The Canonical Rule and Its Origins

At the heart of Dar' Ta'arud lies Ibn Taymiyyah's engagement with what he calls al-qanun al-kulli — the universal rule or canonical principle — that certain Muslim theologians had adopted from the philosophers. This principle, stated in various forms, held that whenever a demonstrative rational proof conflicts with a scriptural text, the rational proof must be given precedence, and the scriptural text must be interpreted allegorically or considered inapplicable to the matter at hand. The rule was articulated most clearly by Fakhr ad-Din ar-Razi, one of the most sophisticated theologians of the later Ash'ari school, though Ibn Taymiyyah argues its roots go back further into the philosophical tradition.

Ibn Taymiyyah traces this canonical rule carefully, showing how it entered Islamic theology through the influence of Greek philosophical method. He documents how earlier kalam theologians had already moved in this direction, particularly in discussions of the divine attributes. Passages of the Quran describing God as settling upon the Throne, possessing hands, or experiencing wrath were, for rationalist theologians, incompatible with their philosophical conception of divine simplicity and transcendence. Rather than accepting these descriptions as meaningful while acknowledging the incomprehensibility of God's reality, they interpreted them metaphorically or denied they had any real referent.

Ibn Taymiyyah does not dispute that reason is a genuine source of knowledge. His argument is more precise: the canonical rule as formulated contains a fatal ambiguity. When theologians say that reason demonstrates something, they often mean that they personally find an argument convincing, or that the argument conforms to premises accepted within a particular school of thought. But this is not the same as a genuinely certain rational demonstration. Aristotelian syllogistic logic can only yield certain conclusions when its premises are themselves certain. If any premise is merely probable, conventional, or drawn from a philosophical tradition rather than evident reality, the conclusion carries only the weight of that weaker premise.

This insight allows Ibn Taymiyyah to analyze specific cases where theologians claimed that reason required departing from apparent scriptural meaning. In each case, he examines the premises of the philosophical arguments and shows that they are not self-evident rational truths but contested philosophical assumptions — often derived from Aristotelian physics or metaphysics that had no basis in genuine demonstration. The argument that God cannot have a direction or location, for instance, rests on premises about the nature of space, body, and transcendence that are themselves philosophically disputed and not rationally necessary.

This section of the work is dense with engagement with the detailed arguments of ar-Razi, al-Ghazali, and other theologians. Ibn Taymiyyah proceeds systematically, quoting their positions accurately before offering his critique. His method is notable for its respect for his interlocutors even while disagreeing fundamentally with them. He acknowledges that these scholars were sincere and learned; his objection is to a methodological error that led even brilliant minds astray.