachings of Islam were less adhered to.
69
What is relevant of Ibn Taymiyah's views on the subject was not his
recitation of the conduct of the heretical sects of Islam. He was simply describing some
historical events of his own time or referring to some well-documented historical events
that took place earlier. What was remarkable was Ibn Taymiyah's explanation of why
the members of these sects acted the way they did. The whole purpose of his reference
to these historical examples was to show that the conduct of the sectarians, which
contradicted the norms of morality, was a reflection of the theological doctrines that
deviated from the norms of the truth. He excluded the possibility that the Shi'ite sects
67
Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa. 28:400.
68
Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa. 28:527-28.
69
Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa. 28:519-20.
327
of the mountain of Kasrawan collaborated with the Mongols and the Crusaders because
they were oppressed by the mainstream Sunni rulers, or to make a statement about
their social and economic conditions. Instead, he asserted that the Kisrawanians
behaved the way they did because they were implementing their religious teachings. He
asserted that they believed that any person who did not agree with their heretical
doctrines was an apostate who deserved to be punished by death or enslavement.
70
The same mode of reasoning was found in Ibn Taymiyah's explanation of Shi'ites,
mainstream as well as extremists, who collaborated with the Mongols and the
Crusaders. The primary motive of the Shi'ites in collaborating with Mongols, Ibn
Taymiyah asserted, was that the Mongols would not enforce the true Islamic rules on
them.
71
The atrocities of the Mongols were explained by Ibn Taymiyah not as purely
political and military actions, but rather, as an outcome of their erroneous doctrinal
system The crimes that the Mongols committed against other Muslims, Ibn Taymiyah
argued, were caused by their abandonment of the true teachings of Islam and their
adherence to their own belief system, which centered around the person of Chinqiz
Khan, whom they elevated to the status of God.
72
70
Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa. 28:401-402.
71
Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa. 28:527.
72
Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa. 28:520-25.
328
However, Ibn Taymiyah's equating of heterodoxy and perversion was not
without logical problems. In his explanation of the origins of religious dissent in Islam,
he argued that individuals with a defective moral character were more likely to hold
heretical doctrines.
73
That is, for Ibn Taymiyah, wickedness was considered the
primary cause of adhering to or advocating heterodox doctrines. However, in his
explanation of the conduct of the Muslim dissenting sects, he attributed their immoral
actions primarily to their erroneous religious doctrines. Here, the original explanation
of the origin of religious dissent was reversed. Therefore, the cause of religious
dissent, i.e., wickedness, was relocated to become the effect. That was a tautological
reasoning that threatened the logical makeup of Ibn Taymiyah's argument. He did not
seem to be aware of such logical tensions, and he never attempted to solve them.
In spite of encountering these logic problems, Ibn Taymiyah's inclusion of
heterodoxy in the realm of morality had a very obvious implication on his justification
of religious persecution. Besides creating factionalism and divisiveness in the Muslim
community, religious dissent could be translated into actions that were hazardous to the
physical well-being of the other member of the community. Within an organic
conception of society where the identity of the individual was defined exclusively by his
or her religious orientations, the moral relevance of religious heterodoxy became an
inevitable outcome. Hence, giving religious dissent a moral content by Ibn Taymiyah
73
Ibn Taymiyah, Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 28: 535.
329
transformed Muslim religious dissenters into social rebels. The conceptual utility of Ibn
Taymiyah's efforts to extend doctrinal errors from the realm of theology to the domain
of morality will become more apparent in the conclusion of his argument, i.e., the use
of the power of the Muslim government to coerce religious dissenters.
The Ruler as the Guardian of Faith: the Political Dimension
For Ibn Taymiyah, the Muslim ruler was the agent of reUgious persecution.
As in the case of other thinkers who defended reUgious persecution, Islamic as weU as
European, his epistemological and moral remarks on heterodoxy were intended to
serve one purpose, that is, providing theological and moral justification for the use of
poUtical authority to coerce reUgious dissent. His notion of heterodoxy as a threat to
the truth, and one form of perversion, was elevated to the status of a crime, after the
introduction of the element of the state in the argument.
To recaU what was stated in chapter two, the idea of reUgious persecution
was conceptuaUy associated with a theocratic conception of the state. For the
champions of reUgious persecution, the government was responsible for estabUshing
reUgious conformity through its enforcement of the true reUgion and the punishment of
those who deviated from it. To the contrary, the defenders of reUgious toleration held
a conception of the state in which the suppression of purely speculative theological
disputes was excluded from state jurisdiction. The state's intervention in sectarian
disputes was considered legitimate when such disputes posed a threat to the pubUc
330
peace. It was then proposed that Islamic pohtical thinkers held a certain conception of
the state that made its intervention in sectarian disputes inevitable.
Ibn Taymiyah's views on the proper role of the state were no exception.
He inherited the conception of the state that developed within the pohtical thought of
al-Bayan epistemic tradition. As stated in chapter three, while pohtical authority was
considered a universal phenomenon that existed in any human association, the Islamic
state was considered Islamic by virtue of being the agency of enforcing Islamic law. It
was also mentioned that because of the inclusive nature of Islamic law, the jurisdiction
of the Islamic state covered all aspects of life; this gave rise to the conception of a
state that was totalitarian in character. Within that perception of the Islamic state, the
Muslim ruler was entrusted with not only maintaining the public peace and tranquillity,
but also preserving the purity of the Muslim faith. Consequently, advocating dissenting
religious doctrines became an act that had to be punished as a crime.
The thrust of Ibn Taymiyah's justification of the use of pohtical coercion to
suppress religious dissent was that it was the moral and religious duty of the Muslim
ruler to penalize these individuals or groups who expressed heterodox religious views.
Coercing religious dissent by the Muslim ruler, for Ibn Taymiyah, was justified on two
bases: theological and practical. The distinction between these two types of
suppressing religious dissent was based on the purpose each type was intended to
serve. The first typ e of coercing heterodoxy was what Ibn Taymiyah called a principle-
based coercion ('ibtida). This type of religious persecution referred to the universal
331
and timeless principle of requiring the Muslim ruler to use force against sects with
dissenting religious views.
74
The purpose of this kind of religious persecution (Ibn
Taymiyah called it jihad) was to purify the Muslim faith from heretical doctrines and to
assure its supremacy.
75
The second type of religious persecution was a preventive use of force
(daf'an). This kind of religious persecution was intended not only to punish religious
dissenters for their deviation from the truth but also to prevent them from harming
other Muslims in their bodies and properties.
76
Such distinction between these two
types of religious persecution was not accidental. Considering the objective of each
type, they corresponded to the epistemological and moral dimensions of his overall
argument. The first typ e corresponded with his conception of heterodoxy as a threat to
the truth. The second type, while it included the first type, corresponded to Ibn
Taymiyah's equation of religious dissent with perversion.
Ibn Taymiyah's perception of the Muslim ruler as the guardian of the faith
was best expressed in his famous letter to the Mamluk leader al-Nasir. He composed
that letter after the Mamluk army had crushed the heretical sects of the mountain
Kisrawan in 1305 for their collaboration with the Mongols and the Crusaders. As
Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa. 28:358.
75
Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa. 28:359.
76
Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa. 28:359.
332
previously stated, the Mamluk ruler's actions were motivated mainly by political and
military considerations. But Ibn Taymiyah viewed that event in sectarian terms by
considering the purpose of that military campaign to be not only punishing these sects
for their mistreatment of the Mamluk soldiers but also for their heretical rehgious
teachings which caused them to commit their first offense in the first place. Although
the theme of that letter was to praise al-Nasir for suppressing the sects of Kisrawan,
Ibn Taymiyah expressed his general views on the subject of the duty of the Muslim
ruler against rehgious dissent. In fact, that particular work by Ibn Taymiyah was more
of a general treatise on suppressing heresy by using the power of the state than a letter
to the Caliph al-Nasir.
The opening paragraph of Ibn Taymiyah's letter to al-Nasir was of
considerable importance. He quoted the previous generations of Bayanist political
thinkers on the primary function of the Muslim ruler. He complimented the Caliph al-
Nasir for treating the sects of Kisrawan according to the dictates of Islamic law. The
suppression of the Kisrawanies, Ibn Taymiyah asserted, resulted in the renewal of
Islam and the total defeat of falsehood.
77
For Ibn Taymiyah, the whole purpose of that
introductory paragraph, it appeared, was to show that the Mamluk ruler's conduct was
consistent with the basic theological and moral leanings of Islam. When al-Nasir used
coercive measures against the dissenting sects of Kisrawan, Ibn Taymiyah believed, he
Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 28:399.
333
acted righteously. To show that the Caliph al-Nasir's behavior was consistent with the
Islamic norms, Ibn Taymiyah did not name the heretical groups of Kisrawan, but used
the textual categories of rehgious dissent in Islam.
78
Ibn Taymiyah's characterization of the policies of al-Nasir toward the
Kisrawanies as righteous was not based on the desirable consequences that these
policies actually produced. Instead, it was an upshot of his Bayanist or textual frame o f
reference. Since the Quran and, to a less extent, the Prophetic traditions were silent
about the proper treatment of rehgious dissenters in Islam, Ibn Taymiyah relied on less
authoritative texts to justify the Muslim ruler's suppression of heterodoxy. He found
the practices of subjecting rehgious dissenters, individuals and groups, to different
forms of physical punishment to be examples of how the subsequent Muslim rulers
ought to treat rehgious dissenters. That is why he believed that the Caliph al-Nasir
resembled the four rightful Caliphs of Islam in his wars against the Mongols and the
heretical sects of Kisrawan.
79
The actions of the first four Caliphs of Islam served as a
textual justification of state intervention to punish heterodoxy and to impose rehgious
conformity.
The cases of punishing rehgious dissenters individually and collectively
were small in number and restrictive in scope. However, that small number of cases
Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa. 28:348.
Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa. 28:399.
334
appeared frequently in Ibn Taymiyah's defense of the idea of suppressing religious
factionalism by political means. He cited how the second Muslim Caliph 'Umar had a
man caned because he preferred him over the second Caliph Abu Baker, and threatened
another with death because he suspected him to be a member of the Kharijites sect.
80
Also, he cited how the fourth Caliph Ah burned individuals who elevated him to the
status of God, and threatened with death any who blasphemed the first tw o Caliphs.
81
However, the most frequently cited cases by Ibn Taymiyah were the first
Caliph Abu Baker's use of force against the Apostates and the fourth Caliph Ali's
actions against the Kharijites. As stated in the discussion of the different forms of
reUgjous dissent, these two categories, especially the Kharijites, were essentially
historical categories of heterodoxy. But since the Muslim jurists and theologians traced
them back to certain Quranic and Prophetic texts, these two sects were elevated to
textual, and hence ahistoricaL, categories of heterodoxy. More important, for Ibn
Taymiyah's argument at least, was the fact that these two sects were fought by two of
the Prophet's companions. Because these two companions, Abu Baker and Ali, acted
Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 28:474. Ibn Taymiyah's assertion that "Umar
suspected a man to be a member of the Kharijite sect was not historically accurate.
The sect of the Kharijites did not come into existence until the reign of the fourth
Caliph Ali. During 'Umar's time, neither the name of the Kharijites nor the sect
existed. But it appears that Ibn Taymiyah was referring to the idea of the Kharijites,
the genesis of which he and other Bayanist thinkers attributing to the time of the
Prophet.
Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 28:349.
335
as Muslim rulers, Ibn Taymiyah used their treatment of the Apostates and the Kharijites
as an exemplary behavior of the Muslim ruler.
Ibn Taymiyah found the categories of the Apostates and the Kharijites to
be particularly useful in his justification of the use of the arm of the state to conduct
mass reUgious persecution. That is, the employment of political means to coerce
reUgious dissenters as a group rather than as individuals. Most of the time, Ibn
Taymiyah, referred to that form of reUgious dissent as al-Ta 'ifah al-Mumtani 'ah,
which meant the dissenting Muslim sect that was weU-fortified or unconquerable.
Because of that, miUtary means had to be utilized in order to bring that dissenting sect
into submission.
82
That type was to be differentiated from what he referred to as al-
Ta 'ifah al-Maqdur 'alayha', which meant the dissenting sect that could be brought
into conformance with the truth without resorting to the use of coercive, that is,
poUtical means.
83
The reUgious dissenters of his time, the Shi'ites, extremists and
moderates, and the Mongols, were classified in the first type, i.e., the insurmountable
dissenting sects. Both of these types referred to a condition in which reUgious
dissenters were concentrated in one geographical area and acted coUectively as a
group. Since the Mongols and the Kisrawanies met these two requirements, Ibn
Taymiyah found it appropriate to use the textual categories of the Apostates and the
Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 28:349.
Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 28: 555.
336
Kharijites as textual justification of the Muslim ruler's intervention to suppress religious
dissent. Although he used the categories of the Apostates and the Kharijites
interchangeably, Ibn Taymiyah most often tended to use the Kharijites to justify the
suppression of the Kisrawanies and the category of the Apostates to legitimize fighting
the Mongols. It is worth mentioning here that when Ibn Taymiyah was justifying the
punishment of the mainstream Shi'ites, who were not concentrated in one geographical
area and did not act as a dissenting group, he appealed to some cases in which some
individual heretics were punished by the Caliphs 'Umar and Ali.
84
Ibn Taymiyah's use of the textual categories of the Apostates and the
Kharijites to justify the use of political measures against the Kisrawanies and the
Mongols was not without conceptual problems. The Kharijites were historically and
doctrinally the antithesis of the Shi'ite sect with its subdivisions. Likewise, the
Mongols were primarily political leaders and had nothing in common with the
Apostates. That being the case, then how could Ibn Taymiyah appeal to textual
categories of religious dissent to justify the persecution of historical categories, which
considerably deviated from with them? Ibn Taymiyah was not unaware of such
conceptual problems. His solution to that problem was typically Bayanist. He
suggested that while the Kharijites and the Apostates referred to particular religious
dissent in Islam, the early Muslim Caliph's actions against them was a universal
Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 28:474.
337
principle. These Caliphs' conduct against these two heterodox groups was derived
from and based on their conviction that they were required to use coercion against any
sect that denied some basic doctrines of Islam. Their actions, therefore, were
applications of a general moral and theological principle on particular historical cases.
The Kharijites and the Apostates, Ibn Taymiyah argued, were, in their particular
historical forms, only manifestations of rehgious dissent in Islam He reminded his
audience that when the Prophet referred to the Kharijites
85
in particular, he did not
intend to restrict rehgious dissent to that particular group. But he was articulating a
principle that would guide the treatment of rehgious dissent in general. For that
reason, Ibn Taymiyah argued, the majority of Muslim jurists included all rehgious
dissenters in the textual category of the Kharijites, even if they doctrinally were
different from them.
86
Ibn Taymiyah went further, saying that when the Prophet
subjugated the Meccan Polytheists, he fought the idea of polytheism of which the
Meccans were one of its manifestations. The same was true in the actions of Abu
Baker and Ah toward the Kharijites and the Apostates, who were only two
manifestations of a variety of Muslim rehgious dissent. Therefore, the use of force
Ibn Taymiyah was referring to the previously cited Prophetic tradition in which the
Prophet foretold the appearance of the Kharijites. Although the Prophet never referred
to the Kharijites by name, the Bayanist thinkers, including Ibn Taymiyah, interpreted
that tradition as a reference to that particular sect.
Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 28:404, 476.
338
against the Kisrawanies and the Mongols was based on the same moral and theological
underpinnings as the suppression of the Kharijites and the Apostates.
For Ibn Taymiyah, suppression of heterodoxy and the enforcement of what
was considered the truth was a sign of a healthy and righteous polity. On one hand, he
praised the Mamluk ruler al-Nasir for his use of force against the heretical sects of
Kisrawan; he considered what al-Nasir did to be not only morally desirable but
religiously required. On the other hand, Ibn Taymiyah was extremely resentful of the
Fatimid rulers who promoted Shi'ism and favored other religions, and mistreated the
Sunni Muslims in Egypt and prevented them from preachin g their doctrines.
87
Also, he
suggested that one of the signs of the Mongols' deviation from the true teachings of
Islam was the ascendancy of the Shi'ites and other heretical sects under their rule.
88
Ibn Taymiyah appeared to associate the spread of heresy with corrupt rulership. For
Ibn Taymiyah, as the ruler became less committed to the legal and moral norms of
Islam, dissenting religious sects gained dominance and control. All of these assertions
by Ibn Taymiyah originated in his epistemological outlook in which the truth was
considered superior to error. Therefore, the conduct of al-Nasir toward the heretical
sects of Kisrawan, and the conduct of other Muslim rulers toward religious dissent,
Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa. 28:138.
Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa. 28:520, 527-28.
339
was morally justified because he was on the side of truth against these (he was making
a particular reference to the Shi'ites) who fought for erroneous and corrupt doctrines.
89
Forms of Religious Persecution
The outcome of Ibn Taymiyah's justification of rehgious persecution was
the assertion that advocating dissenting rehgious views with persistence must be
punished as a criminal act. Since punishment in Islamic jurisprudence took different
forms, the use of coercive means against religious dissent took different forms as well.
From his scattered remarks on the subject, Ibn Taymiyah made reference to more than
one coercive method to enforce the submission of religious dissenters. Selecting one
method over the other was determined largely by the severity of the rehgious dissent
itself, and the degree to which it threatened the rehgious and political fabric of the
Muslim polity.
In general, the coercive measures that Ibn Taymiyah suggested to be used
against rehgious dissent varied from mild punishment, such as caning, to the most
severe form, like the death penalty. Caning as a form of rehgious persecution was
mentioned briefly by Ibn Taymiyah when citing an event in which the fourth Caliph Ali
was reported to have had individuals caned for preferring him over the first and the
second Caliphs, Abu Baker and 'Umar. From that precedent, Ibn Taymiyah derived the
Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 28:488.
340
notion of caning as one method of punishing heterodoxy.
90
There was no mention of
torture, physical or otherwise, as a method of forcing a person with heterodox views to
comply with the truth. The absence of the notion of torture as a form of rehgious
persecution was not accidental. The idea of torture as a form of punishment was not
only without textual foundation, but it was also considered a prohibited act in Islamic
law.
However, putting rehgious dissenters to death was the most common form
of rehgious persecution that Ibn Taymiyah recommended. Other forms, while they
were conceptually considered, nonetheless appeared with less frequency than did the
death penalty. In Ibn Taymiyah's writings, punishing rehgious dissenters with death
took two basic forms: individual and collective. Such distinction between these two
ways of enforcing the death penalty against rehgious dissent is my own and not Ibn
Taymiyah's. He never made such a distinction, since the two types were based on the
same epistemological and moral underpinnings. But based on his views on the subject,
the procedures of implementing the death penalty in its collective form were different
from those involved in enforcing it against individual rehgious dissenters. Therefore,
for the sake of clarity, the two methods of enforcing the death penalty against rehgious
dissenters was two different, though by no means exclusive, forms of rehgious
persecution.
Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 28:474.
341
In general, Ibn Taymiyah prescribed the death penalty as a punishment for
the individual religious dissenter who expressed and propagated his heterodox views
publicly. But he qualified his statement by adding that the harmful effects of his or her
heretical views could not be prevented by using other measures.
91
Besides that general
assertion, Ibn Taymiyah recommended the death penalty for particular categories of
Muslim religious dissent. He believed that the zandiq, like the Muslim mystic al-Hallaj,
must be punished by death without providing him or her the opportunity to repent.
92
Ibn Taymiyah extended the death penalty to anyone who committed apostasy.
93
Since
he entertained an extended definition of apostasy, he recommended the death penalty
for those individuals who held unconventional theological doctrines as apostates,
though he did not refer to them explicitly as such. For example, he believed that the
person who blasphemed the Prophet or even blasphemed the Jewish Scripture of the
Torah must be put to death.
94
The same punishment was suggested for the individual
Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 28:555.
92
Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa, 35:106.
93
Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa, 28:534. The majority of jurist s and theologians
appealed to the Prophetic tradition according to which the Apostate was put to death
to justify the execution of the person who committed that offense. Ibn Taymiyah did
not use that Prophetic text to justify his argument for putting the Muslim Apostate to
death. However, he was well aware of the existence of that Prophetic tradition since
he cited it in his work: Al-Muntaqa Min Ahadith al-Ahkam (Cairo: Al-Matb'ah al-
Salafiyah, 1960), 668.
94
Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa. 35:199-200.
342
who claimed that God never spoke to Moses,
95
or who did not perform the five daily
prayers, because they denied the obligatory nature of the prayer, or only nominally
accepted them.
96
The enforcement of the death penalty against individual religious
dissenters was done in accordance with the Islamic legal norms of enforcing the death
penalty. Since these reUgious dissenters were punished as criminals, the Muslim ruler
was the only agency that was entrusted with carrying out their death sentences.
The enforcement of the death penalty in its collective form was embodied
in the Islamic doctrine ofjihad. The idea of jihad was originally directed toward non-
Muslims as a method of promoting Islam. However, Ibn Taymiyah, who relied on the
previously-mentioned actions of Abu Baker and Ali, extended the doctrine to include
the heretical sects of Islam.
97
When the dissenting sect was concentrated in one
geographical area and became well-armed, then, Ibn Taymiyah believed, the Muslim
ruler was required to subject them to the doctrine of jihad. This kind of applying the
death penalty against religious dissent was similar to its application against individual
heretics, with respect to the agency of its enforcement, the Muslim ruler, and its
objective, i.e., forcing reUgious dissenters to submit to the truth. However, punishing
reUgious dissenters by death coUectively was different from its apphcation against
Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 12: 532.
Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 35:106.
See, for example, Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa, 28:415-16.
343
individual heretics, with regard to its consequences. Since Ibn Taymiyah considered
the fighting of the dissenting groups as a form of jihad, the Muslim ruler and his
soldiers were permitted to confiscate their properties and enslave their women and
children, as in the case of the unbelievers.
98
Ibn Taymiyah expressed this view in the
context of his justifying the suppression of the extremist Shi'ite sects of Kisrawan, but
it was not clear whether he was expressing a general principle or restricting it to that
particular case. After defeating the dissenting groups militarily, Ibn Taymiyah required
the Muslims not to intermarry with them or bury their dead in the Muslim cemeteries or
to let them occupy important positions in the Muslim administration and armies."
In his discussion of how to bring individuals with heterodox views to
submission, Ibn Taymiyah suggested social boycott (hajir) as a form of pressuring the
dissenter to comply with the truth.
100
The aim of socially boycotting religious
dissenters was to let them live in a state of emotional and social isolation from the rest
of the community. It was, therefore, essentially an emotional punishment rather that a
physical one. Unlike other forms of religious persecution, social boycott was carried
out by the Muslim community as whole and not by the Muslim ruler. Therefore, it was
one method of punishing heterodoxy with no political content. Because of the
Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 35:162.
See Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 35:154-56.
' Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa. 28: 210-213.
344
apolitical nature of the notion of socially boycotting rehgious dissenters, this form of
rehgious persecution, admittedly, deviates from the definition of rehgious persecution
adopted in this study.
The Limits of Religious Persecution
Although Ibn Taymiyah believed that the Muslim ruler was morally and
religiously required to suppress rehgious dissent, the principle of rehgious persecution
was not unconditional or without limits. The same textual frame of reference that
shaped Ibn Taymiyah's justification of the idea of rehgious persecution was the main
factor that determined the scope and limits of its application. It is true that Ibn
Taymiyah's Bayanist frame of reference was more hospitable to the doctrine of
religious persecution than to restricting it. But still, Ibn Taymiyah's conception of the
limits of rehgious persecution was, more or less, the product of his reliance on the
textual categories of al-Bayan epistemic tradition.
Ibn Taymiyah's remarks on the limits of rehgious persecution could be
easily misinterpreted as some kind of defense of the principle of tolerating Muslim
rehgious dissenters. But to do that would be to distort of Ibn Taymiyah's views on the
subject. His intention was to caution the Muslim ruler not to commit injustice in the
enforcement of the doctrine of coercing rehgious dissenters rather than defending
rehgious toleration as a moral ideal. He never abandoned the notion of suppressing
heterodoxy whenever its moral and legal requirements were present. Hence, when Ibn
345
Taymiyah attempted to determine the limits of religious persecution, he was not
advocating any form of religious toleration for heterodoxy, rather, he was restricting
the moral ideal of suppressing it.
Ibn Taymiyah's views on the limits of religious persecution were
remarkably similar, with respect to their formal structure, to his views on the moral
desirability of the use of force against heterodoxy. To determine when religious
persecution ended, Ibn Taymiyah operated within the same epistemological, moral, and
political dimensions of his original argument for it as a moral and religious ideal. In
general, Ibn Taymiyah's conception of the limits of religious persecution was
constructed within his conception of religious truth, the moral relevance of religious
dissent, and the moral responsibility of the Muslim ruler to preserve the integrity of the
Muslim truth.
As in the case of his defense of religious persecution, the majority of Ibn
Taymiyah's views on the limits of persecution were either based on or derived from hi s
conception of the truth in religion. That should be expected, since his very definition of
religious dissent was based primarily on his epistemology, i.e., the source and the
criteria of religious truth. Ibn Taymiyah's conception of the limits of religious
persecution revolved around two conceptually related issues. The first issue was the
epistemological distinction between the controversial and the non-controversial
questions in Islamic theology. The second was concerned with the theological question
of excommunication (takfir).
346
It was conventional, in al-Bayan epistemic tradition, to draw the distinction
between controversial and non-controversial questions in Islamic theology. As
previously stated, Ibn Taymiyah considered the divine texts of Islam to be the ultimate
criteria of the Muslim religious truth. The Muslim ruler, therefore, was morally obliged
to promote the teachings of Islam that had textual bases and to suppress the other
doctrines deviated from them.
10 1
However, if the question in dispute was controversial,
i.e., without clear textual support, then the ruler ought to refrain from involvement in
the sectarian disputes among his subjects. He specifically suggested that the ruler
should consider all the opposing theological views and promote the one that had basis
in the divine texts of Islam. But if the ruler was intellectually incapable of performing
such a task, then he would remain neutral in the theological controversies.
102
Ibn
Taymiyah seemed to suggest that some theological questions with a controversial
nature, and hence less certain than other questions with textual foundations, were to be
excluded from the domain of religious persecution. While the controversial questions
were rather few, in Ibn Taymiyah's theological outlook, his recognition of the existence
of such questions contributed to his conception of the limits of religious persecution.
Ibn Taymiyah's conception of the notion of excommunication, or takfir,
was another contributing factor to his definition of the limits of religious persecution.
Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 35:376.
Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu
c
Fatawa. 35:387.
347
Earlier in my discussion of Ibn Taymiyah's conception of religious dissent, it was stated
that excommunication referred to accusing the Muslim of unbelief, which would
exclude him or her from the realm of Islam, with very severe legal consequences. The
relevance of the question of excommunication to Ibn Taymiyah's definition of the limits
of religious persecution could be seen in his distinction between unbelief and the agency
of expressing such unbelief, that, the unbeliever. The unbelief (kufur) referred to a set
of doctrines which were considered inconsistent with what Ibn Taymiyah considered to
be the basic teachings of Islam Doctrines like these included the denial of some of the
attributes of God, believing in saintly persons as intermediaries between the person and
God, and so on.
103
Such theological views were considered by Ibn Taymiyah, and
other Bayanist thinkers, as expressions of unbelief and Polytheism, which would
certainly exclude the person from the realm of Islam and expose him or her to worldly
punishment by the Muslim ruler and to eternal condemnation by God.
However, for Ibn Taymiyah, simply holding a doctrine that was an
expression of unbelief did not automatically make the person an unbeliever who would
be liable for punishment. Before labeling a person as an unbeliever, Ibn Taymiyah
argued, one must consider what he called the preventive conditions {mawani') of
excommunication. These mawani' referred to the different circumstances that may
have contributed to that person's advocacy of these expressions of unbelief. He
Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa. 5: 22-25; 11: 499-502.
348
considered the possibility that the person held these heterodox doctrines because of his
or her ignorance of the existence of certain Quranic or Prophetic texts that contradicted
them, or he was simply exercising independent reasoning (ijtihad).
m
What Ibn
Taymiyah intended to say, it seemed, was that holding expressions of unbelief because
of sincere intentions or errors ought not be punished by the Muslim ruler as religious
dissent. But it must be emphasized that he did not advocate the right of a religious
dissenter to maintain his or her religious views if he or she justified those erroneous
convictions on the basis of sincere and good intentions. To say that would be to distort
Ibn Taymiyah's thought by attributing to him ideas that he never held. Ibn Taymiyah
only suggested that before punishing the religious dissenter on the basis of unbelief, or
lesser charges, the Muslim ruler must first educate him or her about the truth, usually in
the form of providing the person with passages from the divine texts of Islam. Should
the person persist in his error and decide to ignore the clear textual evidence, then, Ibn
Taymiyah contended, he ought to be punished as a religious dissenter.
105
While Ibn Taymiyah's conception of excommunication performed an
important conceptual role in limiting the scope of religious persecution, such a role
should not, however, be overestimated. He was concerned more with the afterworldly
consequences of excommunicating a Muslim, that is, eternal condemnation, than with
Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa. 6:61, 10:378-86, 28:500-501.
Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa. 35:378, 382.
349
the worldly punishment. Besides, as stated in my discussion of his views on the moral
relevance of religious dissent, a person with heterodox views could be punished by
death to prevent him from undermining the Muslim community, not to save his soul.
Therefore, not labeling the person an unbeliever (kqfir) would not relieve him or her
from being subjected to punishment by the Muslim authority.
The distinction between expressed and concealed religious dissent was
another factor that contributed to Ibn Taymiyah's views on the limits of the use of
force against heterodoxy. Such a distinction was conceptually related to Ibn
Taymiyah's conception of religious dissent as a form of moral perversion. Because of
their harmful practical consequences on the fabric of the Muslim community, dissenting
doctrines were to be suppressed not only for their deconformity with the truth, but also
for their threatening of the cohesion of the community. But for the hazardous effects
of heterodox views on the society to occur, such views had to be uttered or publicly
expressed. As long as the religious dissenter kept his or her theological views private,
the Muslim ruler ought not punish him, though he would remain a religious dissenter.
The reason for that, Ibn Taymiyah suggested, was that the religious dissenter who
promoted his heretical views was considered more dangerous to the community than
the religious dissenter who did not.
106
See Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu
c
Fatawa. 10:374.
350
The stability and survival of the Muslim polity was the last element in his
justification of the limits of the principle of coercing rehgious dissenters. For Ibn
Taymiyah, the suppression of rehgious dissent by the Muslim ruler was always
considered a moral and rehgious ideal that he never abandoned. However, in some
circumstances, the enforcement of the moral ideal of promoting the truth and punishing
error could lead to undesirable poUtical and social consequences. That is, the Muslim
ruler's attempt to protect the integrity of the Muslim faith, which was motivated by
good intentions, may create civil strife in the Muslim polity that would be more evil
than heterodoxy itself.
107
Ibn Taymiyah mentioned that limitation on the coercing of rehgious dissent
briefly in the context of his remarks on how the Shi'ites ought to be treated. However,
such limitation was an extension of one of Ibn Taymiyah's general views on how
Islamic ideals must be implemented; this concept was developed in another work. In
the context of his remarks on the Islamic principle of the enjoining of good and the
prohibition of vice, Ibn Taymiyah suggested that if the implementation of a moral or
legal norm would lead to greater evil, then such norm could be suspended, though not
abandoned. In other words, if the uprooting of a morally objectionable act or thought
would result in consequences that would cause more evil than the original act itself, the
principle of enjoining good and prohibiting vice had to be suspended. Ibn Taymiyah
Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa. 28:500.
351
had especially in mind the occurrence of civil strife within the Muslim polity, as a result
of the implementation of that principle. In fact, the textual context of his remarks was
his criticism of other Muslim sects, especially the Mu'tazUites, who believed that the
doctrine of enjoining good and prohibiting vice had to be extended to include the
Muslim rulers themselves.
108
It was that general principle that seemed to be operative
in his limiting the policy of religious persecution on the basis of political considerations.
The notion of limiting religious persecution on the basis of political
considerations gave rise to some logical problems that threatened the integrity of Ibn
Taymiyah's argument for religious persecution. He made two claims in his argument
which, if taken to their logical conclusion, would inevitably exclude one another. In his
advocacy of the use of coercive means against Muslim religious dissenters, Ibn
Taymiyah cited the preservation of the integrity of the Muslim truth as the primary
objective of the suppression of heterodoxy. He forcefully argued that the protection of
the truth and assuring its supremacy was the most important duty of the Muslim ruler.
Such remarks should be expected from a political thinker like Ibn Taymiyah whose
whole discourse centered around the divine texts of Islam and who conceived of the
purpose of human creation to be the worshipping of God and abiding by His rules. But
in the context of his remarks on the limits of religious persecution, Ibn Taymiyah was
willing to suspend that principle if its enforcement would result in greater evil than
For more details, see Ibn Taymiyah, Majmu' Fatawa, 28:126-130.
352
religious dissent itself. He did not seem to be aware that he was making two
incompatible claims. He did not appear to be aware of the possibility of conflict
between the principle of preserving the purity of the Islamic faith and maintaining the
stabihty of the Islamic polity. That is, the Muslim ruler's attempt to meet his moral
religious obligation of suppressing religious dissent could result in civil strife. The
obvious question would be: Which was more important, the preservation of the true
teachings of Islam or the stabihty and survival of the Muslim polity? If Ibn Taymiyah's
answer were that the stabihty of the Muslim polity was more important, then he must
abandon his assertion that the primary duty of the Muslim ruler was to protect the true
doctrines of Islam, which could leave his argument in ruins. If his answer were the
reverse, then it would not be logically possible to maintain his notion of limiting
religious persecution on the basis of avoiding civil strife in the Islamic polity.
Therefore, these two assertions could not be kept in one argument without
undermining its logical consistency.
Such logical tensions in Ibn Taymiyah's argument for religious persecution
were caused mainly by his Bayanist frame of reference. It was stated in chapter two
that the Bayanist thinker could perform his or her intellectual activities only within the
textual categories of the Islamic revelation. As al-Jabiri characterized it, al-Bayan style
of thinking was a rationality that began with a text, was directed by a text, and ended
with a text.
109
It was the lack of authoritative texts governing the definition and proper
353
treatment of religious dissent in Islam that created such logical problems in Ibn
Taymiyah's argument. It is true that he appealed to the example of the Prophet who
refrained from punishing Dhu al-Khwasirah who had accused him of favoring some
tribal leaders over others in the distribution of the spoils of war {al-ghanimah), fearing
that his enemies would criticize him for killing his own followers.
110
Also, he cited the
Caliph Ali's conduct toward the Kharijites whom he did not fight in the beginning
because they were too numerous.
111
But still, these texts were referring to very
particular cases that differed from the problems that he was dealing with. Besides, the
Prophet was reported to have required the Muslims to fight the descendants of Dhu al-
Khwasirah, the Kharijites, and Ah* eventually subjected the Kharijites to physical force.
Hence, the tensions in these events were textually resolved in the interest of religious
persecution. So, the source of the logical problems in Ibn Taymiyah originated
primarily in the absence of explicit texts regarding religious dissent in general and the
possible conflict between the theological or legal considerations and the political
consequences in suppressing heterodoxy.
To summarize, Ibn Taymiyah's views on the limits of religious persecution,
though fewer than his views on justifying it, were structurally similar to them. They
were derived from the same textual frame of reference and expressed the same
109
See chapter two, 148-49.
110
Ibn Taymiyah, Maimu' Fatawa. 28:500.
354
epistemological, ethical, and political dimensions. For Ibn Taymiyah, the limits of
religious persecution meant restricting the definition of the epistemological, moral, and
poUtical dimensions of the principle of rehgious persecution. Epistemologically, he
made the distinction between controversial and non-controversial questions and
excluded from the former the role of the state, and with it the possibility of rehgious
persecution. Morally, Ibn Taymiyah restricted moral perversion to dissenting rehgious
doctrines that were pubhcly advocated, but he excluded the heterodox views that were
kept private and unexpressed from the domain of objectionable moral acts. Finally, he
argued for suspension of the principle of punishing rehgious dissent if the enforcement
of such principle would result in undesirable political consequences. Although these
principles were rather few in number and provisional in nature, they were, nonetheless,
limits on rehgious persecution.
The aim of the preceding discussion was to explain why Ibn Taymiyah was
more inclined toward recommending rehgious persecution than toleration for Muslim
rehgious dissenters in Islam. As it was proposed earlier in chapter two, and mentioned
throughout this chapter, Ibn Taymiyah's tendency to recommend the use of coercive
means against Muslim rehgious dissenters was the inevitable consequence of the
epistemological, moral, and pohtical assumption of his textual frame of reference.
While the problem of rehgious dissent was posed by his historical milieu, his response
to that problem was determined mainly by his Bayanist frame of reference. The impact
of the textual categories of al-Bayan epistemic tradition on Ibn Taymiyah's response to
355
the problem of rehgious dissent could be seen in the substance as well as the structure
of his defense of the idea of rehgious persecution.
In regard to the impact of the textual categories of al-Bayan epistemic
tradition on the style of Ibn Taymiyah's argument, it was apparent, though indirect.
The textual categories of the Islamic revelation were always operative throughout Ibn
Taymiyah's justification of the suppression of heterodoxy. Such presence was very
apparent in his constant attempts to elevate the historical categories of rehgious dissent
to the textual categories in order to textually justify the use of force against rehgious
dissenters. Also, the influence of the textual categories was reflected on his account of
the different forms of persecution in Islam. Whether it was his argument for
suppressing rehgious dissent or limiting it, Ibn Taymiyah was a conventional Bayanist.
He frequently appeale d to certain texts, Quranic or otherwise, to support his views. In
the case of the absence of explicit texts on the issue, which was mostly the case, he
appealed to the Bayanist methods of analogy to provide his argument with some kind
of textual bases. But still, in comparison with its role in his defense of rehgious
toleration, the role of Ibn Taymiyah's textual frame of reference in his argument for
rehgious persecution remained indirect.
In regard to substance, Ibn Taymiyah approached the problem of sectarian
diversity in Islam with preconceived notions about the essence of rehgious truth, the
nature of the Muslim community, and the proper role of the Muslim ruler in theological
disputes that made defending rehgious toleration an exceedingly difficult logical task.
356
By the same token, these epistemological, moral, and political doctrines were very
receptive to the idea of coercing religious dissenters to comply with what was
considered to be the truth. At the epistemological level, Ibn Taymiyah's perception of
religious truth as unique, objective (textual), and exclusive gave rise to a very broad
definition of religious dissent in Islam. In addition, his conception of the truth in
rehgion excluded the possibility of having multiple religious truths with equal
epistemological status. Ibn Taymiyah's extension of the epistemological dichotomy of
truth vs. error to the realm of morality transformed doctrinal errors into manifestations
of morally perverse acts. His organic conception of the Muslim community as an
essentially religious entity reinforced the moral relevance of errors in matters related to
rehgion and transformed individuals with heterodox theological doctrines from
religious dissenters to social rebels who threatened the very survival of the Muslim
community. Finally, Ibn Taymiyah's notion of the Muslim ruler as the guardian of the
Muslim faith made punishing religious dissenters as criminals the unavoidable outcome.
The epistemological, moral, and political assumptions of Ibn Taymiyah
explained not only why he recommended persecution as a remedy for religious
factionalism but also why he did not defend religious toleration as a solution to the
sectarians' conflicts in Islam. What is meant by defending toleration is the purposeful
and intentional advocacy of the removal of the political authority from the theological
disputes within the Muslim polity on certain epistemological and moral grounds, that is,
defending the idea of religious toleration as a universal moral principle. For Ibn
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Taymiyah to do that, he would have to make major modifications in his frame of
reference. That is, without retaining the same conceptions of the truth, the moral
relevance of heterodoxy, and the role of the Muslim ruler in rehgious disputes,
defending rehgious toleration as a moral ideal would be impossible without violating
the major components of Ibn Taymiyah's world view. Historically, Ibn Taymiyah
retained a typical Bayanist frame of reference with unshakable certainty. Because of
that, he found the principle of tolerating Muslim religious dissent to be logically
indefensible, even if it was historically required.
358
Chapter Six
Conclusion
This dissertation revolved around the question of why the Islamic political
thinkers' response to the problem of religious dissent remained the same despite
changes in their historical milieu. Therefore, this study is an attempt to provide an
explanation for the persistence of the Islamic political theorists' conceptions of
religious toleration and persecution throughout history. The attempt to answer this
question brought the issue of interpretation in the history of political ideas to the core
of this dissertation. Because of the presence of the question of interpretation
throughout the preceding discussion, the findings of this dissertation had some
implications on the question of method in the history of pohtical thought as well as
about Islamic pohtical thought. It may be appropriate, therefore, to include in this
concluding chapter not only a wrap-up of this dissertation's main argument but also the
contributions of its findings t o the ongoing scholarly debate on the question of method
in the study of past pohtical ideas.
Therefore, the present chapter is divided into three sections which are
intended to serve three conceptually related objectives. The first section is a summary
of the main argument of this dissertation and its findings. The methodological
implications of this research will be delineated in section two. This chapter ends with
some suggestions for future research on the subject.
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Summary and Findings
This dissertation began with a simple observation about the notion of
religious toleration in the history of Islamic political thought. Unlike their Western
counterparts, Islamic pohtical theorists had always entertained a conception of religious
toleration that was not reflective of their historical environment. The form and
substance of the Muslim thinkers' response to the problem of heterodoxy in the Islamic
state was at variance with the historicist's method, which emphasized the primacy of
the historical context as the determinant of the content and style of past pohtical ideas.
As indicated in chapter one, the Islamic pohtical thinkers produced their pohtical ideas
in a historical environment that witnessed episodes of religious toleration and
persecution. However, the occurrence of these episodes of toleration and persecution
did not seem to have influence on Islamic pohtical thinkers' views on religious dissent.
These thinkers had always advocated tolerating the People of the Book and persecution
to all other religious dissenters, regardless of the requirements of their historical milieu.
The purpose of this dissertation was to provide an explanation for the discrepancy
between the Muslim thinkers' ideas on religious dissent and the requirement of the
historical environment in which these ideas were produced.
The interpretive approach of the study was delineated in chapter two. The
interpretive method adopted in this dissertation was an alternative to the contextualist
and the textualist approaches to the study of past pohtical ideas, which proved thek
360
inadequacy in explaining why the Islamic poUtical theorists articulated their views on
religious toleration and persecution the way they did. On the other hand, it shared
some basic assumptions of the New History of PoUtical Theory, especiaUy its emphasis
on the broader inteUectual miUeu of the past poUtical text as the main factor in
determining its meaning. However, the interpretive approach of this study transcended
the New Historians' concern with recovering the meaning of past poUtical ideas by
attempting to explain why the poUtical thinkers of the past constructed their ideas the
way they did.
The thrust of my interpretive method was the assertion that aU past
poUtical theorists, regardless of the substance of their poUtical ideas, constructed their
arguments within a given frame o f reference. What was meant by the concept of frame
of reference was the poUtical thinkers' previously held epistemologicaL, ontological and
moral assumptions that the poUtical theorist adopted before he or she dealt with the
question of poUtics. Varying frames of reference, it was suggested, gave rise to
different forms of poUtical thought. That is, the components of the thinkers' frame of
reference shaped their poUtical arguments and influenced the ways in which they
responded to the poUtical questions posed by their historical environment. Then it was
proposed that the meaning and structure of past poUtical ideas could be explained by
locating them within their frames of reference within which these ideas were
constructed.
361
Based on that assumption, it was proposed that the ideas of rehgious
toleration and persecution were, historically and conceptually, associated with two
different frames of reference that provided them with coherence and relevance. The
history of the European poUtical thought, in which the doctrines of rehgious
persecution and toleration were defended, was the main source of my views on the
frame of reference of the idea of religious toleration. Historically, the thinkers who
defended rehgious persecution came from a frame of reference that was based on a
certain and exclusive conception of rehgious truth, an organic perception of the
community in which doctrinal errors were considered morally relevant, and a theocratic
conception of the state. By contrast, the thinkers who advocated rehgious toleration
came from a frame of reference that was based on different types of skepticism, a
conception of the community which was instituted to provide its members with physical
security and the safety of their properties, which implied the moral irrelevance of errors
in doctrinal matters. Also, in the frame of reference of the advocates of toleration,
flourished a secular conception of the state according to which the speculative
theological disputes that had no practical implications were excluded from the
jurisdiction of the poUtical authority.
Appealing to the historical experience of European poUtical thought was
intended to vaUdate the general assertion concerning the frame o f reference of rehgious
toleration. It was stated then that the idea of rehgious toleration could be defended
with consistency only within a frame of reference that was hospitable to the idea of
362
religious diversity. As the discussion of the European experience showed, the idea of
religious toleration was justified within a frame of reference that was based on
skepticism, moral relativism, and secularism. Hence, the thinker's conception of the
truth in religion, the scope and criteria of morality, and the proper role of the state
would determine how that political thinker would respond to the problem of rehgious
dissent posed by his or her historical environment.
Based on that assertion concerning the role of the frame of reference in
shaping the political thinker's views in general and the idea of toleration in particular,
the notion of rehgious toleration in Islamic political thought was interpreted. The
argument of this study centered around the proposition that the Islamic political
theorists operated within a frame of reference that permitted toleration for some
religious groups and persecution for others. Relying on al-Jabiri's analysis of al-Bayan
epistemic tradition, it was shown that Islamic political thinkers constructed their
political ideas within a frame o f reference that was essentially textual. In that frame o f
reference, the divine texts of Islam represented the universe in which Islamic political
thought took place. These thinkers derived the major categories and the methods of
their arguments exclusively from that textual frame of reference. Paradigmatically,
Islamic political thought belonged to al-Bayan epistemic tradition. The field of its
activities was Islamic jurisprudence, and it derived its methodological axioms from
Islamic theoretical jurisprudence.
363
The outcome of the Islamic pohtical thinker's reliance on al-Bayan
tradition was the emergence of a peculiar style of pohtical thinking that was essentially
textual and, more important, ahistorical. The contents and style of Islamic pohtical
thought within al-Bayan tradition were determined not by the historical circumstances
in which that pohtical thought evolved. Rather, the substance of Islamic pohtical
thought was determined by the textual categories of Islamic revelation and their
epistemological and methodological underpinnings. As indicated in chapter two, in
Bayanist pohtical thinking, for an event to have relevance and significance it had to be
textualized in one way or another. When the Bayanist theorist was confronted with a
pohtical question that was the product of his or her historical milieu, he or she resorted
to the textual categories of the Islamic revelation to construct his or her response. If
the historical event could not be textualized, then it would be either excluded from the
thinker's pohtical discourse or reduced to a secondary issue.
It was that textual frame o f reference that determined the substance and the
formal structure of Islam pohtical thinkers' response to the question of religious
dissent. Consistent with their Bayanist outlook, when these thinkers were faced with
the problem of religious diversity within the Islamic polity, they appealed to the divine
texts of Islam for solutions. Since the textual frame of reference of Islamic pohtical
thought was abstract and ahistorical the Islamic thinker's response to the problem of
religious dissent was, predictably, textual and ahistorical.
364
The impact of the textual frame of reference of the Islamic political
thinkers on their response to the question of religions dissent was seen in their
justification of toleration as well as of persecution. The idea of tolerating the People of
the Book originated in an explicit and authoritative Quranic text which required the
Muslim ruler to refrain from persecuting these rehgious dissenters. At that level, the
impact of the textual categories of Islamic revelation on the Islamic political thinker's
defense of rehgious toleration was simple and direct. While the textual frame of
reference authoritatively shaped Islamic political thinkers' argument for rehgious
persecution, its impact, nonetheless, was implicit and indirect. It was the totality of
that textual frame of reference that pushed Muslim political theorists toward
advocating religious persecution as a remedy for rehgious dissent within Islam itself.
These theorists approached the problem of Muslim rehgious dissent with a frame of
reference which was remarkably inhospitable to the idea of rehgious diversity. It was
based on epistemological and moral assumptions and a conception of the function of
the state that made defending the idea of tolerating Muslim rehgious dissenters logically
impossible. For the Muslim thinkers to justify tolerating Muslim sectarian dissenters
with coherence and consistency, they would have to have made drastic modifications in
their epistemological, moral, and political outlook.
The above-mentioned interpretive approach was applied to views of
Ahmad Ibn Taymiyah on rehgious dissent which were covered in the remaining three
chapters of this dissertation. In chapter three, it was indicated that Ibn Taymiyah
365
approached the problem of religious dissent with a frame of reference that was
conventional, that is, Bayanist. Although some of his theological and juridical views
represented some divergence from the established views of the time, his style of
thinking remained typically Bayanist. The discoursive language of Ibn Taymiyah was
primarily Bayanist, where the authoritative divine texts of Islam constituted its
universe. His theological and juridical views, regardless of how controversial some of
these views were, were derived from and limited by bis textual frame of reference.
Methodologically, his political argument, including his views on religious dissent, was
constructed within the textual categories of al-Bayan tradition. Ibn Taymiyah's
argument started with a text, was guided by a text, and ended with a text. He
remarkably expressed the same Bayanist tendency of including all historical events into
the textual categories of Islamic jurisprudence. Ibn Taymiyah's argument was also a
good example of the Bayanist political argument in that it became ambiguous and less
coherent as it moved away from th e text.
Ibn Taymiyah was also a typical Bayanist in his epistemological, moral, and
political outlook. Epistemologically, he perceived religious truth as revealed,
knowable, exclusive, and, more important, having a textual form with an objective
existence. He always maintained the epistemological dichotomy of truth vs. error, in
which the former assumed primacy over the latter. Based on his conception of the
truth, Ibn Taymiyah held a moral outlook in which doctrinal errors were included
among the morally perverse acts. His ideas on the moral relevance of heterodoxy
366
received their best expression in the context of his organic conception of the Muslim
community in which dissenting religious views were considered a threat to the cohesion
and survival of the Muslim polity. Also, Ibn Taymiyah retained the traditional Bayanist
conception of the Muslim ruler as the guardian of Islamic faith and the enforcer of
Islamic law. According to such perception of the function of the Muslim ruler, the
jurisdiction of the Muslim polity was not only limited to the maintaining of public peace
and tranquillity, but it was also extended to include the punishment of those who
expressed doctrines which were considered detrimental to the integrity of Islamic faith.
Ibn Taymiyah's conventional Bayanist frame of reference gave rise to
conventional views on religious toleration and persecution. Whether it was Ibn
Taymiyah's defense of coercing or of tolerating religious dissenters, the presence of the
textual categories of Islamic revelation in his argument was undeniable. These textual
categories authoritatively shaped the contents as well as the style of his argument for or
against the use of coercive means against heterodoxy. The impact of Ibn Taymiyah's
textual frame of reference on his response to religious dissent was apparent in his
conception of religious dissent, his views on how it should be treated, and his views on
the limits of toleration or persecution.
In chapter four it was shown that Ibn Taymiyah's whole justification of
tolerating the People of the Book was founded on and limited by his textual frame of
reference. The very idea of toleration for the People of the Book originated in an
explicit Quranic text that required the Muslims to refrain from using coercion to force
367
the People of the Book to abandon their rehgious beliefs. That Quranic text was
reinforced by other Prophetic texts. IBs understanding of the meaning and the scope of
rehgious toleration was based mainly on a less authoritative text, that is, the covenant
of'Umar. Ibn Taymiyah's remarks on the limits of tolerating the People of the Book
were no exception. His views on when the principle of tolerating the People of the
Book ended were exclusively derived from different Quranic and Prophetic texts and
the Covenant of 'Umar. Throughout Ibn Taymiyah's justification of rehgious
toleration, references to practical, that is, historical, necessities were extremely rare.
Moral and philosophical concepts that did not exist in his textual frame of reference,
such as the sanctity of the inner conscience, were simply nonexistent. For Ibn
Taymiyah, it was the divine text, and only the divine text, that made tolerating the
People of the Book a defensible theological and moral principle.
Chapter five was devoted to Ibn Taymiyah's justification of rehgious
persecution. As it was indicated, the textual frame of reference was authoritatively
present throughout his defense of the use of coercive measures to force the submission
of Muslim rehgious dissenters. However, although the impact of the textual categories
of al-Bayan tradition on Ibn Taymiyah's argument was profound, it was, nonetheless,
indirect. It was the totality of Ibn Taymiyah's textual frame of reference that
determined the overall structure of his justification of the use of force against Muslim
rehgious dissenters. He approached the problem of heterodoxy in Islam with the
conceptions of rehgious truth, the scope of morality, and the proper role of the state in
368
religion, which were very hospitable to the principle of suppressing heterodoxy and
remarkably antagonistic to the idea of tolerating it.
Ibn Taymiyah's argument for rehgious persecution was not only
conventional Bayanist, but it also showed a striking resemblance to the argument for
rehgious persecution in European thought. Structurally, his defense of the desirability
of suppressing rehgious dissent consisted of the same epistemological, moral, and
political dimensions as the argument for rehgious dissent in the European experience,
though the substance of Ibn Taymiyah's views was significantly different from that of
his European counterparts. At the epistemological level, Ibn Taymiyah entertained a
certain and exclusive conception of rehgious truth which led him to consider any
dissenting theological view to be a threat to an existing body of rehgious truth. His
preoccupation with rehgious reformism led him to construct a well denned and
articulated theological scheme. Consequently, the number of potential rehgious
dissenters was substantially increased, resulting in the widening of the margins of
rehgious persecution. Ibn Taymiyah's inclusion of doctrinal errors in the domain of
ethics represented the moral dimension of justification of rehgious persecution. His
conception of rehgious dissent as an expression of moral perversion was an outcome of
the Islamic conception of the Muslim community as an organic whole which he simply
inherited from his predecessors. Based on these epistemological and moral
assumptions, Ibn Taymiyah concluded that it was the moral and rehgious duty of the
369
Muslim ruler to coerce religious dissenters to comply with the truth. Such a conclusion
was not only consistent with his world view but was also inevitable.
The most outstanding feature of Ibn Taymiyah's views on religious dissent
was its ahistorical character. Although he was dealing with concrete historical events,
the substance and style of his argument showed a remarkable degree of detachment
from their historical setting. Even when Ibn Taymiyah was responding to a particular
case of religious dissent, his views tended to be too abstract and general to include
varieties of religious dissent. The ahistorical character of Ibn Taymiyah's views was
caused, as it has been stated throughout this dissertation, by his reliance on a textual
frame of reference to construct his response to the problem of religious diversity.
Within that textual frame o f reference, priority was given to the textual categories over
the historical ones. The primacy of the textual categories in Ibn Taymiyah's thought
could be seen in the continuity of certain categories of religious dissent in his discourse,
despite the fact that they had no historical relevance. In the context of his justification
of toleration for the People of the Book, the textual category of the Meccan Pagans
was always present throughout his argument. The reason for that had nothing to do
with Ibn Taymiyah's actual historical environment, since the Meccan Pagans had
vanished centuries before. But instead, the category of the Meccan Pagans was
textually associated with the category of the People of the Book. Hence, according to
the mechanism of the Bayanist style of thinking, whenever the category of the People
of the Book was mentioned, the textual category of the Meccan Pagans was brought to
370
the center of the argument, even though it was historically irrelevant. In the context of
Ibn Taymiyah's argument for religious persecution, it was shown how some categories
of religious dissent, such as the Kharijites, the Apostates, and the Murji'ites, continued
to exist in his world view, despite the fact that these sects did not exist in his historical
environment.
The anatomy of Ibn Taymiyah's response to the problem of religious
dissent should reveal this study's explanation for the persistence of the formal structure
and substance of the Islamic political thinkers' response to the question of religious
dissent within the Islamic polity. It was the authoritative textual categories of al-Bayan
tradition with their methodological axioms that gave rise to peculiar views on religious
toleration and persecution. While the historical environment of the Muslim political
thinkers forced them to confront the problem of religious dissent, it was their textual
frame of reference that determined the content and structure of their response. It was
the authority of the text, not the historical milieu, that decided the limits of religious
toleration in Islamic political thought.
Methodological Implications
Besides its concern with the idea of religious toleration in the writings of
Ibn Taymiyah, this dissertation was also about the issue of method in the history of
political ideas. The question of interpretation has been always present throughout this
study, although in some cases, it was implicit. Therefore, since this research started
371
with a methodological problematic, its findings ha d some methodological implications
on the issue of interpretation in the history of pohtical ideas in general and the study of
the history of Islamic pohtical thought in particular.
One of the contributions of this study to the ongoing debate of the question
of method in the history of pohtical thought was its emphasis on the frame of reference
of pohtical thinking. It was argued that past pohtical ideas were constructed within a
given frame of reference that gave them significance and relevance. To recover the
meaning and to explain the structure of these ideas, the historians of pohtical thought
must consider the frame of reference within which these ideas were formed. The
concept of the frame of reference was particularly useful in explaining why different
political theorists reacted differently to the same historical environment. It was such an
ability to explain varieties of style of pohtical thinking that the historicist approach did
not have. It is true that the historians of pohtical thought with the contextuahst
approach always considered the intellectual outlook of the past pohtical thinkers. In
most cases these historians attempted to place the arguments of past pohtical thinkers
within their overall philosophical or theological assumptions. However, the role of the
intellectual outlook in shaping past pohtical thinkers' views was usually relegated to
secondary importance. These historians rarely attempted to examine how these
theological and philosophical premises contributed to the formation of the content and
style of the pohtical argument. The historical milieu was always given primacy over the
frame of reference as the determinant of the meaning of past pohtical ideas. For
372
instance, the crisis of the Athenian democracy was more important in determining
Plato's political views than his idealist epistemological outlook. Or the poUtical
fragmentation of Italy was more important in Machiavelli's thought than his historical
frame of reference. However, without considering the frame of reference of political
thinking, the historian would not be able to explain the existence of multiple styles of
political theorizing which were articulated by thinkers who lived in the same historical
setting. While the historical milieu of the poUtical thought could explain the motives
and conclusions of past poUtical thinkers, the frame of reference could explain these
thinkers' style of argument and, hence, recover the meanings of their ideas. The reason
for that was that while the historical environment of the poUtical thinkers could pose
certain questions and problems to them, it could not explain why these thinkers carried
their argument the way they did.
The same could be said about the textuaUst approach to the study of past
poUtical ideas. As was mentioned in chapter two, the textuaUsts beUeved that the text
was sufficient for understanding and explaining past poUtical ideas. But focusing only
on the text overlooked an important fact about poUtical thought. PoUtical thinking was
seldom considered as an independent domain of intellectual activities. Instead, past
poUtical theorists constructed their doctrines in connection with their broader
theological or philosophical outlook. Therefore, the axioms underlying their poUtical
arguments could exist not only in their poUtical texts but in their other writings.
Without considering the epistemological and ontological assumptions that were
373
expressed in their non-political texts, recovering the meaning of their pohtical ideas and
explaining their structure may not be attainable.
In addition to its implications on the methods of studying past pohtical
ideas in general, the present study had some implications on the methods of studying
the history of Islamic pohtical thought. Like their Western counterparts, the Islamic
pohtical theorists constructed their pohtical doctrines in connection with their
previously-held philosophical and theological assumptions. However, what was the
most distinguishable feature of Islamic pohtical discourse was its reliance on the well-
defined frames of reference. Any Islamic pohtical theorist could easily be traced back
to theology, philosophy, or history. Then, each one of these epistemological domains
was divided into different frames of reference. The domain of theology, for instance,
was divided into two major frames of reference: al-Bayan and al-'Irfan. Within each
frame of reference emerged a recognizable pohtical thinking with its own pecuhar
concerns, vocabulary, and style of argument.
With the exception of the pohtical ideas, which were formed within a
historical frame o f reference, the bulk of the Islamic pohtical doctrines were ahistorical.
As was argued throughout this dissertation, the apparent divorce between Islamic
pohtical thought and its historical milieu was caused mainly by the reliance of the
Islamic pohtical theorists on ahistorical frames o f reference. The immediate implication
of such a finding was that the meaning of the past Islamic pohtical texts and the styles
of argument contained within them could be located not in their historical environment
374
but in the frames of reference of authors who composed them. Further, to focus on the
frames of reference of Islamic pohtical thought would require the historian of Islamic
pohtical thought to go beyond the narrowly-defined pohtical texts of Islam to the
broader intellectual milieu within which these texts were written.
Taking the frame of reference as the starting point of the activities of the
historians of Islamic pohtical thought could lead to the revising of the ways according
to which the past pohtical writings of Islam were organized. The past Islamic pohtical
writings were studied according to three traditional methods. The first method
organized the pohtical literature of Islam according to the dichotomy of reason vs.
revelation. Within that dichotomy, the distinction was made between the pohtical
philosophers whose ideas and methods were influenced by Greek philosophy, and the
pohtical theologians who derived their ideas from the divine revelation of Islam. The
second traditional method of studying the history of Islam pohtical thought was to
examine the pohtical writings of some individual Islamic pohtical thinkers, who were
organized in chronological order. Finally, there was the method of organizing the past
pohtical literature of Islam along sectarian lines within Islam. According to this
approach, the distinction was made between the Mu'tazilite, Kharijite, Shi'ite, and
Sunni pohtical thought. All of these approaches emphasized the substance of the ideas
of each pohtical thinker, with less emphasis on the style of his or her pohtical argument.
To focus on the frames of reference of the Islamic pohtical theorists would be to
emphasize the contents as well as the style of their pohtical argument. Consequently,
375
the whole literature of Islamic political theory would be reorganized. On one hand,
some political thinkers who were classified in one sectarian category would be
relocated to a totally different category. Since the style of argument, not its substance,
is the primary criterion of classifying past Islamic political thinkers, then some political
theorists would be placed in one category regardless of how incompatible their political
views were. For instance, political thinkers from the sect of the Mu'taziUte could be
grouped with the Sunni political thinkers as belonging to the Bayanist political
discourse. Likewise, a political theorist from the Sunni mystical tradition and a Shi'ite
political thinker would be included in the same category of the 'Irfanist political
thought. In summary, appealing to the frames of reference as a conceptual tool of
interpreting the history of Islamic political thought would mean to focus on the
different styles of the Islamic political discourse rather than the substance of that
discourse.
Suggestions for Future Research
Although this study started with a general question and suggested a rather
broad proposition, which was intended to be applicable to all the Islamic political
thinkers within al-Bayan tradition, its findings wer e actually limited to the writings of
Ibn Taymiyah. Because of its limited scope, this dissertation has raised more questions
than it has provided answers for. However, the present study ought to be seen as a
376
small part of a broader area of research on the idea of religious toleration in pohtical
thought in general and the context of Islamic pohtical thought in particular.
The method and findings o f this dissertation suggest two areas of research
that could be explored. The first area would be to conduct a comparative study of the
views of pohtical thinkers from different intellectual traditions, Western, Islamic, and
other traditions, on the question of religious dissent. The purpose of this research
should be to confirm or refute the findings of the present study. That is, to verify the
proposition that the pohtical thinker's frame of reference was the primary factor that
determined how the pohtical thinkers of the past responded to the question of religious
dissent.
The second area of research would be to verify the findings o f this work
with the views of other Islamic pohtical thinkers on the problem of religious dissent in
the Muslim polity, that is, to examine the role of the textual frame of reference of
Bayanist pohtical thought in different sectarian contexts. The Islamic pohtical thought
within al-Bayan epistemic tradition was treated as one uniform tradition. As far as the
style and mechanisms of that pohtical thought were concerned, treating it as a uniform
intellectual tradition was justified. However, within the al-Bayan world view, one
could find diversity in the context of unity. While the Bayanist pohtical thinkers
belonged paradigmaticalry to the same style of thinking, they were divided by different,
and sometimes conflicting, sectarian affiliations. Hence, it would be interesting to
explore the role of the same Bayanist frame of reference in shaping the views of other
377
Bayanist thinkers belonging to different Muslim sects, such as the Mu'tazilites and
Kharijites, on the question of religious dissent.
The validity of the interpretive approach of this study could also be
examined by studying the views of other Islamic political thinkers who belonged to the
two other epistemological traditions, that is, al-Burhan and al-'Irfan. Historically, as
was shown in chapter one of this study, the members of some of the Muslim esoteric
sects had subjected their Sunni sectarian opponents to ruthless religious persecution
when they were given the opportunity to do so. Likewise, the Muslim mystics did not
hesitate to use pohtical means to punish their sectarian foes, and the experience of Ibn
Taymiyah with them was a case in point. One possible area of future research would
be to find out how the pohtical thinkers within al-'Irfan tradition responded to these
incidents of religious persecution. Furthermore, one could examine how the pohtical
thinkers belonging to al-'Irfan tradition, with its peculiar theological and philosophical
underpinnings, responded to the question of religious dissent and to what degree that
response was different from that of their Bayanist and Burhanist counterparts. By the
same token, future research could be directed toward investigating the impact of the
Aristotelian categories of the al-Burhan epistemic tradition on how the pohtical
theorists within that tradition responded to the question of religious dissent.
Finally, the findings of this dissertation could be extended to contemporary
Islamic pohtical thought. There is a striking continuity of the past in the contemporary
Arab and Islamic discourse. The observer could easily recognize the continuity of the
378
style of thinking, whether it be al-Bayan or al-'Irfan, and the issues of concern of past
Muslim thinkers in today's Islamic discourse. The question of reUgious dissent is one
of those issues that remain as living and debatable questions in contemporary Islamic
poUtical thought. The research in this area could move in two directions. The first
would be to determine the extent to which past Muslim thinkers' views on reUgious
dissent has continued to exist in contemporary Islamic poUtical discourse. The second
direction which future research could take would be to examine how contemporary
Islamic poUtical theorists, who have remained within al-Bayan or al-'Irfan tradition,
formulated their views on reUgious dissent and how they have reconciled the traditional
categories of their world view with the contemporary and secular notions of the nation
state, citizenship, human rights, etc.
379
References
Abu Zahrah, Muhammad. Ibn Taymiyah. Cairo: Dar al-Fikr al-Arabi, 1991.
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Core Title Authority of the text and the limits of religious tolerance in Islamic political thought: The case of Ahmad Ibn Taymiyah

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