You are here: HomeSeries Did Ibn Taymiyyah Believe the Universe is Eternal? Series
The Greek Philosophers spoke of the eternity of matter (an eternal universe) and the Ahl al-Kalaam (Jahmiyyah, Mu'tazilah, Ash'ariyyah, Maturidiyyah, and Karraamiyyah and Rafidi Mujassimah) attempted to affirm the origination of the universe by employing the conceptual tools of those same Greek Philosophers to devise a rational proof. In the process some were forced into ta'teel (divestment of Allaah's attributes) and others fell into tajseem. When those who were upon the way of the Greek Philosophers such as al-Farabi (d. 339H) and Ibn Sina (d. 429H) saw the inherent flaw in this proof, they pounced and used it as an argument to bolster their claim of the universe being eternal, despite the fact that they never had any fundamental proof that the universe is eternal to begin with. In this manner, the Ahl al-Kalaam opened up a door of great evil upon the Ummah. Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah seeing the errors of the Mutakallimin in this regard wrote extensively on this matter and aided the Mutakallimin against the Philosophers by correcting the errors of the Mutakallimeeen, pointing out the flaws in their argument and showing them the correct way to combat the Philosophers and destroy their arguments. Because of the feeble and crippled intellects of many of his adversaries from the Ahl al-Kalam (the Ash'arites in particular), they accused Ibn Taymiyyah of affirming the universe is eternal, without actually understanding his words and arguments. In this series of articles we will address this matter by Allaah's permission.
