IBN TAYMĪYAH (AH 661–728/1263–1328 CE), more fully, Taqī al-Dīn Abū al-ʿAbbās Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥalīm ibn ʿAbd al-Salām al-Ḥarrānī al-Dimashqī, was a jurisconsult, theologian, and Ṣūfī. He was born in Harran, and at the age of six he fled with his father and brothers to Damascus during the Mongol invasions. Ibn Taymīyah devoted himself from early youth to various Islamic sciences (Qurʾān, ḥadīth, and legal studies), and he was a voracious reader of books on sciences that were not taught in the regular institutions of learning, including logic, philosophy, and kalām.

Early Career

Ibn Taymīyah studied law under the direction of his father and Shams al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Maqdisī (d. 1283). Under several teachers of ḥadīth he studied a number of works, in...