Ibn Taymiyyah and his fatwas on forbidden (haram) and permissible (halal) issues

Abstract

Recently, the study of the legacy of a medieval religious scholar Ibn Taymiyyah, who lived in Syria at the turn of 14th century, has become particularly relevant due to the growing activity of various radical groups. Notably, some parts of his teachings became the foundation of the ideology of various modern extremist sects such as Wahhabism. However, his answers to religious questions regarding the forbidden (haram) and the permitted (halal) remain understudied. Ibn Taymiyyah's ideas contradicts the unanimous conclusion of Islamic theologians on more than 60 issues. His opinion on certain issues provoked lively discussions to the point of even forbidding him to make conclusions on certain religious issues. In addition, his belonging to the Hanbali madhhab in Islam is questionable. Another problem of the study is its contradiction to the traditional Islamic concept of God. The main purpose of the study is to investigate the ideas of Ibn Taymiyyah on some issues of Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh), to compare his views with the opinions of Islamic theologians and to define erroneous ideas about jurisprudence. In this study, the main approach was to study the works of Ibn Taymiyyah and compare them with the works of Islamic theologians, representatives of different madhhabs. It was found that a certain number of religious and legal opinions of this religious scholar in matters of halal and haram contradict the legal norms of the vast majority of Muslims. This study proves that the teachings of Ibn Taymiyyah contradict the Islamic concept of God and religious and legal practice