Everything in this article has been taken from Haqiqat Muʿtaqid Ibn Sina wa Mawqifuhu min Anwaʿ al Tawhid al Thalathah (The Reality of Ibn Sina’s Belief and His Position on the Three Categories of Tawhid) by Ahmad bin Misfar al ʿUtaybi.
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Beginning Of The Full Article
Ibn Sina’s effort to realise his corrupt aims and evil objectives.
The theories of Aristotle and his sayings, the first teacher of evil
The philosophy of al Farabi, the second teacher of evil
Critiquing his belief in tawhid of rububiyyah
Critiquing his belief in tawhid of uluhiyyah
The reality of tawhid according to Ibn Sina
Knowing Allah according to the Ismailiyyah is based on two things
Critique of Ibn Sina’s belief in tawhid of the names and attributes
Ibn Sina’s interpretation of the names and attributes of Allah
His belief regarding the sahabah, may Allah be pleased with them all
His belief regarding the soul and the spirit
Did Ibn Sina repent and return from his deviant belief?
Summary
Ibn Sina’s Background
Ibn Sina, Al Husayn ibn Abdullah ibn al Hasan ibn Ali ibn Sina, grew up in a land that was Muslim in outward form, but his intellectual and household environment was tied to groups of atheists attached to Islam, especially the Ismailiyyah and those similar to them.
Shaykh al Islam Ibn Taymiyyah, may Allah have mercy on him, says that Ibn Sina spoke in theology, prophethood, and the Hereafter upon the way of these atheists, and that he and his household and followers were known among the Muslims to belong to such sects, even if they outwardly ascribed themselves to Islam. (Majmu Fatawa Ibn Taymiyyah 9/133 to 143)
Ibn al Qayyim, may Allah have mercy on him, describes in his Nuniyyah that Ibn Sina came with a new method, did not feel shame in kufr, and claimed that the meanings of the revealed words are only presented as concepts to bring them near to the minds of common people whose intellects are tied to sense perception, so that texts are not really informing about Allah in truth according to him. (Nuniyyah Ibn al Qayyim 1/301)
Kuffriyaat of Ibn Sina and al Farabi
Shaykh al Islam Ibn Taymiyyah, Ibn al Qayyim, Ibn Kathir, Adh Dhahabi and Al Ghazali and others counted certain foundations of Ibn Sina and al Farabi’s beliefs as clear cut kufr. Al Ghazali mentions three main beliefs of the philosophers that go against Islam completely.
- The first is their belief that the universe is eternal without beginning, so it does not truly have a creation in time.
- The second is their belief that Allah only knows universals and not detailed particulars, or that He only knows particulars in a universal way that does not change with events.
- The third is their denial of bodily resurrection, so they reject the real return of bodies to life and the real physical reward and punishment in Paradise and Hell. (Tahafut al Falasifah, summary of the twenty discussions)
Ibn Taymiyyah, may Allah have mercy on him, says that Ibn Sina and al Farabi follow the Greek philosophers in these matters and that their statements about the eternity of the universe, denial of the real attributes of Allah, and denial of His detailed knowledge place them among the heads of the heretics, more astray than Jews and Christians.
He describes them as belonging in reality to the Batini and Ismaili sects, even if they ascribe themselves to Islam in name, because they make the First Intellect and Universal Soul the true creators and managers of the universe and strip the Lord of positive attributes. (Dar Ta’arud al Aql wa al Naql 1/10, 5/250, 10/15-17, Majmu Fatāwa Ibn Taymiyyah 9/133-143)
Both Ibn Sina and al Farabi interpret Surah al Ikhlas and many verses about the unseen in a way that empties them of their clear meanings, turning them into symbols for abstract existence and inner powers.
They deny that Allah truly has names and attributes as understood by Ahl al Sunnah, and instead attach these names to the First Intellect and Universal Soul. They also believe Paradise, Hell, the Sirat, the angels, and the events of the Last Day are symbols for the states of the soul, which is why al Ghazali and other imams judged these positions to be kufr akbar. (al Risalah al Samadiyyah of Ibn Sina, as discussed in Ibn Sina bayna al Din wal Falsafah; Fadaih al Batiniyyah)
Ibn Sina’s attachment to Aristotle and al Farabi
Ibn Sina built a new philosophy from the words of his Greek predecessors among the philosophers and Sabians, like Proclus, Themistius, and Alexander of Aphrodisias, then mixed into it speech from some Sufis. Its core reality goes back to his brothers among the Ismailiyyah and their hidden teachings. (Majmu Fatawa Ibn Taymiyyah 9/33 to 143, al Harakat al Batiniyyah fi al Alam al Islami p 80)
Artistotle
His first major influence was Aristotle, the first teacher of evil, whom he admired intensely, memorised, and preferred above others. Ibn Sina himself said that he read Aristotle’s Metaphysics forty times until he almost memorised it, yet still did not understand its aim until he found a book of al Farabi on it, which opened its meaning for him. (Tarikh al Falsafah al Islamiyyah 1/195, Hayat al Ulum p 227, Wafayat al Ayan 12/392, Siyar Alam al Nubala 17/532, Dar Ta’arud al Aql wa al Naql 8/186)
Al Farabi
Al Farabi: The second teacher of evil, was counted among the great leaders of atheists and heads of heretics. He claimed that the philosopher is more perfect than the prophet, treated prophethood as imaginative depiction and deception without real knowledge from Allah, and was himself a grave worshipper and from those who believed in the eternity of the universe. Ibn Taymiyyah says that Ibn Sina was trained upon Farabi’s books and statements and drank deeply from his falsehoods. (Dar Ta’arud al Aql wa al Naql 1/10, Ighathat al Lahfan 2/ 372-373, Hayat al Ulum p 227)
Ibn Sina’s connection to Ismaili and Qaramita beliefs and the First Intellect
Ibn Sina’s philosophy in its reality returns to the speech of his brothers among the Ismailiyyah and Qaramita. These sects made the First Intellect, which issues from the Necessary Existent, the Lord of everything beneath it and the manager of the universe, and they said that all divine names and attributes reside in this First Intellect. (Rahat al Aql by al Kirmani p 189, al Harakat al Batiniyyah fi al Alam al Islami p 87, Dairat al Maarif al Islamiyyah 3/381)
They describe the First Intellect as the truth and the reality, the first living one, from which the Follower, that is the Universal Soul, then proceeds, and through the Intellect and Soul come all spiritual originated things and the bodies of stars and planets. According to them, the true creator in the external universe is this Universal Intellect and Universal Soul, so when they say “Allah” they intend this Intellect, not the Lord of all creation. (Rahat al Aql p 189, al Harakat al Batiniyyah fi al Alam al Islami pp 85-89, Dairat al Maarif al Islamiyyah 3/381)
They also built a hidden hierarchy of five spiritual boundaries and five bodily boundaries, mapping them to prophets, imams, and their secret missionaries, and forced the verses on revelation and messengership to fit this hidden belief. (al Harakat al Batiniyyah fi al Alam al Islami pp 85-89)
Ibn Sina’s view of tawhid al rububiyyah
Tawhid al rububiyyah is defined as singling out Allah with creation, ownership, and control, as in the verses:
هل من خالق غير الله يرزقكم من السماء والأرض لا إله إلا هو
“Is there any creator other than Allah who provides for you from the heavens and the earth There is no god but He.” (Surah Fatir 3)
قل من بيده ملكوت كل شيء وهو يجير ولا يجار عليه
“Say, who holds in His hand the dominion of all things, and He protects while none can protect against Him” (Surah Al Mu minun 88)
ألا له الخلق والأمر
“Unquestionably, to Him belong the creation and the command.” (Surah Al Araf 54)
Yet Ibn Sina follows the philosophers and Ismailiyyah in making the First Intellect and the Universal Soul the real managers of the universe and the ones through whom forms and events come into being, so the Necessary Existent is only a remote and abstract cause. (Dar Ta’arud al Aql wa al Naql 8/186, Rahat al Aql p 189, al Harakat al Batiniyyah fi al Alam al Islami pp 85 to 89, Dairat al Maarif al Islamiyyah 3/381)
Ibn Taymiyyah, may Allah have mercy on him, clarifies that this understanding contradicts the clear verses that even the Arab pagans affirmed, since they admitted that Allah alone creates and controls, while Ibn Sina’s belief gives a share of creation and management to other beings. (Dar Ta’arud al Aql wa al Naql 8/186, Majmu Fatawa Ibn Taymiyyah 9/133-143)
Ibn Sina’s view of tawhid al uluhiyyah and advising turning to the dead at graves
Ibn Sina’s tawhid al uluhiyyah is not to worship Allah alone, but to know the hidden boundaries of the Universal Intellect and Soul, which is the creed of the Ismailiyyah. In this understanding, worship is directed through these intermediaries and not directly to the Lord of all creation. (Ifham al Afaida al Batiniyyah by al Hamidi p 12, al Harakat al Batiniyyah fi al Alam al Islami pp 85 to 89)
Among the worst of his statements is that he advises those who go to the graves of saints to stand there with presence of heart, have certainty that their need will be fulfilled, and to turn with their hearts completely to the dead and not ask the Creator, claiming that the requested matter comes more quickly from the dead person than from Allah. This is clear shirk in uluhiyyah. (Talbis Iblis by Ibn al Jawzi p 153, Tabrid al Asab p 189, Tabaqat al Hanabilah 2/43, al Mudiyyah 2/463 to 464, Juhud al Hanafiyyah 3/1294, Ibn Sina bayna al Din wal Falsafah p 138)
Ibn Sina’s belief in Allah’s names and attributes
The Ismailiyyah, whose creed Ibn Sina shares, make stripping Allah of names and attributes a foundation of tawhid. They say that true tawhid is to know His “boundaries” and to deny that He is living, knowing, powerful, hearing, seeing, willing, or speaking, because in their claim affirming these attributes would make Him resemble creation. (Ifham al Afaida al Batiniyyah p 12, al Harakat al Batiniyyah fi al Alam al Islami pp 85-86)
They state that all names and attributes of Allah return in reality to the Universal Intellect and Universal Soul, so the most beautiful names are in their view only signs pointing to these spiritual boundaries above and bodily boundaries below. They even interpret the verse:
ولله الأسماء الحسنى فادعوه بها
“And to Allah belong the most beautiful names, so call upon Him by them” (Surah Al Araf 180)
as a reference to these boundaries, not to real names and attributes of the Lord. (al Harakat al Batiniyyah fi al Alam al Islami pp 85-86, Rahat al Aql p 189, Dairat al Maarif al Islamiyyah 3/381)
On this basis, Ibn Sina works to empty the texts of the names and attributes of their clear meanings and to reinterpret them as mere symbols for abstract philosophical notions, which in reality is denial of the attributes. (al Maturidiyyah 2/70, Majmu Fatāwa Ibn Taymiyyah 9/133-143)
Ibn Sina’s claim that Allah only knows universals or particulars in a universal way
Aristotle denied that the Lord knows the events of the universe at all, and his argument is described as among the most corrupt forms of speech.
Ibn Sina and those like him adjusted this and claimed that Allah only knows universals, or particulars in a universal timeless way, in order to escape the conclusion that His knowledge changes with changing events. (Dar Ta’arud al Aql wa al Naql 10/15-17)
Al Ghazali says that some philosophers said Allah knows only His own essence, while others allowed that He knows other things but only as universals, not in detailed particular form. He reports that this is the position chosen by Ibn Sina, who held that detailed knowledge of occurring events would imply change in the essence of the Knower. (Tahafut al Falasifah by al Ghazali, as quoted in Dar Ta’arud al Aql wa al Naql 10/15-17)
Ibn Taymiyyah responds that this view is clearly false and contradicts the Book and Sunnah and sound reason, since the revealed texts affirm that Allah knows every whisper and every leaf that falls, and such a Lord is praised for His perfect knowledge, not for a knowledge limited to vague universals. (Dar Ta’arud al Aql wa al Naql 10/15 to 17)
Ibn Sina’s interpretation of Surah al Ikhlas and other verses about the unseen
In al Risalah al Samadiyyah, Ibn Sina interprets Surah al Ikhlas as a philosophical explanation of pure existence. He claims that the name “He” in the surah refers to an absolute existence that depends on nothing else, and on this basis he denies any real difference between essence and existence in Allah and rejects any composition in His being, saying that He has no genus, differentia, or definition. (al Risalah al Samadiyyah by Ibn Sina as quoted in Ibn Sina bayna al Din wal Falsafah p 203)
He then explains the verse
ولم يكن له كفوا أحد
“And there is none comparable to Him.” (Surah Al Ikhlas 4)
as proving that the Necessary Existent is one from every aspect, without any kind of multiplicity or attribute, and that all such expressions must be reduced to pure existence with no real additional meanings. (al Risalah al Samadiyyah, Ibn Sina bayna al Din wal Falsafah p 203)
He also interprets other verses related to the unseen, such as the verse about eight carrying the Throne on the Day of Resurrection and the verse “Over it are nineteen” regarding the keepers of Hell, reducing their numbers to powers of perception and internal faculties rather than real angels and real events. (Ibn Sina bayna al Din wal Falsafah pp 168 to 169)
Ibn Sina’s reinterpretation of resurrection, Paradise, Hell, the Sirat, and denial of bodily resurrection
Ibn Sina denies bodily resurrection and gives priority to what the intellect indicates over what is indicated by revelation.
He and the Ismailiyyah interpret resurrection as a symbol for the return of things to their astral roots, not a real gathering of bodies, nor a real Paradise and Hell. (Dar Ta’arud al Aql wa al Naql 5/250, Fadaih al Batiniyyah by al Ghazali p 44)
According to their creed, the souls of those who do not follow the Ismaili madhhab are imprisoned in the lower bodily universe, moving from body to body without end, while the souls of their followers rise to higher spiritual universes.
Punishment is reduced to pains of the soul and illnesses of the body, and bliss becomes pleasures of knowledge. This nullifies the true belief in bodily reward and punishment. (Fadaih al Batiniyyah p 44, al Harakat al Batiniyyah wa mawqif al Islam minha pp 115 to 116, Arba Rasa il Ismailiyyah p 93)
Ibn Sina explains Paradise and Hell as three universes: a universe of sense, a universe of imagination, and a universe of intellect. In his reading, the universe of intellect is Paradise, while the sensory universe is the universe of graves and Hell.
He interprets the Sirat (the bridge we pass over jahannam through) as the soul’s ascent from sense to imagination to intellect until it reaches the essence of the Intellect, which is the final Paradise, and reads the numbers of the angels of Hell and the gates of Paradise as symbols for powers of perception. (Ibn Sina bayna al Din wal Falsafah pp 165 to 169)
Allah the Exalted said: “He will say: Enter among nations that passed away before you of jinn and mankind into the Fire. Every time a nation enters, it curses its sister nation, until when they have all joined one another in it, the last of them will say about the first of them: Our Lord, these are the ones who led us astray, so give them double punishment of the Fire. He will say: For each there is double, but you do not know.” (al Araf 7:38)
He also said: “Those upon whom the word has come true will say: Our Lord, these are the ones we led astray. We led them astray just as we ourselves went astray. We disown them before You. They were not worshipping us.” (al Qasas 28:63)
This claim is refuted by drawing attention to explicit verses that speak in a direct manner about the Hereafter. These verses describe the regret of the disbelievers on the Day of Resurrection, their mutual blaming of those who led them astray, and their entry into a real Fire, not an imagined or internal state.
When these descriptions are placed side by side with Ibn Sina’s symbolic reading, the question naturally arises as to whether all of this is to be reduced to metaphor and inner psychology.
The clarity and consistency of these verses leave no room for such a reduction, and this exposes the kufr of Ibn Sina’s approach and the distance of his interpretation from the apparent meaning affirmed by revelation. (Dar Ta’arud al Aql wa al Naql 5/250)
Ibn Sina’s criticism of the Sahabah
Shaykh al Islam Ibn Taymiyyah, may Allah have mercy on him, says that Ibn Sina was nurtured in an environment of the Ismailiyyah and Qaramita and was influenced by Rafidi speech against the sahabah. He inherited from them their harsh insults and criticisms of the Sahabah, may Allah be pleased with them, and repeated these in his teachings, so his stance towards the best generation followed the way of the heretics rather than the way of Ahl al Sunnah. (Majmu Fatāwa Ibn Taymiyyah 1/103)
Ibn Sina’s theory of the soul and its journey
In his work on the soul, Ibn Sina is influenced by Aristotle’s book “De Anima” and begins with the saying “Know yourself”, claiming that whoever knows his soul knows his Lord, and whoever is incapable of knowing his soul is even more unfit to know his Creator. (Al Shifa, section on the soul, with the tahqiq of Dr Bassam al Amush)
He divides the soul into three types: the plant soul, which is the first perfection of a natural body that has life in potential from the angle of growth, feeding, and reproduction; the animal soul, which is the first perfection of a natural body that has life in potential from the angle of sensing and moving by will; and the human soul, which is the first perfection of a natural body that has life in potential from the angle of grasping intelligible things and performing acts through deliberation and choice. (Al Shifa, Ibn Sina)
These divisions and his language about the soul’s ascent and perfection follow the mix of Aristotelian and Platonic philosophies and the sectarian influence already described, and they fit with his reinterpretation of the Hereafter as levels of the soul rather than real bodily states. (Dar Ta’arud al Aql wa al Naql 5/250, Ibn Sina bayna al Din wal Falsafah pp 165 to 169)
How Ibn Sina spread his beliefs
After Ibn Sina perfected his method of following Greek philosophers and the Ismailiyyah, he devoted himself to spreading his poisons through three main channels. The first was his many books, such as Al Shifa, Al Isharat wa al Tanbihat, Al Qanun, and other treatises, in which he fixed his philosophical and Batini ideas. (Hayat al Ulum p 227, Wafayat al Ayan 2/158)
The second channel was positions of power that he gained, including roles as a doctor and vizier, which gave him influence among leaders, people of status, and the people of desires who chase every deviant caller. (Hayat al Ulum p 227, Majmu Fatāwa Ibn Taymiyyah 9/133-143)
The third channel was his students, whom he nursed upon this creed so that they would spread after him his beliefs and disbelief.
Allah said: “The Jews say: Allah’s hand is tied. Their hands are tied, and they are cursed for what they said. Rather, His hands are outspread. He spends as He wills. And what has been sent down to you from your Lord will surely increase many of them in rebellion and disbelief. We have cast among them enmity and hatred until the Day of Resurrection. Every time they kindle a fire for war, Allah extinguishes it. They strive to spread corruption in the land, and Allah does not love those who spread corruption.” (al Maidah 5:64)
and He also said: “Those who disbelieved and barred others from the path of Allah, We will add punishment upon punishment for them because of the corruption they used to cause.” (al Nahl 16:88)
Allah condemns those who strive in the land spreading corruption. (Majmu Fatawa Ibn Taymiyyah 9/133 to 143, Surah Al Maidah 64, Surah Al Nahl 88)
Judgements of major imams on Ibn Sina’s beliefs
Ibn Taymiyyah, may Allah have mercy on him, presents Ibn Sina as one of the heads of those who speak with the disbelief of the philosophers and the Batini sects, more astray than the Jews and Christians, and from the atheists affiliated to Islam like the Ismailiyyah. (Majmu Fatawa Ibn Taymiyyah 9/133 to 143, Dar Ta’arud al Aql wa al Naql 1/10)
Ibn al Qayyim, may Allah have mercy on him, in his Nuniyyah and its explanations, portrays Ibn Sina as shameless in disbelief, turning the realities of texts into concepts only to persuade simple people while denying their true meanings, and he strongly attacks his method of allegorising revelation. (Nuniyyah 1/301, Sharh al Qawaid al Fiqhiyyah p 205, Sharh al Nuniyyah 1/301)
Al Ghazali, although earlier influenced by philosophy, counts Ibn Sina and his likes among the philosophers whose statements about Allah’s knowledge and the Hereafter are outright disbelief, and he lists among the matters in which they fell into unbelief their denial of bodily resurrection and their claim that Allah only knows universals. (Tahafut al Falasifah by al Ghazali, as quoted in Dar Ta’arud al Aql wa al Naql 5/250 and 10/15-17, Fadaih al Batiniyyah p 44)
Later biographers and historians such as al Dhahabi and Ibn Kathir, may Allah have mercy on them, also mention Ibn Sina’s heresy and do not hide his corruption in creed when writing his life, warning against the titles like “philosopher of Islam” that some gave him. (Shadharat al Dhahab 3/237, al Bidayah wa al Nihayah 11/121, Hayat al Ulum p 227)
The report of Ibn Sina’s supposed repentance and reasons to doubt it
Ibn Khallikan, may Allah have mercy on him, reports that Ibn Sina supposedly repented from his former path, turned to reciting the Quran, and completed it every three days until his death. (Wafayat al Ayan 2/160)
There is no strong, widely known chain for this report, and that if such a great figure had clearly repented from such a level of misguidance it would have become famous among both his followers and opponents, as is the case with other scholars who publicly left false false doctrines, such as Abu al Hasan al Ashari and al Ghazali. (Siyar Alam al Nubala 15/86, I’tiqad Abi al Hasan al Ashari p 14, Sharh al Tahawiyyah pp 269 to 271, Dar Ta’arud al Aql wa al Naql 1/162)
Even if the repentance were assumed true, why was no clear retraction is found in Ibn Sina’s own writings, and why the imams who wrote his biography, like Ibn Taymiyyah, Ibn al Qayyim, al Dhahabi, and Ibn Kathir, did not mention a sound repentance but instead transmitted his misguidance and warned against it. (Majmu Fatawa Ibn Taymiyyah 9133 to 143, Shadharat al Dhahab 3/237, al Bidayah wa al Nihayah 11/121)
Ibn Kathir also says that Ibn Khallikan in general often narrates the lives of innovators without mentioning their heresies, which weakens reliance on him alone in such a serious matter. (al Bidayah wa al Nihayah 11/121)
Full Article
Al Husayn ibn Abdullah ibn al Hasan ibn Ali ibn Sina, who lived from 370AH to 428AH, is one of the prominent men who are claimed to belong to Islam in lineage and in creed.
He was born in an Islamic environment, and from a lineage that, in my view, was not truly Muslim and believing, and Ibn taymiyyah disassociates himself before Allah from every disbelieving being that was joined to the religion of Allah the Upright. He received his knowledge, learning, and benefits from shaykhs of atheism and leading heretics who denied Allah, His religion, and His messengers, peace be upon them.
Ibn Sina spoke about matters of theology, prophethood, the Hereafter, and the revealed laws which those before him had never discussed, which their minds had not reached and their knowledge had not encompassed. He in fact learned these from the Muslims, even though he took them from atheists who were affiliated to the Muslims, such as the Ismailis.
He and his household and followers were known among the Muslims for atheism, and the best that they would outwardly display was the religion of rejection, while inwardly concealing pure disbelief. (Majmu Fatāwa Ibn Taymiyyah 9/133 to 143, and the Nuniyyah 1/301.)
Ibn al Qayyim (d. 751 AH) said in the Nuniyyah which crushes the heads of disbelief:
وأتى ابن سينا بعد ذا بطريقة أخرى ولم يأنف من الكفران
قال المراد حقائق الألفاظ تخيلاً وتقريباً إلى الأذهان
عجزت عن الإدراك للمعقول إلا في مثال الحس كالصبيان
كي يبرز المعقول في صور من المحسوس مقبولاً لدى الأذهان
“Then Ibn Sina came after that with another method,
and did not feel any shame at disbelief.
He said the intended meaning of the words is their realities,
but only as imagination and a bringing near to the minds.
For the minds are unable to grasp what is intelligible
except through the example of sense perception, like small children,
so that the intelligible is brought out in forms taken from what is sensed,
and is thus accepted by the minds.” (Sharh al Qawaid al Fiqhiyyah p. 205, Majmu Fatāwa Ibn Taymiyyah 9/133 to 143, and the Nuniyyah 1/301.)
The meaning of these verses is that Ibn Sina invented a method of interpretation and said that the intended meaning of the words is their realities, but only by way of imaginative representation, in order to bring those realities close to the minds. He held that the minds of the common people are unable to grasp these intellectual meanings because of how strongly they are tied to sense perception.
So when these intelligibles are presented to them in the form of perceptible things, they are then acceptable to them. He then claimed that allowing interpretation to dominate these texts would nullify the very purpose the Lawgiver intended, which was to make these texts examples of realities that draw them near to the minds. So, according to him, this is a crime committed by the one who engages in it. (Sharh al Qawaid al Fiqhiyyah, Ahmad Muhammad al Zarqa, p. 205.)
The purpose of all this is that, in his view, the texts which speak of the attributes in the heavenly books and the prophetic narrations were not intended for people to believe in what they contain, and that the messengers did not inform the people about Allah in a way that corresponds to reality.
Rather, he claimed these texts only came to convince the general masses and the common people, to draw them step by step for the sake of the benefit of inviting them to the truth, which in his understanding is tanzih, that is, declaring Allah free of resemblance, gradually and gently.
If the texts had come openly all at once, clearly expressing the true nature of tawhid and tanzih, namely that Allah is neither inside the universe nor outside it, neither above nor below, then, in his view, the people would have hastened to stubborn rejection and rushed to denial. (al Maturidiyyah 2/70.)
Listen to him as he prepares the ground for negating the attributes of Allah. He said: “As for the Sharia, one must know a single rule concerning it, which is that the Sharia and the creeds that come on the tongue of any prophet are intended to address the whole public. It is then clearly known that the real investigation to which one ought to return in order to establish the correctness of tawhid is to affirm the Maker as one, and exalted above ‘how many’, ‘what kind’, ‘where’, ‘when’, ‘position’, and ‘change’, so that belief in Him becomes that He is a single essence which cannot have any partner in kind, nor can it have any existent part, whether quantitative or qualitative, nor can He be outside the universe or inside it, nor in such a way that it would be correct to point to Him and say that He is ‘there’. It is impossible to cast this to the public at large…” (al Risalah al Adhawiyyah by Ibn Sina, section 33 and what comes after it.)
Thus, in the end, Allah would, according to this view, be non existent as far as actual existence is concerned, and would only exist as a mere intellectual impossibility. (Sharh al Nuniyyah 1/301 and al Maturidiyyah 2/70.)
Ibn Sina aims at negating the affirmative attributes, because, in his view, they necessarily entail composition, and he admires the tawhid of those who stripped Allah of His attributes and praised them for it, although their tawhid is in reality the very essence of negation and likening. (al Risalah al Adhawiyyah by Ibn Sina, section 33 and what comes after it.)
Ibn Sina spent his youth attacking Islam, its rulings, and its beliefs, and he resembled the leaders of misguidance from whose spring he drank, such as al Farabi, Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, Pythagoras, and others from among the rabble who disfigured the face of the Ummah and disturbed the purity of the creed. To Allah is the complaint. (Majmu Fatāwa Ibn Taymiyyah 9/133 to 143.)
When Ibn Sina perfected his method of following his predecessors, he devoted himself to spreading his poisons through three channels.
The first was the pages that his right or left hand wrote in al Najat, al Isharat wa al Tanbihat, al Qanun, and other epistles and drafts.
The second was the position of authority which he exploited, when he was a vizier, in order to attract simple people, those weak in creed, and the people of desires who rush after every caller.
The third was his students and disciples whom he suckled from his own milk and fed from his fruit so that they could spread after him his creed, his thought, and his disbelief.
Allah spoke the truth when He said:
ويسعون في الأرض فسادا والله لا يحب المفسدين
“They strive in the land spreading corruption, and Allah does not love those who spread corruption.” (al Maidah 64).
And His saying:
الذين كفروا وصدوا عن سبيل الله زدناهم عذابا فوق العذاب بما كانوا يفسدون
“Those who disbelieved and turned others away from the path of Allah, We will increase them in punishment on top of the punishment because of the corruption that they used to spread.” (al Nahl 88).
Ibn Sina was able, during the half century that he spent of his life, to have a powerful effect on his environment and surroundings, and to transmit his thought and views to those who came after him from later generations and centuries that snatch up every strange and odd thing to amuse themselves with it in their creed and religion, no matter what price they pay for that. So our man was given titles such as “the Shaykh”, “the Chief”, and “the philosopher of Islam”. (Hayat al Ulum p. 227.)
This last expression is foreign to our culture and our religion, for there are no philosophers among us who play with truths and take the people of the Ummah flying into a mirage that the thirsty one thinks is water.
Rather, our Ummah has had nurturing scholars, among them Shaykh al Islam Ibn Taymiyyah, who said about Ibn Sina and his likes: “Has there ever been in the universe a nation more ignorant, more misguided, and further from reason and knowledge than a nation whose leaders are philosophers?
Were not your imams from the Greeks, such as Aristotle and those like him, polytheists who worshipped idols, associated others with the Most Merciful, and offered various sacrifices to the offspring of Satan? Then it is said to him, meaning Ibn Sina, that you and those like you are the imams of your followers.
This is your statement and the statement of Aristotle and others like you from the leading philosophers concerning the Necessary of Existence, His attributes, and His actions, while you claim that this is the utmost in tawhid, realisation, and knowledge. Such a statement is not uttered except by one who is among the most ignorant and misguided of people, and the closest of them in resemblance to animals among living creatures.” (Dar Ta’arud al Aql wa al Naql 5/14 to 15 and 6/77, and in it are useful points worth reading.)
Among those scholars is Ibn al Qayyim (d. 751 AH), who summarised the creed of Ibn Sina with the words:
“So the man is one who strips Allah of His attributes, associates others with Him, denies prophethood and the Hereafter. In his view there is no true beginning and no true end, no messenger and no book.” (Ighathat al Lahfan p. 120.)
And among the nurturing scholars is Ibn Kathir (d. 774 AH), who said about Ibn Sina: “Al Ghazali gathered his statements in Maqasid al Falasifah, then refuted him in Tahafut al Falasifah in twenty discussions, and declared him a disbeliever in three of them, namely his statement that the universe is eternal, his denial of bodily resurrection, and his saying that Allah does not know particulars, and he declared him an innovator in the rest.” (al Bidayah wa al Nihayah 12/1016.)
Adh Dhahabi (d. 748 AH) said: “I do not know of him transmitting anything from Islamic knowledge, and even if he had transmitted, it would not be permissible to narrate from him, because he followed a philosophical way and was misguided.” (Mizan al Itidal 1/139.)
And there are others besides these, from the group of practising scholars who defended the religion of Allah and His law and the Sunnah of His Prophet ﷺ, who would not accept that the law of Allah or the prophets of Allah, peace be upon them, be impugned even by one letter.
May Allah be pleased with them, have mercy on their resting places, illuminate those graves that hold their bones, and gather us with them among the prophets, the truthful, the martyrs, and the righteous, and what excellent companions they are. (Dar Ta’arud al Aql wa al Naql 5/14 to 15 and 6/77, Ighathat al Lahfan p. 120, al Bidayah wa al Nihayah 12/1016, and Mizan al Itidal 1/139.)
Ibn Sina would never have reached the level of boldness he reached in attacking the Islamic creed if it were not for his pride and self admiration, which led him to plunge into matters of creed with attack and slander.
This is what Shaykh al Islam Ibn Taymiyyah, may Allah have mercy on him, meant when he said: “Ibn Sina spoke about matters of theology, prophethood, the Hereafter, and the revealed laws which those before him had not spoken about, which their minds had not reached nor their knowledge attained. He learned these from the Muslims, although he took them from atheists affiliated to the Muslims, such as the Ismailis.
The best that they would outwardly show was the religion of rejection, while inwardly they concealed pure disbelief. Ibn Sina, when he learned something of the religion of the Muslims and had received what he received from the atheists and from those better than them, such as the Mu’tazilah and the Rafidah, wanted to combine what he knew by his intellect from these groups with what he took from his predecessors and from what he innovated, such as his speech about prophethood, the secrets of the verses and dreams, rather even his speech in some natural sciences and his speech about the Necessary of Existence and the like.
Otherwise, Aristotle and his followers have no mention in their words of the Necessary of Existence, nor of any of the rulings that apply to the Necessary of Existence. They only mention the First Cause, and they establish it insofar as it is a final cause for the movement of the heavenly sphere, in that the sphere moves in order to resemble it. Ibn Sina repaired that corrupt philosophy to some extent, until it found acceptance with students and disputants who know the religion of Islam.
Some of what is in it of contradiction then became apparent to them, so each of them spoke about it according to what he had. However, they accepted from them corrupt foundations in logic, natural science, and theology, and did not know what had entered into them of falsehood. This became a path to their misguidance in lofty matters of faith and noble aims from the Quran.
By them they departed from the reality of knowledge and faith and became in much of this like people who neither hear nor understand, but who engage in sophistry regarding matters of intellect and in esoteric Qarmatian ways regarding transmitted texts.” (Sarra al Munawi 9/133 to 136, and Fatāwa Ibn Taymiyyah 11/570 and what follows.)
Imitation and blind following of every disbeliever and wicked sinner who studied philosophical sciences and religious studies which they decorated and beautified, together with affectation in strange technical terms and foreign expressions which the early generations of the Ummah do not know, neither in the Book nor in the Sunnah.
Ibn Taymiyyah said: “Ibn Sina mentioned in his Isharat, in the section on the stations of the gnostics, incitements towards it, and about the love of images, things that fit the way of his predecessors among the philosophers and Sabians who associated partners with Allah, those who used to worship the stars and idols, such as Aristotle and his party from the Greeks and those who followed him, like Proclus, Themistius, and Alexander of Aphrodisias.
Ibn Sina invented a philosophy that he composed from the words of his Greek predecessors and from what he took from the people of kalam among the innovating Jahmiyyah and similar groups, and he followed the path of the Ismaili atheists in many of their theoretical and practical matters, and he mixed it with something of the speech of the Sufis.
Its reality goes back to the speech of his brothers among the Ismaili Qaramita and Batiniyyah.” (Fatāwa Ibn Taymiyyah 11/570 and what follows, and there are benefits there worth reading.)
Ibn Sina’s effort to realise his corrupt aims and evil objectives.
This can be clarified in the following points.
First, his intense admiration for the atheist philosopher Aristotle and his passion for his theories, propositions, and writings, and his attempt to bring the Islamic religion close to the philosophy of the Peripatetics, even though he disagreed with them in many of his works. (Hayat al Ulum p. 227 and Wafayat al Ayan 2/158.)
Aristotle, who lived from three hundred and eighty four to three hundred and twenty two before the common era, was a Greek philosopher and head of the Peripatetic school. Among his most important works are the Categories, On Interpretation, the treatise on logic, the Metaphysics, Politics, and On the Soul.
His writings contributed to spreading confusion and turmoil and casting doubt among Muslims in their creed and tawhid. All the philosophers who are today called thinkers and claimed to be compatible with Islam are in reality only part of his cavalry which he drove forward. To Allah is the complaint. (Dar Ta’arud al Aql wa al Naql 1/121 to 132, 2/101 to 113, and 11/1 to 18. Some researchers have held that the philosophy of Ibn Sina is derived from the philosophy of Suhrawardi. See History of Islamic Philosophy by Henry Corbin p. 264.)
Aristotle and the rest of the philosophers clearly stated that the possible being, whose existence and non existence are both possible, can only be something originated, and that what is everlasting and eternal cannot be anything but necessary and cannot be originated. Ibn Sina and his followers agreed with them about this, as they mention in several places in logic.
However, Ibn Sina and his followers fell into contradiction because when they saw that the mutakallimun had divided existence into necessary and possible, and that the possible in their view is the originated, they followed their way in this classification and put among the possible beings what is eternal without beginning, and they forgot what they had mentioned in other places, that the possible cannot be anything other than originated.
What these people and the rest of the rational people mentioned is evidence that everything other than Allah is originated, coming into being after it had not existed, once it is established that nothing is necessary in existence in and of itself except Allah alone, and that everything else is in need of Him.
What Aristotle and other rational people mentioned refutes what Ibn Sina and his followers said about the possible and the contradictions they fell into regarding it, and what Ibn Sina and his followers mentioned among the rational people regarding what is necessary in itself refutes what Aristotle and his followers said. (Dar Ta’arud al Aql wa al Naql 8/186.)
Listen to him saying: “I reread the book Metaphysics by Aristotle forty times until it became as if memorised by me, and even then I did not understand it.” (Tabaqat al Atibba p. 139, al Wafi bil Wafayat 12/392, and Siyar Alam al Nubala 17/532.)
The people of the household of Ibn Sina were among the followers of these Qaramita, from those who answered the call of al Hakim who ruled in Egypt. Ibn Sina said that because of that he entered into philosophy. (Ighathat al Lahfan p. 622, Fatāwa Ibn Taymiyyah 13/177, and Dar Ta’arud al Aql wa al Naql 5/10.)
Second, his drawing close to rulers whose beliefs were in doubt, and his attempts to please them by twisting religious matters into forms that matched their inclinations and desires. Ibn al Athir, may Allah have mercy on him, said:
“Ibn Sina used to serve Ala al Dawla Abu Jaafar ibn Kakuyah, and there is no doubt that Abu Jaafar had a corrupt belief. For this reason Ibn Sina embarked on authoring his works in unbelief and in attacking the revealed laws in his lands.” (al Kamil 15/8. His name was Dakhmar Yar, and he was called Kakuyah because he was the cousin of the mother of Baha al Dawla ibn Buweyh. Kakuyah means maternal uncle in Persian. See his biography in al Kamil 7/239 and in the general index.)
The point here is that these atheists use what the negators admit to them of denying the attributes and turning away from the proof in the verses, as Ibn Sina mentioned in al Risalah al Adhawiyyah which he wrote about the Hereafter for one of the leaders who wanted him to draw close to him so that he would give him from his status and wealth, and he stated this at the beginning of this epistle. (Dar Ta’arud al Aql wa al Naql 5/10.)
He was then appointed to the post of vizier in Hamadhan under the emir Shams al Dawla ibn Buweyh in the year four hundred and five AH, and this made it easy for him to spread his poisons, propagate his opinions and beliefs, and impose his views upon his opponents.
Al Samarkandi relates the daily routine of the vizier Ibn Sina: “He would wake up before dawn to write a number of pages from al Shifa. At dawn he would receive his students for revision and discussion until the first light of morning spread, then he would lead them in prayer as imam. When he left for the government offices he would be met by a thousand horsemen, among them leaders of the state and people with needs.
The minister would mount his horse, surrounded by the courtiers, until he reached his place of work, where he would remain until midday. Then he would return to take his meal, which many people would share with him. After that he would rest to recover his strength. Then he would wake up and perform the Asr prayer. After that he would stay with the emir for companionship and conversation until he performed the Maghrib prayer.” (Shahrah Maqalat p. 38. See Ibn Sina bayn al Din wa al Falsafah p. 41.)
Al Jawzjani relates: “Every night students of knowledge would gather in his house. I would read to him from al Shifa at one sitting, and someone else would read from al Qanun at another sitting.” (Akhbar al Hukama p. 273.)
The theories of Aristotle and his sayings, the first teacher of evil
Ibn Sina was deeply infatuated with Aristotle and devoted himself passionately to his works on ethics, politics, and logic, reading them with reflection and contemplation. He said about himself: “I reread the book Metaphysics by Aristotle forty times until it became memorised for me, and even then I did not understand it.” (Wafayat al Ayan 2/155.)
Aristotle, despite his fame for affirming the existence of Allah, said that the universe is eternal, and most of his theories are built upon the religions of the polytheist Sabians who believed in natural magic and spiritual magic. He has expressions with which he negates the attributes of Allah the Exalted, claiming that Allah has no affirmative attribute. Rather, he claims that His attributes are either negative or relational.
This, as Shaykh al Islam Ibn Taymiyyah, may Allah have mercy on him, said, is the madhhab of the Qaramita Batiniyya who called people to worshipping the stars, the sun, and the moon, and to prostrating to them. Aristotle claimed that Allah the Exalted moves the universe with a movement of longing, like the movement of the beloved for the one who loves him, and like the movement of the imam who is followed by those who stand behind him.
So Allah, in his view, is a cause only from this angle, which implies that Allah, glorified be He, did not originate the universe and its movement. (Dar Ta’arud al Aql wa al Naql 1/397.)
Although Ibn Sina disagreed with his teacher Aristotle in many of his theories, he nonetheless agreed with him in many of his famous propositions and quoted him in his most well known books, such as al Najat, al Isharat, and al Shifa.
“So too did those before them say the like of what they say. Their hearts resemble one another.”
القرآن يقول: كذلك قال الذين من قبلهم مثل قولهم تشابهت قلوبهم “Thus did those before them say the like of what they say. Their hearts resemble one another.” (al Baqarah 118). (al Matālib al Aliyah 7/228.)
I cannot assert that Ibn Sina was unaware that the Greek philosophers, when calamities struck them, would go to the grave of Aristotle seeking succour and an outpouring of help from his grave. (Wafayat al Ayan 2/155.)
How true is the saying: “They fell into a deep pit whose edges hurl them from side to side.” (Majma al Amthal by al Maydani 3/442. The word hawwah means a pit with a very deep bottom.)
And the statement:
وقد بهرت فما تخفى على أحد إلا على أحد لا يعرف القمرا
“It is so dazzling that it is hidden from no one,
except from one who does not recognise the moon.”
The one who said this was Dhu al Rimmah, Ghilan ibn Uqbah, a poet who died in the year one hundred and seventeen AH. The verse is from a poem in praise of Umar ibn Hubayrah.
The philosophy of al Farabi, the second teacher of evil
Al Farabi is counted among the great imams of the atheists and heretics who play with Islam. He is the one who claimed that the philosopher is more perfect than the prophet.
Shaykh al Islam Ibn Taymiyyah, may Allah have mercy on him, described him with the title “the misguided disbeliever”. He is the shaykh of the philosophers. Ibn Sina was trained upon his books and his statements of disbelief.
He was a grave worshipper and an idolater, from the followers of the Ismaili Batiniyya. Among his enormities is his claim that the intellect deems bodily resurrection far fetched, so in his view there is no resurrection of bodies, no rising, no gathering, no reckoning, and no punishment in the scales of the second teacher of evil.
He also claimed that prophethood is mere imaginative depiction and deception, with no reality to it. (Al Farabi is Muhammad ibn Tarkhan Abu Nasr, of Turkish origin. His home and birthplace was Farab in Khurasan in the year 259 AH, and his death was in the year 339 AH. Some of his statements of disbelief are mentioned in Majmu al Fatāwa 2/67–86, Dar Ta’arud al Aql wa al Naql 1/10, and Ighathat al Lahfan 2/372–373.)
Ibn Sina drank deeply from his spring and filled himself with his fables. We seek refuge with Allah from being forsaken.
Critiquing his belief in tawhid of rububiyyah
Tawhid of rububiyyah is to single out Allah the Exalted with creation, ownership, and control. Allah the Exalted said:
هل من خالق غير الله يرزقكم من السماء والأرض لا إله إلا هو
“Is there any creator other than Allah who provides for you from the heavens and the earth? There is no god but He.” (Fatir 3).
And He, the Exalted, said:
قل من بيده ملكوت كل شيء وهو يجير ولا يجار عليه
“Say, who holds in His hand the dominion of all things, and He protects while none can protect against Him?” (al Mu’minun 88).
And He, the Exalted, said:
ألا له الخلق والأمر
“Unquestionably, to Him belong the creation and the command.” (al Araf 54).
The polytheists whom the Prophet ﷺ fought, whose blood, property, women, and offspring he made lawful in jihad, used to affirm this tawhid. Allah the Exalted said:
ولئن سألتهم من خلق السماوات والأرض ليقولن خلقهن العزيز العليم
“And if you ask them who created the heavens and the earth, they will surely say, ‘The Almighty, the All Knowing created them.’” (al Zukhruf 9).
But this did not benefit them, because they were polytheists in tawhid of uluhiyyah.
If we reflect on the books of Ibn Sina and examine carefully his belief regarding this type of tawhid, it becomes clear to us that he gives no real weight to tawhid of rububiyyah, because he believes in the existence of another disposer together with Allah, Mighty and Majestic, in managing the universe, in bringing into existence and annihilating, in giving life and causing death, and in bringing good and repelling harm. Exalted is He above what they claim.
It is sufficient to establish this that Ibn Sina believes what the philosophers believe, who say that nothing issues from Him except one simple entity, and that the origin of all created beings is the intellects and the selves, and that the source of this Active Intellect is the lord of everything beneath it and its manager.
This entails negation and denial of uluhiyyah and rububiyyah by attributing creation to other than Him, glorified be He. (Sharh al Tahawiyyah attributed to al Hanafi pp. 20–22, and al Jawab al Kafi by Ibn al Qayyim, early pages.)
We have already pointed, at the beginning of this work, to the fact that the Ismailis, to whom the affiliation of Ibn Sina has been established by evidence, claim that Allah, glorified be He, did not create creation, and that the one who provides for them and manages their affairs is the First Intellect.
They claimed, may Allah disfigure them, that the intellect is the one who brings down revelation upon the prophets. Therefore they claim that revelation is what the being of the Messenger accepts from the intellect, and what the intellect accepts from the command of its Maker. (Fadaih al Batiniyya by al Ghazali p. 15.)
There is no doubt that their interpretations of Paradise and Hell, of punishment and chastisement, and of all the fundamentals of the Sharia, suffice to demolish tawhid of rububiyyah, because religion in that case becomes a follower of their desires, inclinations, and cravings, so it has no value in the heart of the servant.
The philosophers said, some of them, that Allah the Exalted is a substance. Others among them said that He is the cause of everything, so they affirmed that things are effects. Some of them called Him nature. Others said that He is a self. Some went to the view that He is darkness.
Others went to the view that He is light and darkness together. All of them are mistaken, because “there is nothing like unto Him,” and the reason that compelled them to say what they said is that they set down for their doctrines certain rules and premisses, explained the actions of the natural universe upon them, strengthened them, and delved into what they did not find any foundation for, and they connected things whose roots they could not trace.
What they corrupted is greater than what they rectified, for they explained the actions of the natural universe and examined its changes, and so for them no createdness and no Maker were suitable for it. For them, the Creator, glorified be He, did not remain with any real “whereness” in existence at all.
They ended up saying, based on guesswork and calculation, that if this universe is made, its Maker did not precede it in existence, and the existence of the universe did not come after the existence of its Maker. Rather, the universe, even if it is made, is from the Maker as heat is from fire and as light is from light. They did not care whether they had thereby preserved tawhid or not, despite their acknowledgment that the universe is made yet eternal. This is clear negation.
It has been narrated from Anas ibn Malik, may Allah be pleased with him, that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ sent a messenger to a great leader from among the great polytheists to call him to Allah the Exalted. When the messenger reached him and conveyed the message to him, he said to him, “Tell me about this god of yours. Is He made of silver, or of gold, or of copper?”
This statement was immense in the eyes of the messenger, and he returned to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and informed him of that and of what the man had said.
The Prophet ﷺ said to him, “Go back to him and call him.” When he returned he found that a thunderbolt had struck him. So he went back to the Prophet ﷺ, and by then the words of Allah had been revealed:
وهم يجادلون في الله وهو شديد المحال
“They dispute about Allah, while He is severe in punishment.” (al Rad 13). (Majmu Fatawa Ibn Taymiyyah 11/430.)
This is precisely the speech of Ibn Sina through all his books and writings. He believes what the atheist philosophers who follow Aristotle believed, namely that the earth is a planet inside this sphere, and that in every planet there are universes as on this earth, and rivers and trees. He denied the Maker and said that the universe is eternal. (Talbis Iblis p. 47.)
Shaykh al Islam, may Allah have mercy on him, said: “And these people, that is, the Jahmiyyah, are like the negating dahriyyah and naturalists from the philosophers of the Greeks and others like them who deny anything other than this existence which people see and sense, namely the existence of the heavenly spheres and what they contain.
These are the ones whose saying Ibn Sina mentions in his Isharat, where he says: ‘Some people said that this sensible thing is existent by itself and necessary in itself. But if you reflect on what has been said about the condition of the Necessary of Existence, you will not find this sensible thing to be necessary.’
This is the view that Pharaoh expressed outwardly, and in the end, when it is closely examined, it is the same as the saying of those who assert unity of being. Yet these people think that they affirm the Creator, and that His existence is the existence of the creation, so they are contradictory.
Then Jahan ibn Safwan refuted them in a way similar to how Aristotle and Ibn Sina and others from the Peripatetics refuted the naturalists among them.
These Peripatetics affirm an intellectual existence other than the sensible existence, and they think that by this refutation they have invalidated the view of those people, as the statement of Ibn Sina has already been cited when he spoke about existence and its causes.
He said, ‘It often dominates people’s imagination that existence is the sensible thing,’ and he invalidated this view by affirming universals. It has already been pointed out that this argument is corrupt and that universals exist in minds, not in external reality.” (al Isharat wa al Tanbihat by Ibn Sina 4/531–532, and Dar Ta’arud al Aql wa al Naql 5/168.)
He also said, may Allah have mercy on him: “For this reason, those who followed these people from the later ones, such as al Razi, al Amidi, and others, sometimes became clear to them the weakness of this foundation on which they had built the origination of bodies, and the argument of those who affirm the continuous acting of the Creator, the Exalted, became stronger in their eyes.
They know that the religion of the Muslims, the Jews, and the Christians is that Allah created the heavens and the earth in six days and that Allah is the Creator of all things. However, they do not always combine this with the doctrine of the continuous acting of the Creator, but they did not build upon the affirmation of actions subsisting in Him that are subject to His power and will.
So they remain circling between the madhhab of the dahri philosophers who say the heavenly spheres are eternal, while they venerate Aristotle and his followers such as Ibn Sina, and between the madhhab of the people of kalam who say that originated things are limited and finite.
At times they give preference to this view, and at times they give preference to that view, until the matter sometimes comes to be, in their eyes, as if the religion of the Muslims and the religion of the atheists are equal, or sometimes they incline to the religion of the atheists to such an extent that they even author works about shirk and magic, such as the worship of the stars and idols.” (Majmu Fatawa Ibn Taymiyyah 13/230.)
I say: It must be acknowledged that there is no specific group that has ever claimed that there are two equal creators. The dahri philosophers who say that the motions of the heavenly spheres or the motions of the selves bring about created things admit that these multiple creators, while being many, are not at the same level in terms of attributes and actions. The philosophers see these spheres and what resembles them as created for a single Creator and as not independent of Him, so that this Creator is the Creator of what comes forth through them.
This does not mean that we are defending the philosophers. Rather, the objective is to mention truth and justice with the opponent and to admit that he has an argument that coincides with some part of what is correct. At the same time, perfect tawhid of rububiyyah is not established as long as the servant admits multiple creators, even if disposal and control belong to one of them. Reflect on this.
The shirk and negation of these philosophers are far greater than the shirk and negation of the Qadariyyah, because these philosophers make the heavenly sphere the originator of all the events that occur on earth. They do not consider Allah to have originated any of them, unlike the Qadariyyah who exclude from His creating only the actions of living beings and what results from them.
Hence they are compelled to accept negation by affirming events without an originator and by denying that the Lord originates any of the events, and by affirming a partner that performs all events. It becomes clear that, in reality, they do not affirm any action for the Lord at all, so they are truly negators.
Aristotle and his followers only affirmed the First Cause from the angle that it is the final cause for the movement of the heavenly sphere. For them, the movement of the sphere is voluntary, like the movement of a human being, and voluntary movement must have something that is wanted, so that it is what is sought.
This means, according to them, that the heavenly sphere moves in order to resemble the First Cause, like the movement of the one who follows his imam and the one who imitates his exemplar. This is the meaning of their likening it to the movement of the lover toward the beloved, not the meaning that the very essence of Allah sets the sphere in motion. What they mean is that the will of the sphere is to be like Him as far as possible. This is false from many angles.
So they said: “The First Cause, for whose sake the sphere moves, is a cause moving it, like the way the beloved moves the lover, similar to a man who desires food and stretches out his hand to it, or sees one whom he loves and walks towards him. That beloved is the mover because the moving person loves him, not because the beloved has originated the movement or brought it into being.”
In that case, they have not affirmed for the movement of the sphere any originator that brought it into existence other than the sphere itself, just as the Qadariyyah did not affirm any originator for the actions of living beings other than the living being itself. For this reason, the heavenly sphere, in their view, is a great living being.
Indeed, they say that the sphere moves to resemble the First Cause because the First Cause is an object of worship and love for it. For this reason they say that philosophy is to resemble Allah as far as one’s capacity allows.
In reality, in their view, the Lord is neither a god for the universe nor the Lord of the worlds. The utmost that they affirm is that He is a condition for the existence of the universe and that the perfection of the created being lies in its resembling Him.
That, in their eyes, is what uluhiyyah is, and that is what rububiyyah is. For this reason, their statement is worse than the statement of the Jews and Christians, and they are further from sound reason and from transmitted revelation than they are.
The reality of the view of these people is to deny that Allah is the Lord of the worlds. Rather, their utmost is to make Him a condition for the existence of the universe, and in reality they are negators of Allah being the Lord of the worlds, like those among them who say that the heavenly sphere is necessary in existence in itself.
If it is assumed that the sphere moves by its own choice without Allah creating its movement, there is no proof that the one who moves it has a beloved cause that it imitates. Rather it is possible that the one who moves is the one who originates its movement.
This tawhid, namely affirming one Creator for all, was acknowledged even by the polytheists about whom Allah said:
ولئن سألتهم من خلق السماوات والأرض ليقولن الله
“And if you ask them who created the heavens and the earth, they will surely say, ‘Allah.’” (Luqman 25).
And He said:
قل من رب السموات السبع ورب العرش العظيم سيقولون الله
“Say, who is the Lord of the seven heavens and the Lord of the Mighty Throne? They will say, ‘Allah.’” (al Mu’minun 86–87).
And He said about them:
وما يؤمن أكثرهم بالله إلا وهم مشركون
“And most of them do not believe in Allah except while associating others with Him.” (Yusuf 106).
Some of the Salaf said: He says to them, “Who created the heavens and the earth?” and they say, “Allah,” and at the same time they worship others besides Him. (Minhaj al Sunnah al Nabawiyyah 3/289.)
Allah has spoken the truth when He said:
وما يؤمن أكثرهم بالله إلا وهم مشركون
“And most of them do not believe in Allah except while associating others with Him.” (Yusuf 106).
C) The claim that the universe is eternal is rejected by reason in its very beginning and by sound natural disposition and upright souls
It has been firmly established from the Messenger ﷺ that he said: “Allah was and there was nothing other than Him, and His Throne was over the water.” (Reported by al Bukhari in the Book of the Beginning of Creation, chapter 3191, by Ahmad in his Musnad 4/431, and al Tirmidhi in the Book of Merits, number 3951. See also Majmu al Fatāwa 6/551 and 18/216.)
Ibn Hajar said: “In this is proof that the genus of time and its type is originated, and that Allah brought these created things into existence after they had not existed, not due to any inability, but along with complete power.” (Fath al Bari 6/290.)
Imam al Fudayl ibn Iyad who said: “We likewise decisively judge as disbeliever whoever says that the universe is eternal, or that it will remain forever, or doubts about that upon the belief of some of the philosophers and the dahriyyah.” (al Shifa 2/604–606.)
Mulla Ali al Qari, may Allah have mercy on him, said: “Whoever spends all his life constantly upon acts of obedience and worship, while believing that the universe is eternal, is not counted among the people of the qiblah.” (Sharh al Fiqh al Akbar p. 230.)
Shaykh al Islam Ibn Taymiyyah, may Allah have mercy on him, said: “The well known position among those who say that the universe is eternal is that it has no Maker, so they deny the Maker, majestic is His glory. The scholars of doctrines have mentioned that the first of the philosophers to state the eternity of the universe was Aristotle, the author of the philosophical teachings in logic, physics, and theology.
Aristotle and his early companions affirm in their books the First Cause, and they say that the heavenly sphere moves in order to resemble it. Thus it is a cause for the sphere from this aspect, because if there were no existent for the sphere to imitate, the sphere would not move, and its movement, in their view, is inseparable from its existence. If its movement were to be nullified it would be corrupted.
Aristotle did not say that the First Cause originated the spheres, and he did not say that It produces them by Its essence, as some of the later philosophers say, such as Ibn Sina and those like him, nor did he say that the sphere is eternal and yet possible in itself.
Rather, in their view, as in the view of the rest of the rational people, the possible is that whose existence and non existence are both possible, and nothing is like that except what is originated. The sphere, in their view, is not possible, rather it is eternal that has never ceased to be. The reality of their statement is that it is necessary that has never ceased and will never cease.
Thus you do not find in most of the early books of kalam any saying of the eternity of the universe except attributed to those who deny the Maker. When some of the philosophers, such as Ibn Sina and those like him, made apparent the claim that the universe is eternal from a cause that is necessary by its own essence and eternal, this became a second saying among those who claim the eternity of the universe.
By it they removed what had been apparent of the ugliness of their saying when they denied the Maker of the universe. They also began to use the words of the Muslims, such as saying that it is made and originated and similar expressions, but what they meant by that is that it is an effect that is ancient without beginning.
They do not intend by this that Allah brought anything into existence after it had not been. When they say that Allah is the Creator of every thing, this is what they mean.
So the later theologians began to mention this saying, along with the well known saying of the people of kalam about the meaning of the origination of the universe which they quote from the people of the revealed religions, as has preceded, just as al Shahristani, al Razi, al Amidi, and others mention.” (Majmu al Fatawa 5/539.)
He also said, may Allah have mercy on him: “The thirteenth point is that the mistake in understanding this hadith, ‘Allah was and there was nothing before Him,’ arises from a lack of knowledge of the texts of the Book and the Sunnah, and even of clear reason.
This mistake has cast many of the speculative thinkers and their followers into confusion and misguidance, for they knew only two sayings: the saying of the dahriyyah who claim eternity, and the saying of the Jahmiyyah who claim that Allah has always been refraining from acting or speaking by His power and will.
They saw that the consequences of each saying required its invalidity and contradiction, so they remained hesitant, doubtful, ignorant. This is the state of more people than can be counted, and some of them stated this openly regarding themselves, as al Razi and others did.
Among the greatest of the causes of this is that they examined the reality of the saying of the philosophers and found that, according to them, the specific effect has always been alongside the doer, without beginning or end.
Clear reason, however, requires that the doer precede his action, and that if one imagines an effect of the doer along with imagining that it has always been alongside him without beginning, then the doer has not preceded it at all, rather it has been with him eternally and forever, and that plainly contradicts clear reason.
It is firmly settled in natural dispositions that for a thing that is an effect and created to be created, it must have been after not being. For this reason, what Allah has informed of in His Book, that He created the heavens and the earth, is understood by all creatures that they came into being after not existing.
As for imagining that they have always been with Him, while still being created by Him, this is something that the sound natural dispositions reject, and none has said it except a small group of the dahriyyah such as Ibn Sina and those like him.” (Majmu al Fatawa 18/225.)
From what has preceded it becomes more certain, for every fair minded person, that Ibn Sina has demolished tawhid of rububiyyah as part of his belief. So what is his share of the other two sections, did he affirm them or deny them.
Critiquing his belief in tawhid of uluhiyyah
Tawhid of uluhiyyah is to single out Allah, glorified and exalted, with worship, so that a person does not take along with Allah anyone else that he worships and draws near to. Whoever fails in this tawhid is a polytheist disbeliever, even if he affirms tawhid of rububiyyah and tawhid of the names and attributes.
Allah the Exalted said:
ولقد بعثنا في كل أمة رسولاً أن اعبدوا الله واجتنبوا الطاغوت
“We certainly sent into every community a messenger, saying, ‘Worship Allah and avoid false gods.’” (al Nahl 36).
Shirk in uluhiyyah is of two main forms.
The first is the shirk of negation, such as the shirk of Pharaoh, which includes denial of the Creator.
The second is the shirk of likening, such as the shirk of the Jews and the Christians in claiming that Uzayr is the son of Allah, and that the Messiah is the son of Allah, and in obeying their monks in making lawful what Allah has forbidden and forbidding what Allah has made lawful.
The shirk of negation itself is of three kinds.
One is to strip the made things of their Maker, as the Magians say that light is a god and that it is the creator of good.
The second is to strip Allah of His perfect sanctified perfection, either by denying His attributes or by affirming them in a way of likening.
The third is to strip Allah of His worship by devoting worship to others along with Him. (al Jawab al Kafi pp. 114–115, Sharh al Tahawiyyah by Ibn Abi al Izz p. 30, and Tajrid al Tawhid p. 187.)
In light of what has preceded, we will discuss Ibn Sina in two matters that are connected to tawhid of uluhiyyah, namely:
- One, the reality of tawhid.
- Two, the theory of emanation.
The reality of tawhid according to Ibn Sina
We mentioned at the beginning of this work that the Ismailiyyah, among whom Ibn Sina is one of the most famous leaders, adopted an absolute negation of the attributes of Allah, glorified be He, and rejected any attribute for Him from those by which He has described Himself. This is because, as they claim, He, the Exalted, is above the reach of the intellect, and the intellect is incapable of grasping His essence.
So negating attributes from Allah is a fundamental belief in tawhid according to the Ismailiyyah, because affirming them, according to their claim, means the absence of tawhid.
For this reason we find al Hamidi denying all attributes of Allah the Exalted, saying: “It is not to be said of Him that He is living, nor able, nor knowing, nor intelligent, nor complete, nor perfect, nor acting, because He is the Originator of the living, the able, the knowing, the complete, the perfect, the acting. Nor is it to be said that He has an essence, because every essence is a bearer of attributes…” (Ifham al Afaida al Batiniyyah by al Hamidi p. 12.)
Among the enormities of Ibn Sina is that he advises those who go to the graves to visit them that the visitor should turn with his spirit to the dead person, cling to him with his intention, and direct his aim and orientation towards him, so that no attention remains towards anything else. The more focused the intention and heart is upon him, the closer he is to benefiting from him. I say, if this is not shirk in uluhiyyah, then by Allah, there is no shirk in the universe. (al Jawahir al Mudiyyah 2/463–464, Juhud al Hanafiyyah 3/1294, and Ibn Sina bayn al Din wa al Falsafah p. 138.)
The Ismailiyyah claim that all the names and attributes of Allah only truly belong to His originated beings which are the spiritual essences, and to His creation which are the bodily forms.
So the most beautiful names of Allah are, in their view, nothing but indications to His higher spiritual boundaries and His lower bodily boundaries. They interpret the saying of Allah the Exalted:
ولله الأسماء الحسنى فادعوه بها
“And to Allah belong the most beautiful names, so call upon Him by them,” (Surah Al-A’raf :180)
to mean that the names intended are the boundaries, that is, that you seek reaching tawhid of Allah through them. This is because the Ismailiyyah claim that Allah did not create the universe directly, rather Allah the Exalted originated the letter kaf and brought forth the letter nun, and from kaf and nun Allah established the higher universe and the lower universe. (al Harakat al Batiniyyah fi al Alam al Islami pp. 85–86.)
So, in their understanding, the correct tawhid of Allah is to know His boundaries, and stripping Him of godhood is to declare Him alone, and stripping Him of names and attributes is to declare Him pure, because affirming these attributes and names for Allah, in their view, means partnership between Him and the rest of the existent things.
Accordingly, knowing Allah according to the Ismailiyyah is based on two considerations.
The first is stripping Allah and declaring Him pure of His names and attributes.
The second is that His tawhid means knowing His boundaries. (Ifham al Afaida al Batiniyyah by al Hamidi p. 12.)
After the Ismailiyyah strip Allah, Mighty and Majestic, of all His names and attributes, they transfer them to an originated being that Allah has brought into existence, which, according to their belief, is the First Intellect.
Al Kirmani describes this originated being, saying: “If Allah is far removed from every attribute, then the attributes of perfection are found in the first originated being which He brought forth.
It is, that is this originated being, the truth and the reality, it is the first existence, it is unity, it is the one, it is the pre eternity, it is the eternal, it is the First Intellect, it is the first intelligible, it is knowledge, it is the first knower, it is power, it is the first able one, it is life, it is the first living one.” (Rahat al Aql by al Kirmani p. 189.)
The One, as they claim, brought into existence by His will the first Precedent. This is therefore the First Intellect and the preferred veil.
From it there then appeared the Follower, brought forth from its light. Then all existent things appeared from the two of them and by means of them. So the first emanation is the origin of bringing into existence, and it is the starting point and to it is the return. (Rahat al Aql by al Kirmani p. 189.)
They claim that Allah, glorified be He, addressed the Intellect after creating it saying: “You are My split and My join, the one who overlooks My creation on My behalf. Through you I take My right, and through you I fulfil My promise.
By My might and My majesty, I will never accept one who denies you, and none who denies you will know Me. You are from Me without division, and I am in you without dwelling, and in you is the end of intellects.” (al Harakat al Batiniyyah fi al Alam al Islami p. 87.)
There is no doubt that this First Intellect, or Precedent, according to the Ismailiyyah, is the place of all the divine names and attributes.
It is in their belief the god represented in its external manifestations. Since prayer cannot be performed for a being that cannot be comprehended, it is, in their view, performed for its outward manifestation, that is, the intellect which thereby becomes the true god according to them.
Since it is not within the power of human beings to reach knowledge of the essence of Allah, and they only know the intellect, the Ismailiyyah therefore call the intellect the veil, or the locus, or the link. The First Intellect or the First Originated is, according to them, what Allah referred to as the Pen in the noble verse:
ن والقلم وما يسطرون
“Nūn. By the pen and what they inscribe.” (al Qalam 1).
On this basis, the Pen is the creator and fashioner, and it is the one that brought into existence the Universal Soul which the Quran referred to as the Preserved Tablet and which was described with all the attributes that belong to the Universal Intellect, except that the Intellect preceded it in tawhid of Allah and in merit. It was called the Precedent, and the Soul was called the Follower.
Through the Intellect and the Soul all the spiritual originated beings and bodily created things came into existence, of minerals, animals, plants, and humans, and what is in the heavens of stars and planets. (Dairat al Ma’arif al Islamiyyah 3/381.)
The Creator, according to the Ismailiyyah, is therefore the Universal Intellect and the Universal Soul. If Allah is mentioned in their speech, what is meant is the Universal Intellect.
It is also mentioned that the theory of the example and the exemplified, which the Ismailiyyah adopt, is based on the belief that the higher spiritual boundaries have exemplified counterparts in the lower bodily forms. This theory is an ancient philosophical theory, already mentioned by Plato in his books.
If we apply the theory of the example and the exemplified to the boundaries of the Ismailiyyah, then in the earthly universe there are bodily boundaries which correspond to the higher boundaries, and are described and named with their names, because Allah, glorified be He, who is declared pure of names and attributes, established the higher and lower universes upon ten complete boundaries, five spiritual boundaries and five bodily boundaries.
In their terminology, the earthly ranks consist of the Prophet, the Revelation, the Imam, the Proof, and the Summoner, and they claim that each of these has a counterpart in the higher universe, namely the Precedent, the Follower, the Grandfather, the Opening, and the Imagination, building this whole structure on how they interpret His saying, the Exalted:
وما كان لبشر أن يكلمه الله إلا وحياً أو من وراء حجاب أو يرسل رسولاً فيوحي بإذنه ما يشاء
“It is not for a human being that Allah should speak to him except through revelation, or from behind a veil, or by sending a messenger who reveals by His permission what He wills.” (al Shura 51).
They claim that what is meant by “revelation” here is the rank of the Grandfather, and that the “veil” is the rank of the Opening, and “He sends a messenger” is the rank of the Imagination. (al Harakat al Batiniyyah fi al Alam al Islami pp. 88–89, adapted.)
The da’is of the Ismailiyyah attempted to reconcile the cross, which is the symbol of Christianity, with the testimony of faith, which is the symbol of Islam, so that they might at the same time reconcile these with the higher Ismaili boundaries. (al Harakat al Batiniyyah fi al Alam al Islami pp. 88–89.)
Al Sijistani (d. 331 AH) stated this openly, saying: “The testimony of faith is built upon negation and affirmation, beginning with negation and ending with affirmation. Likewise the cross is two pieces of wood, one of them firm by itself, and another that has no firmness except through the firmness of the first. The testimony of faith is four words, and likewise the cross has four arms.
The lower arm of the cross, the one standing in the ground, represents the person who has the power of inner explanation. The souls of those who come to seek truth are said to rest with him. The upper arm in the sky represents the one who gives support, and the souls of those who are already supported are said to rest with him.
The two side arms in the middle, right and left, stand for the Follower and the Speaker. One of them is the one who puts things together, and the other is the one who sets things out, facing one another. The straight central arm is a sign for the Precedent, who, in their claim, provides all the letters.
The testimony of faith has seven parts, and the cross has four corners and three ends. These four corners and three ends are taken as a sign of the seven imams in their stages, just as the seven words in the testimony of faith are taken as a sign of the imams of the time of our Speaker ﷺ.
Each arm of the cross has three tips, which makes twelve in total, and they say that the testimony of faith also has twelve letters. Just as the testimony of faith is only complete when Muhammad ﷺ is mentioned in it, they say the cross only became honoured when the master of that time was put upon it. (al Yanabi from al Sijistani pp. 148–149.)
al Ghazali said: “As for the belief in two gods, it is plain disbelief without any hesitation, because they know that we hold that the universe has a single Maker, able, knowing, willing, speaking, hearing, seeing, living, there is nothing like unto Him. Whoever sees that as disbelief is himself, without doubt, a disbeliever.” (Fadaih al Batiniyyah by al Ghazali p. 151.)
From what has been explained it becomes clear to the reader, with firm certainty, what tawhid means for Ibn Sina, who took from the Ismaili atheists who play with the Sharia of Islam, who mock the universe, the creation, and the recompense, and who portray the messengers, peace be upon them, in line with their whims and lusts.
These lengthy Ismaili texts have only been reproduced here because the ordinary reader, if he were to read the works of Ibn Sina, might think well of them and see no harm in them and might even adopt what they contain, ignorant of their poisons and destructive defects. But if he knows the reality of the matter, he will recognise the difference.
فحسبكم هذا التفاوت بيننا
وكل إناء بالذي فيه ينضح
“It suffices you, as evidence, this vast difference between us,
and every vessel pours out what is in it.” (The one who said this was Saad ibn Muhammad ibn Saad, known as al Hays Bayz, a poet called Ibn al Fawaris, who died in 574 AH. Ibn Khallikan mentioned a remarkable story about him in Wafayat al Ayan 2/364–365.)
Critique of Ibn Sina’s belief in tawhid of the names and attributes
Tawhid of the names and attributes is to affirm and acknowledge everything that has come in the Book of Allah and in the Sunnah of His Messenger ﷺ of the names and attributes, and to establish all of that in the manner befitting the majesty and greatness of Allah, as an affirmation without likening and without asking how, singling them out as they have come, believing in them and holding them to be true, in line with the saying of Allah the Exalted: ليس كمثله شيء وهو السميع البصير “There is nothing like unto Him, and He is the All Hearing, the All Seeing.” (al Shura 11)
This tawhid has three foundations.
First, to affirm them with firm acknowledgement and admission that contains no doubt.
Second, to negate likeness, so that none of His attributes resemble any of the attributes of His creation.
Third, to negate asking how, which is knowledge of the true nature, reality, and essence of the attribute, as Allah the Lord of the worlds is described with it.
This tawhid has three pillars.
One is to believe in the name, such as the name of Allah, Allah, and al Rahman, and al Alim.
The second is to believe in the attribute from which the name is derived, such as uluhiyyah from which the majestic name Allah is derived, mercy from which the name al Rahman is derived, and knowledge from which the name al Alim is derived.
The third is to believe in the effects of the names and attributes, both in what Allah decrees in the universe and in what He legislates.
All creation is from the effects of His name al Khaliq and His attribute of creating. The command and the prohibition are from the effects of His legislative will in the religion. And so on. (al Qawaid al Kulliyyah lil Asma wal Sifat inda al Salaf p. 43–44.)
In light of what has preceded, we will discuss Ibn Sina briefly in two matters.
One, the stance of Ibn Sina regarding the names of Allah and His attributes.
Two, Ibn Sina’s interpretation of the names of Allah and His attributes.
One, the stance of Ibn Sina regarding the names of Allah and His attributes
The Batini thought, clothed in the Ismaili Shia garment, had a strong effect on Ibn Sina, to the extent that he speaks about his belief regarding the Ilah in the same manner that the Greek philosophers speak.
He says regarding the Ilah that He is the Necessary Existent, and he says that the Necessary Existent is that which, if it is assumed not to exist, this assumption entails an impossibility. So He is, therefore, necessary in existence.
He says about the possible existent: “The possible existent is that which, if it is assumed not to exist or to exist, this assumption does not entail an impossibility.” That is, the possible existent, according to Ibn Sina, is that which has no necessity in its existence or its non existence.
Then he says: if Allah is Necessary in existence in Himself, then that is what is sought. If He were a possible existent, then a possible existent does not enter into existence except through a cause that makes its existence more likely than its non existence.
If its cause were also a possible existent, and so on, with the chain of possible beings connected one to another, then nothing at all would ever exist, because this existent that we have assumed will not come into existence until it is preceded by an endless chain of existents, and that is impossible. Therefore possible beings must end in one that is Necessary in existence in Himself. (al Aqaid al Batiniyyah by Sabir Tuaymah p. 242.)
As for the knowledge of the Necessary Existent, then in the view of Ibn Sina He knows His own essence by His own essence. He knows what comes after Him insofar as He is the cause of what comes after Him, and He knows the rest of things insofar as they are necessary in the chain of ordered existence that descends from Him, lengthwise and across. As for the particular things, then in his view they are only known within a closed frame which is His knowledge of universals.
Since Ibn Sina was influenced by what he knew of the Greeks through Aristotle regarding the First Mover, it escaped him that Allah in Islam is the Creator of everything, the One by whose command nothing comes to completion except through Him, and by whose preservation nothing continues except through Him. He, glorified be He, knows everything, no matter how small or subtle. He, glorified be He, is the One who brought the universe out from non existence into existence.
This is the Creator Ilah whose knowledge He described in His Book saying:
وعنده مفاتح الغيب لا يعلمها إلا هو ويعلم ما في البر والبحر وما تسقط من ورقة إلا يعلمها ولا حبة في ظلمات الأرض ولا رطب ولا يابس إلا في كتاب مبين
“With Him are the keys of the unseen, none knows them but He. He knows what is in the land and in the sea. Not a leaf falls but He knows it, nor a grain in the darkness of the earth, nor anything fresh or dry, but it is all in a clear Book.” (al Anam 59)
After speaking of the Necessary Existent and the possible existent, Ibn Sina became deeply occupied with the question of the Cause of causes in the thought of Socrates, which he called the Active Intellect.
According to Ibn Sina, this Active Intellect is the source from which, through material movements, human beings, ideas, and essential forms proceed, which the earthly matter must accept so that they settle in it.
Matter, according to Ibn Sina, is not originated, rather it is eternal, as it is for Aristotle. Ibn Sina accepted Aristotle’s theory of causes and the question of active universals, which speaks of intellects that create apart from Allah.
This is the theory of Plato regarding the propagation of the second intellect from the first intellect, followed by another intellect and another intellect until ten intellects. Beneath each intellect there is a sphere whose image is the universal in the Creator Ilah, where they hold that the existing things proceed through the complete intellect rather than proceeding by the command of Allah the Creator. (al Aqaid al Batiniyyah by Sabir Tuaymah pp. 243–245.)
Shaykh al Islam, may Allah have mercy on him, said: “Ibn Sina realised that his saying could not be completed except upon what he claimed about tawhid, whose content is the negation of the attributes of the Lord and His actions that subsist in His essence, as those from the Mu’tazilah who agreed with him in this followed him upon it.
Through their agreement with him in this, he overcame them and the contradiction in their statements became apparent, even though his own statement is more severely contradictory from another angle. Yet he began to use, as an argument against the invalidity of their statement, the very thing they share with him, which is the negation of the attributes of Allah. This is the root of the Jahmiyyah.
This is the reality of the matter, for the proof of those who claim the eternity of the universe, which Aristotle and his followers such as al Farabi, Ibn Sina, and those like them relied upon, cannot be completed except by negating the actions of the Lord which subsist in His essence, indeed by negating His attributes. If this root is disputed with them, their proof is destroyed.
If this root is surrendered to them, it becomes a proof that they use against whoever has surrendered it to them, just as there also becomes a proof against them from another angle. For this reason, those who hold the view that the voluntary actions of the Lord that subsist in Him are negated, fall in the question of the eternity of the universe into one of two states.
Either they fall into confusion and suspension of judgement, or they fall into obstinacy and sophistry, so that they are either in doubt or upon falsehood. Ibn Sina bequeathed the root that contains the negation of the attributes of the Lord and His actions that subsist in Him, then he mentioned the two sayings regarding the eternity and the origination of the universe, while favouring eternity and leaving the choice to the one who studies the matter, after he has already conceded the root by which one can argue against the one who believes in origination.
We will show, if Allah wills, that his statement together with conceding the negation of the attributes and the actions that subsist in Allah is more corrupt and contradictory than the statement of those who hold the view that the universe is originated. For if there is in the statement of these people what contradicts clear reason, then in the statement of those followers of his there is something that contradicts the clear intellect even more severely.
This is because if the essence is simple, having no action subsisting in it at all, then the impossibility of different and originated things proceeding from it, whether directly or through an intermediary, eternally, is even more certain and intense than the impossibility of their proceeding from it after they had not proceeded.
If it were possible for an originated thing to proceed from it without a cause originating in it, it would be possible for originated things to proceed from it after not having done so.
If that is not possible, then the proceeding of different originated things from it, whether through an intermediary or without an intermediary, eternally, and without any action from it, is more impossible than the proceeding of different things from it after they had not proceeded.” (Dar Ta’arud al Aql wa al Naql 9/268–269.)
Strangely, Ibn Sina hesitated in affirming the attribute of knowledge for Allah the Exalted, and claimed that Allah, glorified be He, does not know particulars.
“As for the saying of some philosophers that He only knows universals, then this is among the most corrupt and evil of statements. For this reason none of the groups of the Ummah has said it. These people are worse than those who deny eternal knowledge, such as the Qadariyyah and others.” (Dar Taʿarud al Aql wa al Naql 9/268)
Shaykh al Islam said: “As for what he mentioned that the philosophers do not say that He only knows particulars, but rather they hold that He does not know them with originated knowledge, and his denial that the Peripatetics among the philosophers deny His knowledge of the particulars of the universe, this shows his excessive partisanship for these philosophers with falsehood and his lack of knowledge of the reality of their madhhab. He is always zealous in defending Aristotle, the author of the logical and theological teachings.
His speech regarding the question of knowledge is well known and recorded in his book Metaphysics. Abu al Barakat, the author of al Mu’tabar, and others, have quoted his words verbatim and Abu al Barakat refuted it while still magnifying him.
Aristotle denied the knowledge of the Lord of any of the events at all, and his speech on this, and his argument, is among the most corrupt of speech.
However Ibn Sina and those like him claimed that He only knows universals, and that He knows particulars in a universal way. They fled from accepting change in His knowledge.”
The early philosophers went to the view that He only knows His own essence, then from His necessary knowledge of His essence the existents follow, and these existents are not known to Him, meaning that there is no form of them with Him in detail or in summary.
A group among them went to the view that He knows universals and not particulars. A group went to the view that He knows the universal and the particular together, in a way that no deficiency or shortcoming enters into His knowledge. This third saying is similar to the view that Ibn Rushd chose.
As for the second and first sayings, these are the two which al Ghazali recorded from the philosophers. Al Ghazali said that some of them said that He only knows His own essence, and some of them accepted that He knows other than His essence.
Al Ghazali said that this is what Ibn Sina chose, for he claimed that He knows all things in a universal way that does not enter under time, and that He does not know particulars which would require that His knowledge of them be renewed with the renewal of things, which in their view would entail change in the essence of the Knower.
Al Ghazali mentioned that they all agreed that He does not know particulars which are divided by the division of time, such as what is, what was, and what will be.” (Hibbat Allah ibn Ali ibn Malka 480–560 AH, a physician and philosopher who was Jewish then embraced Islam, whose most famous work is al Mu’tabar in wisdom. Ibn Taymiyyah critiqued him and preferred him to many of the theologians and philosophers. See Dar Ta’arud al Aql wa al Naql 6/248.)
Ibn Sina said in al Risalah al Adhawiyyah: “Is He one in essence while having many descriptions, or is He receptive of multiplicity. Exalted is He above that from every angle.” (Dar Ta’arud al Aql wa al Naql 9/268–271)
It is said to him: The heavenly book is full of texts that affirm the attributes of Allah the Exalted, such as knowledge, power, mercy, and so on. No two intelligent people differ that these verses do not indicate negation of the attributes.
Rather, they indicate the saying of the people of affirmation. The most that the negators claim is that the apparent meaning of the verses points to that, and that it can be interpreted away for the sake of what they claim is an opposing proof.
The knowledge that the attributes are affirmed in the speech of Allah and His Messenger, after reflecting upon the revealed texts, is necessary knowledge which leaves no room for doubt.
It is stronger than the knowledge that proves shufah, the inheritance of the grandmother, the prohibition of a woman upon her paternal and maternal aunt, and the prostration of forgetfulness in the prayer. (Dar Ta’arud al Aql wa al Naql 5/50.)
Shaykh al Islam then refuted Ibn Sina regarding his words: “Is He one whose essence is confined in a place, or is He far removed from direction.”
He said: “This too is among their arguments against those who affirm the attributes, for the heavenly books describe Him with highness and above ness, and do not negate that He is above the universe as the negators say. As for the terms confinement and direction, these are ambiguous. The negators intend from them something other than what is intended in the known language.
Since the term confinement is ambiguous and misleading, many of those who affirm the attributes refrained from stating that it is either negated or affirmed. Without doubt, you do not find from any of the Salaf and imams either affirmation or negation of this term.” (Dar Ta’arud al Aql wa al Naql 5/55–57.)
Ibn Sina said: “To acknowledge the Creator as sanctified from number, manner, place, time, position, and change, until belief becomes that He is a single essence that cannot have any partner in kind, nor can He have any existent part, whether quantitative or abstract.”
Ibn Taymiyyah, may Allah have mercy on him, said: “This statement of his may appear to the ignorant as if it is exalting Allah, whereas what he means by it is that there is no knowledge for Allah, no power, no will, no speech, no love, and that He is neither seen nor separate from His creation.” (Dar Ta’arud al Aql wa al Naql 5/87.)
From here, some of those who followed him in denying the attributes invented the title al Muwahhidun, meaning the monotheists, for those who followed them.
The final end of these people is that they say that He is absolute existence conditioned by being absolute, as some of them said, or conditioned by the negation of positive matters, as Ibn Sina and his followers said, or that He is absolute existence without condition, as al Qunawi and those like him said.
Plain reason, which has never lied, makes it known that these sayings are false and contradictory from several aspects.
One is that making knowledge itself identical with power, and power itself identical with will and intent, and life itself identical with knowledge and power, and knowledge itself identical with action and originating and so on, is known to be corrupt by necessity, because these are varied realities. If you make this reality the same as that reality it is like the one who says that the reality of blackness is the reality of taste, and the reality of taste is the reality of colour, and similar things where varied realities are made into a single reality.
Another is that it is known that what subsists by itself is not the same as what subsists by another, that the body is not the same as an accident, that the subject is not the same as the attribute, and that the essence is not the same as the descriptions.
Whoever says that the knower is the knowledge and that the knowledge is the knower is clearly astray. Likewise it is known that knowledge is not the known. Whoever says that knowledge is the known and the known is the knowledge is also clearly astray.
Another is that to say that there is absolute existence conditioned by being absolute, or conditioned by the negation of positive matters, or without condition, is something that reason knows does not exist in external reality, and that it only exists in the mind.
This is something they themselves acknowledged in their Greek logic and explained, namely that an absolute thing conditioned by being absolute, such as an absolute body, or absolute existence conditioned by being absolute, exists only in minds, not in external things. (Dar Ta’arud al Aql wa al Naql 1/285–286.)
Ibn Sina said: “It is not allowed that He understands things by the things themselves, otherwise His essence would either be constituted by what He understands, in which case He would be constituted by things, or His essence would be incidental to them in order to understand them, in which case He would not be Necessary in existence from every aspect.” (al Ilahiyyat from al Shifa by Ibn Sina 3/246.)
Ibn Taymiyyah, may Allah have mercy on him, said: “Your statement that ‘He understands things by things’ what do you mean by it. Do you mean that things make Him one who understands, so that they teach Him knowledge of them. Or do you intend that His knowledge of things does not occur except with the occurrence of the thing known. Or do you intend that His knowledge of things is only after the existence of the thing known.
As for the first meaning, no Muslim says this, rather the Muslims are agreed that Allah is independent of all besides Him in His knowledge of things and in other matters, and that He is the teacher of everyone who knows, whoever he may be. Allah the Exalted said:
ولا يحيطون بشيء من علمه إلا بما شاء
“They do not encompass anything of His knowledge except what He wills.” (al Baqarah 255)
And He said:
تعلمونهن مما علمكم الله
“You teach them from what Allah has taught you.” (al Maidah 4)
If by this he means that Allah knows things after they exist, then there is no doubt that He knows what will be before it is, and when it is, does there arise for Him a new knowledge, or is His knowledge of it when it was non existent the same as His knowledge of it when it exists. This is an issue in which there is disagreement among the thinkers. Whichever of the two sayings is correct, the answer is obtained by it.” (Dar Ta’arud al Aql wa al Naql 10/15–17, slightly adapted.)
Ibn Sina’s interpretation of the names and attributes of Allah
Ibn Sina says in al Risalah al Samadiyyah in his explanation of Surah al Ikhlas, “Say, He is Allah, One”: “‘He’ is the absolute ‘He’, which is that whose essence does not depend on anything other than itself. For as long as something depends on something else, that other thing must be considered for it to be considered. In that case it would not be ‘He’ Himself. Only that whose ‘He-ness’ belongs to it by itself, whether other things are taken into account or not, is truly ‘He’.
On this basis, when we consider the description ‘He’ which Allah used for Himself, we must decide that He is not a possible existent, because the possible existent depends on another.
Nor can there be any difference between His essence and His existence, because anyone whose essence differs from his existence, his existence is from another. For his essence, before it exists, cannot be a cause for bringing itself into existence. If his existence is from another, then he is not ‘He’ Himself.
Likewise it is necessary that He not be composed of parts at all, otherwise His existence would depend on those parts, and then He would not be ‘He’. It is also necessary that He have no definition, meaning that He is not composed in the mind of genus and differentia, since He has no constituents.
For this reason, when Allah wanted to explain His ‘He-ness’ He brought a description that gathers together what is necessarily entailed by His essence as such, and what is necessarily entailed by it in relation to other things, so that it would be a clear description, and He did not bring a definition, because He has no definition.
So He said ‘Allah’. The absolute Ilah is the one to whom all existing things are ascribed, and this is an ascription. He is not ascribed to anything else, and this is a negation.
After that He made explicit what the absolute ‘He-ness’ necessitates and what serves as a proof of it by negating composition from Him. So He said ‘Ahad’ without restriction, meaning that He is extreme in oneness.
Excessive oneness can only be realised through complete simplicity. Then He said ‘Allah al Samad’, so He wished to explain the ‘Ilahiyyah’ which He had made a descriptor of the absolute ‘He-ness’. He said ‘al Samad’, which is the one that has no inside and no interior. So He is therefore stripped of ‘essence’, for anyone who has an essence has an interior, which is his essence.
In reality, the Necessary Existent is ‘He-ness and existence only’. This entails His everlastingness, just as His ‘He-ness’ entailed His pre eternity.” (And Ibn Sina has a strange and astonishing interpretation, all of it layers of darkness, especially in his explanation of Surah al Nas, “They distort words from their places”. See Ibn Sina bayna al Din wal Falsafah p. 203.)
He then says: “Al Samad in the language is the master. Its meaning here is that He is the master of all, that is, the principle from which everything proceeds. He is therefore the cause of order and of place in existence. The first meaning of al Samad is negative. The second is relational. Together they establish the meaning of Ilahiyyah.
Since al Samad carries the sense that everything proceeds from Him, the Quran then negated that anything like Him could be born from Him, and then established the proof for that by saying, ‘He does not beget’. That is, nothing is born from Him.
If something were born from Him like Him, it would share with Him in something and differ from Him in something else. There is no distinction except through matter and its relations. Every being that is material or that has a relation to matter is born from another, whereas He is not born from another.
The proof that He is not born from another is what was mentioned at the beginning of the surah, that He is ‘He’, that is, an absolute ‘He-ness’. Whatever is born from another depends on that other, so it is not an absolute ‘He-ness’.
It is also understood from His saying ‘He was not born’ that Allah has no equal in existence. That is because anyone whose essence is shared with another, if it is assumed that the equal is of the same species, then his existence must be material, and so he would be born from another. If the equal is equal in the generic essence, this means that he becomes composed of a genus, which is like a mother, and a differentia, which is like a father, so he is born from another.
If the Necessary Existent is one from every aspect, and has no partner in species or genus, and is free of non existence and deficiency, can He then have an equivalent in existence. The answer is: no. For this reason Allah said:
ولم يكن له كفوا أحد
“And there is none comparable to Him.” (Surah Al Ikhas: 4)
Look at the completeness of the realities of this surah. He first pointed to the pure ‘He-ness’ that has no name except that He is ‘He’. Then He followed that by mentioning Ilahiyyah, which is the closest of the necessary concomitants of that reality and the strongest in definition, as we have explained…” (Ibn Sina bayna al Din wal Falsafah p. 108. The compiler says: I advise everyone who reads this book, Ibn Sina bayna al Din wal Falsafah by Mahmud Ghurabah, to be wary of its author’s admiration of Ibn Sina and his praise of him and his philosophy. The author, may Allah pardon him, is one of those who love Ibn Sina and hold him and his philosophy in high regard. He attacked the sultan Mahmud ibn Sabuktakin claiming that he was an enemy of Ibn Sina and that he insulted his person. I have refuted him in my book ‘Mahmud ibn Sabuktakin al Ghaznawi wa mawqifuhu min aqidat Ahl al Sunnah wal Jamaah’.)
He also said in explaining His saying, “And on that Day eight will carry the Throne of your Lord above them” (al Haqqah 17):
“The Throne is the encompassing sphere, and what is meant by the eight is the eight inner spheres contained within it. What is meant by ‘the Day’ in His saying ‘on that Day’ is the Day of Resurrection. And what is the Day of Resurrection according to him. He says: It is the day of death, meaning the day when the soul separates from the body.
Then he gives a reason why the threats and promises and similar things were made specific to this time, and he says: The certainty of the soul at the time of separation is stronger.”
He said regarding Paradise and Hell:
“The universes are three. The universe of sense, the universe of imagination and estimation, and the universe of intellect. The intellectual universe, where the place of the soul is, is Paradise. The imaginative estimative universe, where destruction is, is Hell. The sensory universe is the universe of graves.”
He then says, preparing for the meaning of the Sirat: “The soul needs the external senses in its reaching the intelligible notions. We know that perceptions pass from the external sense to the imagination and estimation. This is from Hell a path and a very fine and difficult Sirat, until it reaches the essence of the Intellect, that is, Paradise.”
Therefore he sees that whoever stops before reaching the degree of knowledge is in Hell, and whoever continues until he reaches it has crossed the Sirat and reached the abode of salvation. (Ibn Sina bayna al Din wal Falsafah p. 168.)
He says in explaining His saying, “Over it are nineteen” (al Muddaththir 30): “Since it has become clear that Hell is what it is, and since we have explained that in general it is the animal soul, and that this soul is the one that remains forever in Hell, and that it is divided into two parts, cognitive and practical. The practical part is desiderative and angry. The cognitive part is the conceptions of imagination of the things perceived by the external senses, and those perceived things are sixteen.
The estimative power that judges those images with a judgement that is not necessary is one. Sixteen are the conceptions of imagination of the things perceived by the senses, and one is the estimative power, so that is seventeen. Added to them are the desiderative power and the angry power, which are the two parts of the practical power, so the total becomes nineteen.” (Ibn Sina bayna al Din wal Falsafah p. 169.)
He said about the number of the gates of Paradise, may Allah make us among its people, and the number of the gates of Hell, we seek refuge in Allah from the condition of its people:
“It is known that the things perceived are either perceived as particulars together with their matter, such as the external senses, and these are five, or perceived as conceptions without matter, such as the storehouse of the senses which is called imagination, or a power that judges them with a judgement which is not necessary, and that is estimation, or a power that judges with a necessary judgement, which is intellect. These are eight, meaning the gates of Paradise.
When all eight are gathered together as a whole, they lead to everlasting happiness and entry into Paradise. When seven of them are realised without being completed by the eighth, they lead to everlasting misery.
In language usage, that which leads to something is called a gate to it. The seven that lead to Hell are called its gates, and the eight that lead to Paradise are called its gates. This is what the religion aims at with its indications and symbols of meanings and realities.” (Ibn Sina bayna al Din wal Falsafah p. 169. He also says in Risalat al Mabda wal Maad p. 254: “This is a closed discourse beneath which are many meanings. To explain it in full reality would require volumes.”)
It becomes clear to him that Ibn Sina plays with tawhid of Allah, the rulings of Islam, and the matters of the unseen in a way that even the major idolaters of the Arabs at the time of the Messenger ﷺ did not do.
Allah has spoken the truth when He said:
يريدون ليطفئوا نور الله بأفواههم والله متم نوره ولو كره الكافرون
“They want to extinguish the light of Allah with their mouths, but Allah will perfect His light, even if the disbelievers hate it.” (al Saff 8).
His belief regarding resurrection, the return, and the matters of the hereafter
Ibn Sina denies bodily resurrection on the pretext that the intellect is incapable of conceiving it. The dahri philosophers, such as al Farabi and Ibn Sina, claim that the intellect deems bodily resurrection impossible, so in their view the rational evidences must be given priority over what is indicated by revelation.
They speak to those who affirm the return among the Mu’tazilah and those who agree with them in negating that, with the same form of address as the Mu’tazilah who affirm the attributes use when they address those who affirm the attributes. They say to them: “Our statement regarding the texts of the return is like your statement regarding the texts of the attributes.” (Dar Ta’arud al Aql wa al Naql 5/250.)
al Ghazali said: “They, that is the Ismailiyyah, have unanimously agreed on denying the Resurrection. They say that this observable order in this universe, of the alternation of night and day, of the coming into being of the human being from a drop, and the drop from a human being, and the origination of plants, will remain as it is.
They interpret the Resurrection and say that it is a symbol for the emergence of the Imam and the rise of the Qa’im of the time, who is the seventh, the abrogator of the law and the distinguisher of the matter. As for the return, they deny what the prophets brought about it and do not affirm the gathering and resurrection of bodies, or Paradise and Hell.
They say instead that the meaning of the return is that everything returns to its origin. They claim that the souls of those who oppose the madhhab of the Ismailiyyah remain in the Fire forever, in the sense that they remain in the bodily universe, with bodies succeeding each other without end.
They say the souls never cease transferring from one body to another body, so that they are always exposed to pains and sicknesses, never leaving one body without another body receiving them.” (Fadaih al Batiniyyah by al Ghazali p. 44.)
The Resurrection, according to them, means the return of the spirit to its origin, which is the Universal Soul, meaning the nullification of punishment and reward in Paradise and Hell.
Punishment, in their view, is the pains and illnesses which the spirit experiences as it moves between bodies and changing forms. Reward is the pleasures that the believer receives from levels of knowledge.
Jaafar ibn Mansur al Yaman considered the belief in the bodily resurrection to be laughable, because everlasting life, in his view, is nothing more than the return of the spirit to its origin. For this reason their poet Amr al Basri said:
ولي صورةٌ محصورةُ القدرِ ضبطُها
ظهوري لعيني عند لبسي بُردتي
فأبدو بها صورةً بعدَ صورةٍ
وآخرُ ما يتلوه أولُ نشأتي
قيامتي الصغرى بخلعي وإنّما
قيامتي الكبرى بتتميمِ دورتي
“I have a form confined within a set measure,
its appearance to my eyes when I wear my two garments.
I appear with it in one form after another,
and the last of what follows it is the first of my origin.
My lesser Resurrection is my removing them,
and my greater Resurrection is the completion of my cycle.” (Arba Rasa’il Ismailiyyah, edited by Arif Tamir, p. 93.)
Some of the Ismailiyyah considered the punishment of the grave to be the effect on the soul caused by what appears upon it of material forms opposed to its nature, and they considered this to be in the way of symbolic expression.
They considered the rising to be the appearance of the souls in universe after universe according to what they have earned.
They interpreted the Resurrection upon this basis as the rising of the particular souls which have separated from the sensible perceptions and bodily instruments, and as the rising of the laws and religions through the appearance of the master of the time, and as the rising of the cycle through the emergence of the Universal Soul that calls to account the particular souls, and as the rising of the Great Resurrection through complete sincerity, salvation, and the rest of all souls from being brought and sent back. (al Harakat al Batiniyyah wa mawqif al Islam minha p. 115.)
Paradise of bliss, in their view, is the universe of knowledge, and its degrees are the levels of knowledge. As for the pleasures, they are the journeyings of the souls in the space of their ascents and their delight upon reaching their witnessing and stations. (al Harakat al Batiniyyah wa mawqif al Islam minha p. 116.)
Ibn Sina asserts what has been mentioned, by his belief that the verses of the Quran and the hadiths of the Messenger ﷺ which affirm the matters of the hereafter are nothing but symbols and hints which the Prophet used because he was addressing people who were not able to grasp these realities. He therefore established for them the matter of the return in a manner whose nature they could imagine and which their souls could find rest in according to what they understood and pictured. (Ibn Sina bayna al Din wal Falsafah p. 165.)
Ibn Sina can be refuted in this place by a question. What do you do with the verses of the Quran and the hadiths that narrate to us and depict for us the state of the people of bliss in Paradise and the state of the people of Hell in the Fire.
What do you do with the verses that mention the regret of the disbelievers for their life in the universe, such as His saying:
ربنا هؤلاء أضلونا فأتهم عذاباً ضعفا من النار
“Our Lord, these are the ones who led us astray. So give them double punishment in the Fire.” (al Araf 38),
and His saying:
ربنا هؤلاء الذين أغوينا أغويناهم كما غوينا تبرأنا إليك ما كانوا إيانا يعبدون
“Our Lord, these are the ones whom we led astray. We led them astray as we were led astray. We declare our innocence before You. They did not worship us.” (al Qasas 63).
Are all of these symbols and hints.
His belief regarding the sahabah, may Allah be pleased with them all
Shaykh al Islam Ibn Taymiyyah, may Allah have mercy on him, said: “…Likewise Ibn Sina and others mention, of belittling the companions, what he inherited from his father and his sect among the Qaramita, to the point that when they speak, at the end of their discussions on philosophy, about the need of the human species for Imamah, they allude to the sayings of the misguided Rafidah. The former openly curse and insult more than the latter.” (Majmu Fatawa Ibn Taymiyyah 1/103.)
His belief regarding the soul and the spirit
Ibn Sina was influenced by Aristotle’s book De Anima, as he was influenced by his Ismaili madhhab and by the Platonic spiritual orientation. He said, in defining the soul, that it is a substance that exists by itself, and that it is at once a substance and a form.
Ibn Sina begins from the famous Socratic advice “Know yourself”, for correct knowledge begins with knowledge of the soul and from it wisdom begins. Since every knowledge begins with knowledge of the soul, knowing the soul is a path to knowing Allah and then to knowing the rest of the existents. (Kitab al Ruh by Ibn al Qayyim, may Allah have mercy on him, with the tahqiq by Dr Bassam al Amush)
Ibn Sina says: “The sages and friends of Allah have agreed that whoever knows himself knows his Lord, and whoever is incapable of knowing himself is even more fitting to be incapable of knowing his Creator.”
Ibn Sina divides the soul into three types.
First, the plant soul, which is the first perfection of a natural organic body that has life in potential from the aspect that it grows, feeds, and reproduces.
Second, the animal soul, which is the first perfection of a natural organic body that has life in potential from the aspect that it perceives and moves by will.
Third, the human soul, which is the first perfection of a natural organic body that has life in potential from the aspect that it grasps intelligibles and performs acts that occur through deliberation and choice.
Did Ibn Sina repent and return from his deviant belief?
Ibn Khallikan (d. 681 AH) claimed in Wafayat al Ayan that Ibn Sina bathed, repented, gave what he possessed in charity to the poor, returned wrongfully taken property to those he recognised, freed his slaves, began completing a full recitation of the Quran every three days, and then died. (Wafayat al Ayan 2/160).
There are several points of criticism regarding this report.
First: there is no established, widely transmitted and sound report that Ibn Sina retracted his belief. If that were authentic his news would have spread and become well known, and his enemies would have accepted it before his followers.
Many scholars lived for a long period holding false beliefs until, when Allah willed guidance for them, the light of truth shone in their hearts and illuminated their insight. They then wrote their repentance or announced it and brought witnesses to it. There are many examples of this, among them:
Ali ibn Ismail al Ashari (d. 324 AH).
He remained for forty years upon the madhhab of the Mu’tazilah. One day he came out to the mosque, mounted the pulpit and said: “People, I only withdrew from you during this period because I examined the proofs and they balanced out in my view. No truth outweighed falsehood and no falsehood outweighed truth.
So I sought guidance from Allah, Blessed and Exalted, and He guided me to hold what I have placed in these books of mine. I strip myself of everything that I used to believe, just as I strip myself of this garment.” He then removed a garment he was wearing and threw it away.
He then followed, may Allah have mercy on him, the madhhab of Ahl al Sunnah wal Jamaah and died upon that. (Siyar Alam al Nubala 15/86, I’tiqad Abi al Hasan al Ashari p. 14.)
al Ghazali (d. 505 AH).
He was one of the pillars of the Ashari madhhab, and had many philosophical and mystical excesses. Towards the end of his life he inclined to the way of the people of hadith and died with Sahih al Bukhari on his chest, and many scholars and historians affirmed that. (Dar Ta’arud al Aql wa al Naql 1/162, Sharh al Tahawiyyah p. 269.)
al Juwayni (d. 478 AH).
He was a theologian, Ashari, and philosopher. He said: “My companions, do not occupy yourselves with kalam. If I had known that kalam would bring me to what it has brought me to, I would not have engaged in it.”
He also said at the time of his death: “I have plunged into the deep ocean. I left the people of Islam and their sciences and entered that which they had forbidden me from. Now, if my Lord does not catch me with His mercy, then woe to Ibn al Juwayni.” He also said: “I die upon the belief of my mother,” or he said, “upon the belief of the old women of Nishapur.” This is evidence of his repentance, may Allah have mercy on him and pardon him. (Sharh al Tahawiyyah p. 271.)
There are many such examples, well known and famous. Praise belongs to Allah for Islam and the Sunnah.
Even if the repentance of Ibn Sina were authentic, why did he not disavow his belief, burn his writings, or denounce what is in them. If that had been established, the scholars would have transmitted his news and ruled that what had been attributed to him was not correct, and they would have declared that clearly in their critiques of his books and beliefs.
Dozens of great imams have written his biography, such as Ibn Taymiyyah, Ibn al Qayyim, al Dhahabi, Ibn Kathir, Ibn al Athir, Ibn Hajar, al Safadi, al Shahristani, al Bayhaqi and others, and none of them confirmed the report of his repentance or even hinted that it was established, whether from near or far. (Ibn Kathir alluded to the weakness of the report of Ibn Sina’s repentance by saying: “It is said that he repented at the time of death, and Allah knows best.” See al Bidayah wa al Nihayah 12/46. Ibn al Imad also reported from al Yafi’i: “I have read his book al Shifa, and I do not consider its contents to be of any weight, due to its inclusion of philosophy that no pious heart can feel at ease with. Allah knows best his final state and the soundness of his repentance.” See Shadharat al Dhahab 3/237.)
Ibn Khallikan is the main source for most of those who wrote the biography of Ibn Sina, and they rely heavily upon him. However, through careful reading and examination it becomes clear that many of his reports and narrations are not sound. At times he confuses and mixes matters and does not take care to observe truth and fairness.
Ibn Kathir, may Allah have mercy on him, said in the biography of Ibn al Rawandi the heretic (d. 298 AH): “Ibn Khallikan mentioned him in Wafayat al Ayan and praised him, and did not bring anything against him, as if a dog had not stolen his dough. This is his usual way with scholars and poets. For the poets he lengthens their biographies, while for the scholars he gives only a short biography, and for the heretics he leaves out mention of their heresy.” (al Bidayah wa al Nihayah 11/121).
