Ibn Taymiyyah on Creation ex Materia

This book is the second in a series of translations of Ibn Taymiyyah's theological works. It covers a variety of topics, from the evidence of God's perfection to the signs of Prophethood and from the meaning of God's creative agency to the compatibility of divine predestination with human moral agency. The series aims to provide English-speaking readers with access to Ibn Taymiyyah's articulations of these important matters of faith. Its goal is to demonstrate the superior rationality of the Islamic faith over the conflicting claims of rationality offered by other religions, philosophies, and theological positions.

Such an English series is much needed nowadays, especially in response to the current challenges posed by growing atheism trends. Ibn Taymiyyah's exceptional insight and distinguished explanations of Qur'anic arguments have helped many Muslims remain intellectually satisfied in the face of doubts and challenges presented by competing world views.

In Bayan Talbis al-Jahmiyyah, Ibn Taymiyyah provides a rational argument against the philosophical position that creation ex materia is necessarily a rearrangement of already existing matter. In his other work, Kitab al-Nubuwwat, he promotes a more scriptural definition of creation ex-material that involves the origination of substances in place of other substances. The concept is very similar to ex nihilo creation, but with the subtle difference that the substantial origination must be accompanied by the annihilation of a prior material that carries the potential for that origination. This intuitive conception implies that the creations come into actual existence out of prior material conditions that cease to exist entirely. This allows Ibn Taymiyyah to successfully argue for the eternal Originator using direct empirical observations of animals and trees without any need to commit to the further assertion that this world was originated ex nihilo in the unobservable past.

By Taqi al-Din Ahmad Ibn Abd al-Halim al-Harrani
Arabic With English Translation and Notes
Paperback
285 Pages
A5 size

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