ABSTRACT

Abd al-Halim was born in Harran on 10 Rabi al-Awwal 661/22 January 1263 and died in Damascus on 20 Dhu

) l qada

728/26 September 1328. As a jurist and a theologian he was a leading defender of the Hanbali school of Sunni Islam and has had a lasting effect on Islamic cultural life through his influence on Ibn al-Wahhab. Ibn Taymiyya came from a well-

known family of scholars that had to leave Harran during the invasion of Mongols, and his father got a teaching post at a hadith school (dar al-hadith) in Damascus. He held a chair at the Umayyad Mosque of Damascus on Fridays. Ibn Taymiyya succeeded his father at the same mosque, where he gave lectures on

Qur ) anic exegesis (tafsir). During his

lifetime, because of the Mongol invasions and the onset of the Crusades, the prevailing political and military conditions in the Muslim world worsened. Ibn Taymiyya started his education at

an early age in the Sukkariyya hadith school (dar al-hadith) of Damascus, where he received his education under the direction of more than 200 prominent scholars of the time. He first memorized the Qur

) an

in Damascus, then studied Arabic grammar and lexicography under Sulayman b.( Abd al-Qawi al-Tuft. Ibn Taymiyya studied a number of hadith works, namely the six books of hadith (kutub alsitta) and, in particular, the Musnad of Ahmad b. Hanbal. He also studied secular sciences such as logic and philosophy, and became very interested in theology (kalam). By the age of 19 he was already giving juridical opinions (fatawa). In 695/1296, Ibn Taymiyya took over the chair of fiqh after the death of his teacher Ibn al-Munajja at the Hanbaliyya school (madrasa) in Damascus.