Introduction¹

Qurʾānic verses such as “[The angels] fear their Lord above them” (yaḫāfūna rabba-hum min fawqi-him; Kor 16, 50) and “The All-Merciful sat over the Throne” (al-Raḥmānu ʿalā l-ʿarši stawā; Kor 20, 5) raise thorny questions about God’s relation to body, location, and space. I will distinguish four approaches to these questions among early and medieval Muslim theologians to set the stage for this article’s focus on the Ḥanbalī theologian Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328). These issues are often analyzed through an epistemological lens of rationalism and traditionalism that identifies rationalism with Muʿtazilī adherence to the incorporeality of God and traditionalism with literalism. This dichotomy too easily obscures the rationality of views opposing the Muʿtazilīs, and it struggles to make sense of the rationalizing character of Ibn Taymiyya’s “traditionalist” theology. The following typology therefore focuses on the theology of each approach rather than on the degree to which it might be considered rationalist or traditionalist.²

The first of the four approaches is the noncognitive stance of traditionists like Ġulām Ḫalīl (d. 275/888) and Ḥanbalīs such as Ibn Qudāma (d. 620/1223).³ Scriptural texts speaking about God’s names and attributes are deemed to be entirely devoid of cognitive content. Nothing is said about divine location or corporeality, neither to affirm nor to deny, and all interpretation of the meaning of God’s attributes is shunned. Texts indicating God’s names and attributes are affirmed verbally but passed over without comment (imrār) and without inquiring into their modality (bi-lā kayf). Intellectual effort should be devoted to understanding God’s law instead of theology.

The second approach maintains explicitly that God is a body (ǧism). The early theologian Muqātil b. Sulaymān (d. 150/767) is reported to believe that God is a body in the form of a human being, which, however, does not resemble anything else, and the early Šīʿī Hišām b. Ḥakam (d. 179/795-796) is said to affirm that God is a body with dimensions, a radiant light like an ingot that glistens like a pearl.⁴ The Karrāmī theologians, named after Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. Karrām (d. 255/869) affirm that God is a body distinct from creation and located above God’s Throne. The Karrāmīs thrived well into the seventh/thirteenth century.⁵

The third view situates God above the world spatially but avoids calling God a body explicitly. I will call this “spatialism” to distinguish it from the corporealism of the preceding approach. The two views taken together constitute what is called “transcendent anthropomorphism” in some of the scholarly literature.⁶ A prime example of spatialism is the traditionist al-Dārimī (d. between 280/893 and 282/895) who appears to be a noncognitivist at first glance because he says that God is to be described only as God describes Himself in the Qurʾān without delving into questions about the modality of God’s names and attributes (bi-lā takyīf).⁷ However, his noncognitivism is only partial, and he takes the li- berty to interpret what it means for God to be above. Al-Dārimī attacks the theologian Ǧahm b. Ṣafwān (d. 128/746) for maintaining that “God has no boundary, no extremity, and no limit” (laysa li-Llāh ḥadd wa-lā ġāya wa-lā nihāya),⁸ and he counters that all things have boundaries and extremities. Ǧahm’s denial of a boundary for God is tantamount to denying that God is a thing (šayʾ), and denying that God is a thing is, in turn, equivalent to saying that God is nothing at all. Al-Dārimī thus claims that God is a thing with a boundary and in fact two boundaries. One boundary is known only to God. The other is God’s place over the Throne above the heavens.⁹ Al-Dārimī explains further that there is nothing else with God above the created world. There is no other heaven above God, and nothing encompasses God or contains God.¹⁰ The late fourth/tenth-century Ḥanbalī text al-Radd ʿalā l-zanādiqa wa-l-Ǧahmiyya (Refutation of the Heretics and the Ǧahmiyya) attributed to Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal (d. 241/855) articulates a similar spatial interpretation. The Ḥanbalī Radd advances diverse arguments to show that God is a thing that is not inside the creation. Instead, God is above the Throne and surrounds the world.¹¹ As will become apparent below, Ibn Taymiyya falls within this spatialist tradition.¹²

Fourth is the incorporealism of kalām theologians among the Muʿtazilīs, Ašʿarīs, Māturīdīs, and the Twelver and Zaydī Šīʿīs. Incorporealists argue that it is irrational for God to be a body or in a place, and they typically reinterpret (taʾwīl) God’s attributes to avert connotations of corporeality and spatiality. God’s sitting (istiwāʾ) on the Throne (Kor 20, 5) for example is reinterpreted as God’s possessing (istilāʾ).¹³ The Ašʿarī kalām tradition, Ibn Taymiyya’s primary interlocutor, got off to an ambiguous start regarding God’s incorporeality. Two or perhaps three different views may be identified in the works of the tradition’s eponym al-Ašʿarī (d. 324/935). Al-Ašʿarī argues in his Kitāb al-Lumaʿ (Highlights) that it would violate God’s unity for God to be a three-dimensional body assembled out of two or more things. God also did not call Himself a body in revelation.¹⁴ However, al-Ašʿarī in his al-Ibāna ʿan uṣūl al-diyāna (Elucidation of the Foundations of the Religion) ignores the question of whether God is a body and instead adopts what appears to be a noncognitive posture. He affirms that God has a face, hands, and eyes without inquiring into how (bi-lā kayf), and he condemns the Muʿtazilī practice of reinterpreting such attributes to avert corporeal connotations.¹⁵ Yet, al-Ašʿarī also affirms in al-Ibāna that God is over the Throne, without adding bi-lā kayf, and he interprets God’s location to mean that God is not in created things such as the Virgin Mary’s womb.¹⁶ This is a kind of spatialism comparable to that of al-Dārimī and the Ḥanbalī Radd. Despite this, later Ašʿarīs such as al-Ǧuwaynī (d. 478/1085) in his Kitāb al-Iršād ilā qawāṭiʿ al-adilla fī uṣūl al-iʿtiqād (The Book of the Guide to Conclusive Proofs for the Foundations of the Creed) deny divine corporeality and spatial location unequivocally and take up reinterpretation,¹⁷ and Faḫr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 606/1210) articulates the interpretative approach that comes to dominate the mature Ašʿarī tradition. In his most extensive work on the topic Taʾsīs al-taqdīs (Establishing Sanctification), al-Rāzī identifies his opponents as Karrāmīs and Ḥanbalīs and elaborates both rational and scriptural arguments for God’s incorporeality and exoneration from location (ǧiha) and spatial extension (taḥayyuz).¹⁸ Toward the end of the book, al-Rāzī sets out a rule for interpreting the plain (ẓāhir) senses of scriptural texts violating the Ašʿarī incorporealist rationality: the meanings of such texts must be either reinterpreted according to the custom of the later kalām theologians or delegated to God and given no further thought (tafwīḍ). Al-Rāzī ascribes tafwīḍ to the early Muslims (salaf) and states his own preference for reinterpretation.¹⁹

The present study explores the rational argumentation of Ibn Taymiyya’s Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya (Explication of the Deceit of the Ǧahmiyya), a direct refutation of al-Rāzī’s Taʾsīs al-taqdīs.²⁰ At eight sizable volumes in the 2005 Medina edition, Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya is the largest known refutation of kalām incorporealism in the Islamic tradition. Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya is also the largest work that Ibn Taymiyya wrote during his seven years in Egypt (705/1306-712/1313) and the earliest of his three most extensive works of theology, the other two being the comparably sized Darʾ taʿāruḍ al-ʿaql wa-l-naql (Averting the Conflict between Reason and Revealed Tradition)²¹ and Minhāǧ al-sunna l-nabawiyya (The Way of the Prophetic Sunna).²² Ibn Taymiyya wrote Darʾ taʿāruḍ al-ʿaql wa-l-naql in Damascus sometime after 713/1313 and then wrote Minhāǧ al-sunna l-nabawiyya after Darʾ taʿāruḍ al-ʿaql wa-l-naql.²³ Despite its size and significance, Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya has only recently begun to receive attention in western language scholarship. Since 2016, Sophia Vasalou, Livnat Holtzman, Miriam Ovadia, and Farid Suleiman have drawn upon it as a source in their respective monograph projects,²⁴ and I have investigated how Ibn Taymiyya uses Ibn Rušd’s (d. 595/1198) al-Kašf ʿan manāhiǧ al-adilla (Exposition of the Methods of Argument) in Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya to support his own views.²⁵ It remains, however, to contextualize Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya as a major work in its own right and analyze its core argument.

I will first examine Ibn Taymiyya’s assertion in Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya that the tome marks an expansion in his anti-Ašʿarī polemic to refute Ašʿarī incorporealism with rational arguments. Then, I will outline the basics of these arguments to illustrate how he defends his understanding of God in the terminology of kalām theology. This will show that Ibn Taymiyya deploys Ibn Rušd’s Aristotelian notion of place as the inner surface of the containing body to envision God as a large spatially extended existent located outside of and surrounding the created world. God is therefore spatial in two senses: first in being spatially distinct from the world, and second in being spatially extended in His essence. At the end of the article, I briefly note how Ibn Taymiyya treats the same topic in his later Darʾ taʿāruḍ al-ʿaql wa-l-naql and Minhāǧ al-sunna l-nabawiyya.

Ibn Taymiyya has sometimes been assimilated to Ḥanbalī noncognitivism or the tafwīḍ position of later Ašʿarism, often to shield him from charges of corporealism and anthropomorphism.²⁶ Ašʿarī tafwīḍ, however, requires denying the plain senses of texts indicating corporeality in God’s attributes before delegating their meanings to God, whereas Ibn Taymiyya affirms the plain sense and does not deny that God is a body.²⁷ Noncognitivism also does not properly characterize Ibn Taymiyya because he does not seek to guard the formal wording of God’s attributes from cognitive interference. Instead, and against al-Rāzī’s Ašʿarī incorporealism, he explains what it means for God to be above the heavens and over the Throne, and he rationalizes the spatialism articulated earlier by al-Dārimī and the Ḥanbalī Radd attributed to Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal with far greater sophistication.²⁸

1 The Purpose and Dating of Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya

Ibn Taymiyya tells the story of what led him to write Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya in his introduction to the work. First, he received a question from Hama in Syria sometime after the year 690/1290 about how to interpret Qurʾānic verses and ḥadīṯ reports on the attributes of God. He replied with a fatwa outlining the doctrine of the early Muslims (salaf) over against the Ǧahmiyya (named after Ǧahm b. Ṣafwān) whom he accuses of denying the reality of God’s attributes. Ibn Taymiyya notes that the fatwa sparked opposition, but he does not mention specific names, dates, or events. He then informs us in Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya that he received a book written by “the best of the opposing judges” (afḍal al-qudāt al-muʿāriḍīn) posing questions and objections to his treatise and that he replied with the several volume al-Ǧawāb ʿan al-iʿtirāḍāt al-miṣriyya l-wārida ʿalā l-futyā l-ḥamawiyya (The Response to the Egyptian Objections against the Ḥamawiyya Fatwa). Ibn Taymiyya says that this proved insufficient to deal with opponents who depended on the books of Ǧahmī kalām theologians, foremost among them Faḫr al-Dīn al-Rāzī. He, therefore, had to complete the task that he had begun in al-Ǧawāb ʿan al-iʿtirāḍāt al-miṣriyya by responding to al-Rāzī’s Taʾsīs al-taqdīs. This was necessary, he writes, “so that the difference between explication and deceit is clarified, the deceit is purged thereby, and the crux of the matter is known in what concerns the foundations of kalām theology” (li-yatabayyana l-farq bayna l-bayān wa-l-talbīs wa-yaḥsula bi-ḏālika taḫlīṣ al-talbīs wa-yuʿrafa faṣl al-ḫiṭāb fī-mā fī hāḏā l-bāb min uṣūl al-kalām).²⁹

While short on historical particulars, Ibn Taymiyya’s introduction does clearly outline a sequence of three identifiable works and explain that he wrote Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya to expose the corrupt rational arguments of kalām theologians. This fits with what we know otherwise about the three works. The first text that Ibn Taymiyya mentions, the response to a request from the people of Hama, is his famous 698/1298 fatwa Ḥamawiyya, which examines how to interpret scriptural texts such as “The All-Merciful sat over the Throne” (al-Raḥmānu ʿalā l-ʿarši stawā; Kor 20, 5).³⁰ According to Ibn Taymiyya, the Ǧahmī kalām theologians, whom he equates with the Muʿtazilīs and later Ašʿarīs, first deny the plain sense (ẓāhir) of such texts. Then they either cease thinking about them in accord with what they call the way of the salaf, or they reinterpret the texts to mean something else (taʾwīl), as when they reinterpret God’s sitting as possessing.³¹ Ibn Taymiyya rejects such reinterpretation as stripping (taʿṭīl) God of His attributes, and he singles out the Taʾwīlāt of Ašʿarī theologian Ibn Fūrak (d. 406/1015)³² and al-Rāzī’s Taʾsīs al-taqdīs as prominent books expounding erroneous reinterpretations.³³ He also excoriates the Ašʿarī hermeneutic for making the salaf out to be ignorant of the meanings of the texts. For Ibn Taymiyya, the salaf affirmed and understood the plain senses of the texts but without inquiring into the modality of the attributes (bi-lā kayf).³⁴ He adds that he has proofs from both reason and scripture for his views but that a fatwa is not the place to present them.³⁵

Ibn Taymiyya adopts a firm stance against the Ašʿarīs in Ḥamawiyya, and he clearly already had al-Rāzī’s Taʾsīs al-taqdīs in his sights as a major threat to his position. Ibn Taymiyya’s challenge drew the attention of his contemporaries.³⁶ His opponents accused him of corporealism (taǧsīm) and began agitating against him. The governor of Damascus intervened quickly to quell the commotion.³⁷ The matter then lay dormant for about seven years.

The second work that Ibn Taymiyya mentions in the introduction to Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya is his al-Ǧawāb ʿan al-iʿtirāḍāt al-miṣriyya in response to al-Iʿtirāḍāt al-miṣriyya. The author of al-Iʿtirāḍāt al-miṣriyya, whom Ibn Taymiyya calls “the best of the opposing judges,” is the Egyptian Ḥanafī judge Šhams al-Dīn al-Sarūǧī (d. 710/1310). Only a small portion of Ibn Taymiyya’s al-Ǧawāb ʿan al-iʿtirāḍāt al-miṣriyya has been located and published, and the text of al-Sarūǧī is lost except for a few paragraphs quoted within the extant part of al-Ǧawāb ʿan al-iʿtirāḍāt al-miṣriyya.³⁸ From these few paragraphs, however, we can ascertain that al-Sarūǧī argues that the salaf themselves engaged in reinterpretation (taʾwīl) and that rational arguments require reinterpreting texts suggesting temporal origination and spatial extension in God in order to avoid corporealism.³⁹ Ibn Taymiyya rejects al-Sarūǧī’s claims, and he observes among other things that the Qurʾān, the Sunna, and the salaf do not condemn corporealism, even if they do not affirm it.⁴⁰ This is a key point that he will reiterate in Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya, as we will see below.

While the extant portion of Ibn Taymiyya’s al-Ǧawāb ʿan al-iʿtirāḍāt al-miṣriyya is relatively short at 177 pages in the printed edition, al-Ǧawāb ʿan al-iʿtirāḍāt al-miṣriyya was apparently a large work of four volumes.⁴¹ If the extant pages are anything to go by, the entirety of al-Ǧawāb ʿan al-iʿtirāḍāt al-miṣriyya was devoted to hermeneutics and the interpretation of scriptural texts, much like the earlier Ḥamawiyya fatwa. This fits with Ibn Taymiyya’s observation in the introduction to Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya that al-Ǧawāb ʿan al-iʿtirāḍāt al-miṣriyya was inadequate to the task of confuting the kalām argumentation that was infecting his opponents. It thus remained to write Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya to overturn the rational proofs undergirding the Ašʿarī conviction that one must reinterpret God’s attributes implying corporeality and spatial extension. In taking on al-Rāzī’s Taʾsīs al-taqdīs, Ibn Taymiyya sought to refute what was evidently the most powerful and influential presentation of Ašʿarī arguments circulating at the time.

Ibn Taymiyya wrote both al-Ǧawāb ʿan al-iʿtirāḍāt al-miṣriyya and Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya in the wake of the controversy that reemerged over his views on God’s attributes in mid-705/early 1306. At the instigation of his enemies in Cairo, the governor of Damascus subjected him to three hearings. Ibn Taymiyya defended himself successfully but was summoned to Cairo several weeks later. Upon arriving in Cairo, the Mamlūk sultan and high-ranking officials and religious scholars convicted Ibn Taymiyya of corporealism and errors in the doctrine of God’s speech, and they imprisoned him in the Cairo citadel on Friday, 23 Ramaḍān 705/8 April 1306 for 18 months.⁴²

The editors of the 2005 Medina edition of Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya date the work to this 18-month imprisonment.⁴³ Both Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya and al-Ǧawāb ʿan al-iʿtirāḍāt al-miṣriyya appear in Ibn Raǧab’s (d. 795/1392) list of works that Ibn Taymiyya wrote in Egypt,⁴⁴ and the biographer al-Kutubī (d. 764/1363) speaks of “what he wrote in the dungeon of Cairo in refutation of Taʾsīs al-taqdīs” (mā amlā-hu fī l-ǧubb raddan ʿalā Taʾsīs al-qiddīs [sic]).⁴⁵ However, a letter that Ibn Taymiyya wrote from prison indicates that the terminus ad quem for both works can be moved to about six months before his release. Ibn Taymiyya received a message from some scholars in Cairo in Ramaḍān 706/March-April 1307, and his letter in reply likely dates to shortly thereafter.⁴⁶ The letter describes Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya without naming it explicitly and then alludes to his al-Ǧawāb ʿan al-iʿtirāḍāt al-miṣriyya:

وقد كتبت في هذا ما يجيء عدة مجلدات وذكرت فيها مقالات الطوائف جميعها وحججها الشرعية والعقلية واستوعبت ما ذكره الرازي في كتاب تأسيس التقديس ونهاية العقول وغير ذلك حتى أتيت على مذاهب الفلاسفة المشائين أصحاب أرسطو […]. وأيضا لما كنت في البرج ذكر لي أن بعض الناس علق مؤاخذة على الفتيا الحموية وأرسلت إلي وقد كتبت فيما بلغ مجلدات.

I wrote about [matters relating to God’s sitting on the Throne] in what comes to several volumes. I mentioned in them the views of all the sects and their revelation-based and reason-based arguments. I dealt extensively with what al-Rāzī says in Taʾsīs al-taqdīs, Nihāyat al-ʿuqūl (The Utmost in Rational Knowledge) and other works, to the point that I mentioned the doctrines of the peripatetic philosophers, the followers of Aristotle […]. Also, when I was in the tower (burǧ) [of the citadel in Cairo], it was mentioned to me that someone had written an objection to the Ḥamawiyya fatwa. It was sent to me, and I wrote several volumes [in reply].⁴⁷

The Egyptian encyclopedist al-Nuwayrī (d. 733/1333) states that Ibn Taymiyya was moved from the tower of the Cairo citadel to the dungeon (ǧubb) on the night of the Feast of Fast-Breaking (ʿīd al-fiṭr), five or six days after his initial incarceration on 23 Ramaḍān 705/8 April 1306.⁴⁸ At the end of the quotation above, Ibn Taymiyya mentions hearing about the response to his Ḥamawiyya – al-Sarūǧī’s al-Iʿtirāḍāt al-miṣriyya – while in the tower. So, he must have learned of al-Sarūǧī’s work in his first five or six days of imprisonment. Over the course of twelve months, from Ramaḍān 705/April 1306 to Ramaḍān 706/March-April 1307, Ibn Taymiyya wrote two massive works, first al-Ǧawāb ʿan al-iʿtirāḍāt al-miṣriyya and then Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya, to defend his views and refute those of his opponents comprehensively. Moreover, the contents of Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya, examined in what follows, bear out Ibn Taymiyya’s stated purpose in writing the work, namely, to complete the job of replying to the Ašʿarīs by refuting their rational argumentation.

2 Bayān talbīs al-Ǧahmiyya as a Refutation of Taʾsīs al-taqdīs

In Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya Ibn Taymiyya responds to the second of two recensions of al-Rāzī’s Taʾsīs al-taqdīs. Different prefaces distinguish the two.⁴⁹ What may be called the “Herat” preface is printed in the 2011 edition of Taʾsīs al-taqdīs, and its earliest known witness is MS Istanbul, Süleymaniye, Hekimoǧlu, 821, which was copied in 598/1202 and claims comparison with the original (aṣl).⁵⁰ In the Herat preface, al-Rāzī states that he wrote the book after arriving in Herat in Muḥarram 596/October-November 1199 and finding the people of the city discussing God’s incomparability (tanzīh). This corresponds to what we know about al-Rāzī’s difficulties at the time. In 595/1198-1199, al-Rāzī arrived in Fīrūzkūh, a city about halfway between Kabul and Herat. While disputing with scholars in the city, he slandered a leading Karrāmī theologian, and the Ġūrid ruler Ġiyāṯ al-Dīn expelled him to Herat to calm the ensuing Karrāmī uproar.⁵¹

In what may be called the “Ayyubid” preface of Taʾsīs al-taqdīs, al-Rāzī does not mention his visit to Herat but instead dedicates the work to al-ʿĀdil Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. Ayyūb (d. 615/1218), apparently to honor him on becoming sultan of the Ayyubid Empire of Egypt and Syria in 596/1200. The biographer Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿa reports that the sultan paid al-Rāzī 1000 dinars for the book.⁵² The Ayyubid preface is printed in several modern editions of al-Rāzī’s book. The most often cited is the 1986 Cairo edition of Aḥmad Ḥiǧāzī l-Saqqā.⁵³ The earliest known witness to the Ayyubid preface is MS Istanbul, Millet, Feyzullah Efendi, 1106, which dates to 606/1210. Presumably, al-Rāzī wrote Taʾsīs al-taqdīs with the Herat preface shortly after arriving in Herat in 596/1199 to address the theological issues under discussion in that city and to counter the views he had encountered in Fīrūzkūh.⁵⁴ Then, he reissued the book soon thereafter to garner the patronage of the Ayyubid sultan. Ibn Taymiyya knows and refutes only the recension of Taʾsīs al-taqdīs containing the Ayyubid preface.⁵⁵

Ibn Taymiyya’s refutation of al-Rāzī in Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya takes the form of a rambling commentary on major portions of Taʾsīs al-taqdīs.⁵⁶ Following is an outline of Taʾsīs al-taqdīs with note of the corresponding commentary in Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya. Pagination for the parts and sections of Taʾsīs al-taqdīs are first to the 2011 Damascus edition and then to the 1986 Cairo edition. Direct translations of part and section titles are placed between quotation marks; other titles are my own paraphrases or summaries. Volume and page numbers for Ibn Taymiyya’s corresponding discussions in Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya are placed between parentheses. As Ibn Taymiyya indicates in his 706/1307 letter to Cairene scholars quoted above, Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya contains extensive quotation from and comment upon al-Rāzī’s kalām work Nihāyat al-ʿuqūl⁵⁷ and numerous other sources, and I have noted a few of these below.

3 Outline of al-Rāzī’s Taʾsīs al-taqdīs and Ibn Taymiyya’s Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya

Preface p. 43-44/9-11 (Ibn Taymiyya, Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya, I, p. 3-24)

Part One: “The proofs proving that [God] is exonerated of corporeality (ǧismiyya) and space (ḥayyiz),” p. 45-114/13-102 (Ibn Taymiyya, Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya, I, p. 25-V, p. 446)

Section One: “Firmly establishing the premises that must be presented before delving into the proofs,” p. 46-58/15-29 (Ibn Taymiyya, Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya, I, p. 25-III, p. 83 include extensive quotation and discussion of texts from al-Dārimī, al-Ašʿarī, Ibn Fūrak, Ibn Rušd, etc.)

Section Two: “Firmly establishing the tradition-based proofs that [God] is exonerated of corporeality, space and location (ǧiha),” p. 59-73/30-47 (Ibn Taymiyya, Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya, III, p. 84-286)

Section Three: “Furnishing the reason-based proofs that [God] is definitely not spatially extended (mutaḥayyiz),” p. 74-84/48-61 (not addressed in Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya)

Section Four: “Furnishing the demonstrations (barāhīn) that [God] is not localized in (muḫtaṣṣ bi-) any spaces and locations,” p. 85-97/62-68 (Ibn Taymiyya, Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya, III, p. 287-IV, p. 241)

Section Five: “Concerning the specious rational arguments of those [Karrāmīs and Ḥanbalīs] who affirm [God’s] localization in space and location,” p. 98-112/79-99 (Ibn Taymiyya, Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya, IV, p. 242-V, p. 323, of which roughly the last third discusses passages from al-Rāzī’s Nihāyat al-ʿuqūl and al-Arbaʿīn fī uṣūl l-dīn)

Section Six: Charging the Karrāmīs with affirming that God is composite (murakkab) and assembled (muʾallaf), p. 113-114/100-102 (Ibn Taymiyya, Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya, V, p. 324-446)

Part Two: “Concerning reinterpreting (taʾwīl) the indeterminate (mutašābihāt) among the [ḥadīṯ] reports and [Qurʾānic] verses,” p. 115-217/103-221 (Ibn Taymiyya, Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya, V, p. 447-VIII, p. 214)

Introduction: “Elucidating that all sects of Islam confess that there must be reinterpretation of some plain senses (ẓawāhir) of the Qurʾān and the reports,” p. 115-120/105-109 (Ibn Taymiyya, Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya, V, p. 451-VI, p. 354)

Sections 1-30: Reinterpretations of specific reports and verses, p. 121-216/110-219 (Ibn Taymiyya, Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya, VI, p. 355-VIII, p. 214, of which VI, p. 355-VII, p. 390 discusses Section 1 on God and form [ṣūra]; sections 9-30 are not addressed in Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya)

Section 31: On isolated reports (aḫbār āḥād), p. 212-216/215-219 (not addressed in Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya)

Section 32: The universal rule (al-qānūn al-kullī) of reinterpretation, p. 217/220-221⁵⁸ (not addressed here in Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya but in its response to the next part)

Part Three: “Firmly establishing the doctrine of the salaf,” p. 219-234/222-243 (Ibn Taymiyya, Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya, VIII, p. 215-549)

Part Four: Miscellaneous questions, p. 235-245/245-258 (not addressed directly in Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya)⁵⁹

The first part of al-Rāzī’s Taʾsīs al-taqdīs occupies the first third of the work. It divides into six sections and provides reason- and tradition-based proofs that God is not corporeal, spatially extended, or located. Ibn Taymiyya’s repetitious response takes up nearly the entirety of the first five volumes of Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya, with the bulk of his attention devoted to the first, fourth, and fifth sections of Taʾsīs al-taqdīs, which contain al-Rāzī’s main premises and rational arguments. I will analyze Ibn Taymiyya’s reply to the first part of Taʾsīs al-taqdīs in the following sections of the present article.

Al-Rāzī dedicates the second part of Taʾsīs al-taqdīs, about half the work, to reinterpreting texts of the Qurʾān and the ḥadīṯ literature that he calls indeterminate (mutašābih), that is, texts implying that God is corporeal and spatial. Ibn Taymiyya gives Part Two of Taʾsīs al-taqdīs comparatively little attention and does not discuss the latter two-thirds directly. The upshot of his argumentation is that al-Rāzī’s reinterpretations distort and deny the plain senses of the texts.

At the end of Taʾsīs al-taqdīs Part Two, al-Rāzī sets out the universal rule guiding his reinterpretations that was noted above. When decisive rational proofs contradict the plain sense (ẓāhir) of a text, those who permit reinterpretation must reinterpret it, and those who do not permit that must delegate its meaning to God.⁶⁰ Then in the brief third part of Taʾsīs al-taqdīs al-Rāzī identifies taʾwīl as the practice of the kalām theologians and tafwīḍ as the doctrine of the salaf. The salaf know that God did not intend the meanings conveyed by the plain senses of indeterminate texts. They therefore make it an obligation to delegate the meanings to God and do not permit further interpretation.⁶¹

In reply to Taʾsīs al-taqdīs Part Three, Ibn Taymiyya rejects the necessary priority of reason over revealed texts and contends that there is no contradiction between reason-based and revelation-based proofs.⁶² He also faults al-Rāzī for ignorance of the true views of the salaf. Following lines developed earlier in Ḥamawiyya and al-Ǧawāb ʿan al-iʿtirāḍāt al-miṣriyya, Ibn Taymiyya maintains in Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya that the salaf affirm knowledge of the meaning (maʿnā) of the plain sense. They only delegate knowledge of the modality (kayfiyya) to God.⁶³ They also avoid comparison (tašbīh) and likening (mumāṯala) of God to creatures, and they neither affirm nor deny that God is corporeal and spatially extended.⁶⁴

The fourth and final part of al-Rāzī’s Taʾsīs al-taqdīs is also brief. It treats a few miscellaneous questions, including whether those who affirm that God is spatially extended, corporeal, and located are guilty of unbelief (kufr). Al-Rāzī replies that the most obvious answer is that they are unbelievers, but that the Prophet Muḥammad did not make exonerating God of such things a condition for belief.⁶⁵ Ibn Taymiyya does not discuss the fourth part of Taʾsīs al-taqdīs directly.

4 Ontology

Turning back now to the first part of Taʾsīs al-taqdīs and its refutation in Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya, we find that fundamentally different ontologies stand between Ibn Taymiyya and al-Rāzī. Al-Rāzī begins Taʾsīs al-taqdīs by asserting the existence of an existent (i.e. God) that is not perceptible by the human senses, that is not subject to space (ḥayyiz) or location (ǧiha), and that neither dwells inside the world nor is located outside of it. He also explains that his opponents – Karrāmīs and Ḥanbalīs – deny these premises. They maintain instead that it is axiomatic that one of two existents either indwells the other or is located outside of it; there is no third category of existents. Al-Rāzī positions himself as defender of the rational mainstream of humanity, which includes philosophers and theologians among the Muʿtazilīs, Twelver Šīʿīs, and his own Ašʿarī colleagues, and he explains that a God accessible to the senses would be divisible into parts and a composite of those parts. For al-Rāzī the human intellect can know the existence, attributes, and acts of the non-spatial, incorporeal God, but the senses cannot, neither the outer five senses, nor the inner senses of the estimation (wahm) and the imagination (ḫayāl). God exists in a plane of reality inaccessible to sense perception.⁶⁶

Ibn Taymiyya in Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya rejects al-Rāzī’s claim that God dwells neither inside the world nor outside of it. It is necessary knowledge in the human natural constitution (fiṭra) that nothing exists neither inside the world nor outside of it.⁶⁷ A God neither inside nor outside the world would not exist at all.⁶⁸ Instead, Ibn Taymiyya explains, God is located above (fawq) and over (ʿalā) the world, and this is known necessarily by the human natural constitution. Revealed texts also indicate that God is sitting over the Throne.⁶⁹

As I showed in my previous study on Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya, Ibn Taymiyya sidesteps al-Rāzī’s claim to speak for the rational mainstream of humanity by castigating his ignorance of reputable authorities who uphold God’s aboveness. These authorities include Ibn Kullāb (d. ca 240/855), the Ḥanbalī Radd attributed to Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, the Ibāna of al-Ašʿarī, Ibn Qudāma, and especially the philosopher Ibn Rušd.⁷⁰ Ibn Taymiyya quotes the entire section on God and location (ǧiha) from Ibn Rušd’s al-Kašf ʿan manāhiǧ al-adilla to undermine al-Rāzī’s claim that the philosophers support his position.⁷¹ Ibn Rušd in al-Kašf observes that all divine revelations affirm that God is located in heaven. He explains that those who deny location of God think that location necessarily implies place (makān) which in turn implies corporeality (ǧismiyya). Ibn Rušd avoids these implications by adopting an Aristotelian cosmology in which the place of a body consists in the surfaces of the bodies surrounding it, not the body’s own outer surfaces.⁷² The place of the earth’s atmosphere is the inner surface of the first celestial sphere, and place of each of the celestial spheres is the inner surface of the celestial sphere above it and surrounding it. However, the outermost celestial sphere has no place because there are no further bo-dies above it, and there are no bodies beyond the outermost sphere because an infinite sequence of bodies is impossible. Neither dimension nor void exists beyond the outermost sphere.⁷³ Ibn Rušd notes that the ancients located God and the angels in the realm of the outermost sphere, which is not subject to place, and he affirms that both reason and revelation establish the locatedness of God without ascribing to God place and corporeality. Ibn Taymiyya does not comment on Ibn Rušd’s text after quoting it in Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya. Ibn Rušd has well served the purpose of proving that philosophers affirm God’s location above the world against al-Rāzī. However, Ibn Taymiyya is aware that Aristotle is the source of Ibn Rušd’s notion of place,⁷⁴ and, as we will see below, this conception of place forms the foundation of Ibn Taymiyya’s understanding of space.⁷⁵

Apart from wrangling over who gets to speak for the philosophers, Ibn Taymiyya further undermines al-Rāzī incorporealist ontology with a multifaceted epistemology that is strongly empiricist.⁷⁶ People vary in intellectual ability and arrive at knowledge in diverse ways. Most people in fact depend upon the inner senses of the estimation and imagination in theological matters, and the senses can produce certain knowledge. Contrary to the assertions of al-Rāzī, God did not limit knowledge of theology to the intellect.⁷⁷ Furthermore, Ibn Taymiyya alleges that al-Rāzī posits a God who exists only in the mind and has no reality in the extramental world.⁷⁸ For Ibn Taymiyya, every existent thing, whatever it may be, must be potentially accessible to the human senses to count as an existent, and this includes God. While he does speak of existents known by the inner senses,⁷⁹ he also indicates that everything is ultimately perceptible by the outer senses:

أن كل موجود يجوز أن يحس بالحواس الخمس، ويلتزمون على ذلك أن اللّٰه يجوز أن يحس به بالحواس الخمس : السمع والبصر والشم والذوق واللمس، وأن مالا يحس به بالحواس الخمس لا يكون إلا معدوما. فعامة السلف والصفاتية على أن اللّٰه يمكن أن يشهد ويرى ويحس به. وأول من نفى إمكان إحساسه الجهم بن صفوان.

[Opponents of the Ǧahmīs affirm] that every existent is perceptible by the five senses. They make follow necessarily from that that God is perceptible by the five senses – hearing, sight, smell, taste, and touch – and that whatever is not perceptible by the five senses is nothing but a non-existent. The generality of the salaf and those who affirm [God’s] attributes maintain that God can be witnessed, seen, and sensed. The first to deny that He is perceptible by the senses was Ǧahm b. Ṣafwān.⁸⁰

Ibn Taymiyya takes Ǧahm to be the origin of Muslim problems with denying God’s attributes, and he applies the adjectival form Ǧahmī to all theologians who fall into this basic error, including al-Rāzī.⁸¹ For Ibn Taymiyya there are no incorporeal intelligibles – God or otherwise – accessible only to the intellect. It is true, concedes Ibn Taymiyya, that God cannot be seen in this visible world and that the modality (kayfiyya) and quiddity (māhiyya) of God’s attributes cannot be known.⁸² Nonetheless, one can see and speak to God in dreams;⁸³ some of God’s messengers have seen and heard God in this life;⁸⁴ and human eyes will see God in the hereafter.⁸⁵ Moreover, argues Ibn Taymiyya, seeing God is all the more possible than seeing anything else because God’s existence is greater in perfection than the perfection of anything else.⁸⁶

This assertion of God’s superior visibility dovetails with Ibn Taymiyya’s view that the term “existence” (wuǧūd) is predicated of God in an analogical or modulated (mušakkik) manner.⁸⁷ The term existence means much the same thing when applied to God and creatures, albeit in different ways. Al-Rāzī claims the opposite in Taʾsīs al-taqdīs: “The term existence applies to the visible world and the unseen only equivocally” (kāna wuqūʿ lafẓ al-mawǧūd ʿalā l-šāhid wa-ʿalā l-ġāʾib laysa illā bi-l-ištirāk al-lafẓī).⁸⁸ There is no connection whatsoever between the meanings of the word existence when predicated of this visible world and the unseen world. What it means for God to exist and what it means for creatures to exist are entirely unrelated. In Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya Ibn Taymiyya objects that the term existence and names such as living, knowing, and powerful are predicated of both God and creatures not merely equivocally but “univocally and also modulated” (bi-l-tawāṭuʾ wa-hiya ayḍan mušakkika).⁸⁹ The terms existence, living, and powerful mean similar things when applied to God and to creatures. However, the predication is modulated with respect to worthiness: God has a greater right to existence and the meanings of His names than creatures have to their existence and the meanings of their names.⁹⁰

Ibn Taymiyya is at pains in Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya to clarify that the univocity of existence does not imply that God and creatures participate in existence as a real extramental universal. There is no likeness (miṯl) between God and creatures in their worthiness, existence, names, or attributes. Nothing exists in the extramental world except God and creatures as concrete existents. The expression “existence” points simply to a quality shared among things that the mind has abstracted from all other characteristics. Absolute existence or existence as such is found nowhere but in the mind. Every extramental existent is ontologically distinct from every other, and there is no fundamental likeness between any two existents.⁹¹ Ibn Taymiyya articulates this nominalist approach to universals to undermine al-Rāzī’s incorporealism. However, Ibn Taymiyya’s nominalism is not absolute insofar as he also affirms logical axioms that apply self-evidently to all existents, including God. The universal logical axiom at the core of the present discussion is his claim that the natural human constitution knows necessarily that every single existent must exist in only one of two ways: either inside the world or outside of it. For Ibn Taymiyya, this axiom impinges on all existents, and it admits of no exceptions.⁹²

5 Theology as Translation of Meaning

Not only matters of ontology divide Ibn Taymiyya and al-Rāzī. Al-Rāzī also has no qualms deploying the technical terminology of kalām theology, whereas Ibn Taymiyya favors a textualism that eschews terminology not found in the Qurʾān and the Sunna. He maintains often in Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya that the Qurʾān, the Sunna, and the salaf are silent on the technical terms of kalām theology, terms such as body (ǧism), spatial extension (taḥayyuz), substance (ǧawhar), accident (ʿaraḍ), and composition (tarkīb). The foundational texts of the religion neither affirm such terms of God nor deny them, and the salaf and the religious leaders of the Muslim community condemn using them.⁹³ Additionally, Ibn Taymiyya invokes Ibn Rušd to support the principle that revelation neither affirms nor denies that God is a body,⁹⁴ and he claims that this is the mainstream stance of Sunnī Islam: “The majority of the Sunnīs, the religious leaders, and the ḥadīṯ scholars do not say that [God] is a body, and they do not say that God is not a body” (kāna ʿāmmat ahl al-sunna wa-aʾimmat al-dīn wa-ahl al-ḥadīṯ lā yaqūlūna huwa ǧism wa-lā yaqūlūna laysa bi-ǧism).⁹⁵

Now, if one is to avoid the terminology of kalām theology, how does Ibn Taymiyya propose to address the challenges of kalām? He responds in Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya by permitting elucidation of the meanings of the Qurʾān and the Sunna in the terminology of kalām as needed. He writes,

كان الذي عليه أئمة الإسلام أنهم لا يطلقون الألفاظ المبتدعة المتنازع فيها لا نفيا ولا إثباتا إلا بعد الاستفسار والتفصيل فيثبت ما أثبته الكتاب والسنة من المعاني وينفي ما نفاه الكتاب والسنة من المعاني.

The leaders of Islam do not use innovated and disputed terms, neither to deny nor to affirm, until seeking explanation and detailed explication. Then, they affirm the meanings that the Book and the Sunna affirm, and they deny the meanings that the Book and the Sunna deny.⁹⁶

The aim of theological discourse is to elucidate the meanings of the revealed texts in attentive dialogue with the terminology of opposing views. He elaborates by comparing this interpretive process to the practice of translating the Qurʾān and the Sunna into other languages:

فلم يكن واحد من هذين مشروعا على الإطلاق ولا هو أيضا منهيا عنه على الإطلاق، بل إذا أثبت الرجل معنى حقا ونفى معنى باطلا واحتاج إلى التعبير عن ذلك بعبارة لأجل إفهام المخاطب لأنها من لغة المخاطب ونحو ذلك لم يكن ذلك منهيا عنه لأن ذلك يكون من باب ترجمة أسمائه وآياته بلغة أخرى ليفهم أهل تلك اللغة معاني كلامه وأسمائه وهذا جائز بل مستحب أحيانا بل واجب أحيانا وإن لم يكن ذلك مشروعا على الإطلاق كمخاطبة أهل هذه الاصطلاحات الخاصة في أسماء اللّٰه وصفاته وأصول الدين باصطلاحهم الخاص إذا كانت المعاني [التي] تبين لهم هي معاني القرآن والسنة تشبه قراءة القرآن بغير العربية وهذه الترجمة تجوز لإفهام المخاطب بلا نزاع بين العلماء.

[Affirming kalām technical terms or denying them] is not prescribed absolutely, nor is it prohibited absolutely. Rather, if a man needs to articulate affirmation of a true meaning or denial of a false meaning using an expression in the language of the addressee to enable the addressee to understand, and such like, that is not prohibited. That falls under the category of translating [God’s] names and verses into another language so that the people who speak that language can understand the meanings of His speech and His names. This [translation] is permissible, even recommended sometimes, or even at times obligatory, even if that is not prescribed absolutely. Similarly, addressing those who use these technical terms in the names of God, His attributes, and the foundations of religion in their technical terminology – when the meanings elucidated for them are the meanings of the Qurʾān and the Sunna – resembles reciting the Qurʾān in [a language] other than Arabic. This translation is permitted to enable the addressee to understand. There is no dispute [about this] among the scholars.⁹⁷

We may briefly illustrate Ibn Taymiyya’s method with his interpretations of the terms “boundary” (ḥadd) and “body” (ǧism). Ibn Taymiyya says that God does not have a concrete attribute called boundary, and revelation does not ascribe such an attribute to God. A boundary is no more than that which distinguishes one thing from another. However, Ibn Taymiyya explains, the Ǧahmīs deny that God has a boundary even in this sense. They affirm that God is neither inside nor outside the world, and they thereby fail to distinguish God from the created things. Therefore, to oppose the Ǧahmīs, one may say that a boundary distinguishes God from the world. This does not ascribe an additional attribute to God. It simply clarifies God’s separateness.⁹⁸

Regarding the term body, Ibn Taymiyya denies corporeality in God when body means something composed and assembled out of parts. He explains that God’s names One (aḥad) and Self-Sufficient (ṣamad) found in Qurʾān 112, 1-2 negate “composition, divisibility, and corporeality” (al-tarkīb wa-l-inqisām wa-l-taǧsīm) in God.⁹⁹ Yet, Ibn Taymiyya does allow God to be spoken of as an indivisible body: “It does not follow necessarily from [God’s] being a body, spatially extended, above the world, or such like that He is divisible” (lā yalzamu min kawni-hi ǧisman aw mutaḥayyizan aw fawq al-ʿālam aw ġayra ḏālika an yakūna munqasiman).¹⁰⁰ Such a view of body runs completely contrary to that of al-Rāzī. For al-Rāzī, bodies, as well as spatial extensions, are intrinsically composed of and divisible into separate parts. This brings us to al-Rāzī’s proofs against spatiality in God along with Ibn Taymiyya’s refutations.

6 The Indivisibility of God’s Spatial Extension

The core of Ibn Taymiyya’s rational argumentation against al-Rāzī is found in his reply to Part One, Section Four of Taʾsīs al-taqdīs where al-Rāzī outlines eight rational proofs against qualifying God with space and location. Ibn Taymiyya responds with conceptual analyses and rational arguments found neither in his earlier Ḥamawiyya fatwa nor in the extant portion of al-Ǧawāb ʿan al-iʿtirāḍāt al-miṣriyya. I will sketch Ibn Taymiyya’s responses to al-Rāzī’s first, second, third, and fifth proofs. This will clarify the essential outlines of how he expresses God’s spatial relation to the world in kalām terminology. I present only the basics of these often lengthy and detailed arguments for the sake of economy, and I omit al-Rāzī’s other four proofs because Ibn Taymiyya’s comments on them add nothing substantially new to the overall picture. Al-Rāzī’s first proof begins with the following disjunction:

لو كان تعالى مختصا بحيز أوجهة بمعنى أنه يصح أن يشار إليه بالحس أنه هٰهنا أو هناك لم يخل إما أن يكون منقسما أو غير منقسم، فإن كان منقسما كان مركبا وقد تقدم إبطاله، وإن لم يكن منقسما كان في الصغر والحقارة كالجزء الذي لا يتجزأ وذلك باطل باتفاق العقلاء.

If God were localized in space and location in the sense that it would be correct for sense perception to indicate that He is here or there, [God] would have to be either divisible (munqasim) or indivisible. If He were divisible, He would be composed (murakkab). That has already been falsified. If He were indivisible, He would be very small and minute like an indivisible particle, and that is false by agreement of all rational people.¹⁰¹

On the one hand, according to al-Rāzī, a God who is both accessible to sense perception and divisible would certainly suffer from composition, that is, being composed of different parts. Earlier in Taʾsīs al-taqdīs, al-Rāzī rules out composition for God, as well as body, spatial extension, and location, because God is one, and he supports this by invoking the Qurʾānic verse, “Say! God is One” (qul huwa Llāhu aḥadun; Kor 112, 1).¹⁰² On the other hand, al-Rāzī argues, a God who is both accessible to sense perception and indivisible would have to be the size of the tiniest possible particle, a particle so small as not to be divisible into anything smaller. Otherwise, God would be bigger than that tiny particle, which would mean that He is divisible and composed of parts. However, God is neither minute in size nor divisible. Therefore, it is not possible that He be localized in space and location, which shows that God is not subject to space and location.

Ibn Taymiyya in Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya agrees with al-Rāzī that God is not composed of two or more self-subsisting parts that were previously located in separate spaces. Likewise, God could not be separated and divided into parts that are then placed in different spaces. However, Ibn Taymiyya differentiates himself from al-Rāzī by asserting that something can be simultaneously indivisible and extremely big. A corporeal and spatially extended God located above His Throne need not imply that God is divisible into separate parts located in separate spaces.¹⁰³

Ibn Taymiyya explains that al-Rāzī’s notion of divisibility involves differentiation even within a unity, that is, division between different aspects of one single thing. In Ibn Taymiyya’s own words, al-Rāzī means by divisible

أن ما في هذه الجهة منه غير ما في هذه الجهة كما نقول إن الشمس منقسمة يعني أن حاجبها الأيمن غير حاجبها الأيسر والفلك منقسم بمعنى أن ناحية القطب الشمالي غير ناحية القطب الجنوبي.

that whatever is in one location in [God] is different from whatever is in the [other] location, as when we say that the sun is divided, meaning that its right side is different from its left side, and the celestial sphere is divided, meaning that the northern hemisphere is different from the southern hemisphere.¹⁰⁴

For al-Rāzī, whatever is divisible or composite in this sense, in the sense of having different sides or aspects, cannot be called one. Ibn Taymiyya rejects this out of hand. He observes that every existent – whether necessary (i.e. God) or merely possible – is subject to this kind of divisibility and composition, and he says that al-Rāzī has no proof that divisibility of this sort compromises the unity of an existent.¹⁰⁵ Ibn Taymiyya denies that God could be divided up or sliced up into separately existing parts, but he allows differentiation within God between God’s sundry attributes. He furthermore explains that the Ašʿarīs themselves, of whom al-Rāzī happens to be one, affirm multiple attributes of God without this compromising God’s unity. Given this, he argues that spatial extension or measure should not compromise God’s unity either:

وإذا جاز أن يقولوا إن هذا الموصوف الذي له صفات متعددة هو واحد غير متكثر ولا مركب ولا ينقسم، جاز أيضا أن يقال إن الذي له قدر هو واحد غير متكثر ولا مركب ولا ينقسم وإن كان في الموضعين يمكن أن يشار إلى شيء منه فلا يكون المشار إليه هو عين الآخر.

If it is permissible for [the Ašʿarīs] to say that the One-Who-Is-Qualified – Who has diverse attributes – is one, not multiple, not composed and not divisible, then it is also permissible to say that the One-Who-Has-Measure (qadr) is one, not multiple, not composed and not divisible, even if in both instances it is possible to point to some aspect (šayʾ) of Him and that [aspect] that is pointed to is not the very same as another.¹⁰⁶

In short, if multiple attributes do not render God divisible, measure and spatial extension do not render God divisible either. Ibn Taymiyya then fields an objection. It would seem, according to the logic of this argument, that everything in existence besides God must therefore also be said to be indivisible and non-composite. Nothing would be divisible and composite. Ibn Taymiyya solves the problem by distinguishing between created things and God. God has the power to divide created things into separate pieces, but nothing can divide God from His essential attributes.¹⁰⁷ To sum up, Ibn Taymiyya rejects al-Rāzī’s definition of oneness as simplicity that precludes spatial extension, and he has no difficulty speaking of a non-composite God who is subject to measure in a spatial sense.

7 The Self-Sufficiency of God

Al-Rāzī’s second proof in Part One, Section Four of Taʾsīs al-taqdīs purports to defend God’s self-sufficiency. Al-Rāzī writes, “If [God] were localized in space and location, He would need that space and that location for His existence. This is absurd” (law kāna muḫtaṣṣan bi-l-ḥayyiz wa-l-ǧiha la-kāna muḥtāǧan fī wuǧūdi-hi ilā ḏālika l-ḥayyiz wa-tilka l-ǧiha wa-hāḏā muḥāl).¹⁰⁸ Al-Rāzī here invokes a Platonic notion of space in which space and location subsist independently of what they contain.¹⁰⁹ God cannot be localized in a space and a location because such a God would need that space and that location to exist. Moreover, the space in which God resides would need to be eternal because God is eternal. All of this, according to al-Rāzī, is absurd because God is self-sufficient and has no need of anything outside of Himself.¹¹⁰

In Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya Ibn Taymiyya denies that what al-Rāzī calls space and location have separate existences. For Ibn Taymiyya, all things in the world are surely in existing spaces. However, if the world as a whole is said to be in a space or a location, that space or location does not exist. If such a space or location did exist, it would count as part of the world.¹¹¹ There is no location, space, or other existent above the world except God Himself. Everything that exists apart from God is part of the world. Thus, God does not direct Himself toward or away from anything else above the world. There is also no space existing above the world outside God that God could be said to occupy, and it cannot be said that there are multiple things existing above the world of which God happens to be one.¹¹² Ibn Taymiyya also clarifies that location or direction (ǧiha) may indicate a relation between two things, but the relation has no real existence of its own. So, in the case of God, God’s location above and over the world is a relation between God and the world. The location does not exist in and of itself.¹¹³

Al-Rāzī and Ibn Taymiyya propound fundamentally different notions of space. For al-Rāzī space is a self-subsisting container that exists independently of the objects located within it. If God were a body, God would need to occupy a portion of that space in order to find His location within it. Ibn Taymiyya, however, works on the premise that no self-subsisting space exists. His intuitions follow the Aristotelianism of Ibn Rušd. Space (ḥayyiz) is “the boundaries of something which are conjoined to it and which contain it. [Space] is its sides. The [boundaries] are intrinsic to it. They are not independent of it, despite its need of them” (ḥudūd al-šayʾ al-muttaṣila bi-hi llatī taḥūzu-hu wa-hwa ǧawānibu-hu wa-tilka takūnu dāḫilatan fī-hi fa-lā takūnu mustaġniyyatan ʿan-hu maʿa ḥāǧati-hi ilay-hā).¹¹⁴ Space refers to the boundary of an object inside of which the object exists, and which cannot exist independently of the object itself. Without the presence of the object, no space exists.

On this conception of space, Ibn Taymiyya explains, spatially extended objects are not dependent on the space that they occupy. Instead, spatial extension subsists in the object or body itself, and it in fact depends upon the body for its existence. The body does not need independently existing space, but space derives from the body.¹¹⁵ So, for Ibn Taymiyya, if space depends upon the spatially extended object for its existence rather than the other way around, then al-Rāzī cannot say that a spatially extended corporeal God needs the space that inherently characterizes Him. For that would be tantamount to saying that God needs whatever follows necessarily from His essence.¹¹⁶

As noted above, al-Rāzī also protests that the space in which God exists would need to be eternal because God is eternal. This poses no difficulty for Ibn Taymiyya. He responds that this eternal space would lie within the eternal God and derive from God. It would not exist independently of God. Affirming the eternity of space in this fashion, clarifies Ibn Taymiyya, is no different from affirming the eternity of God’s attributes of knowledge, power and life, all of which subsist in God.¹¹⁷ Al-Rāzī only creates difficulties by positing a space outside of God’s essence in which God would have to take up His place.¹¹⁸ For Ibn Taymiyya, there is no reason to imagine that a spatially extended God needs His spatial extension, and al-Rāzī’s argument fails.

Ibn Taymiyya rounds out his response to al-Rāzī’s proof by contending that his construal of God’s distinction (mubāyana) from the world is superior to that of his Ǧahmī opponents. It is better at avoiding likening God to creatures, and it adheres to the Qurʾānic dictum, “There is nothing like Him” (laysa ka-miṯli-hi šayʾun; Kor 42, 11). God’s distinction from the entirety of creation is greater than the distinction between any two objects within the world. The distinction between God and the world is not only one of essence (ḥaqīqa) and attribute (ṣifa) but also one of location, space, and measure. Not distinguishing God from creation in every respect – including location, space, and measure – is to liken God to creatures. Averting likening is not fundamentally a matter of negating things of God, as the Ǧahmīs imagine, but of affirming things that exist, such as God’s names and attributes.¹¹⁹

8 The Finitude of God’s Spatial Extension

Ibn Taymiyya’s responses to al-Rāzī’s first two rational arguments show that he speaks of God in kalām terms as a self-sufficient, spatially extended, and indivisible existent. His response to al-Rāzī’s next argument inquires into the extent of God’s spatial extension. The third proof in Part One, Section Four of Taʾsīs al-taqdīs maintains that conceiving God as spatial would require specifying whether God was infinite or finite in dimension. Al-Rāzī’s proof begins,

لو كان تعالى مختصًا بحيز وجهة لكان لا يخلو إما أن يقال إنه غير متناه من جميع الجوانب أو يقال إنه غير متناه من بعض الجوانب ومتناه من بعض الجوانب أو يقال إنه متناه من كل الجوانب والأقسام الثلاثة باطلة.

If [God] were localized in space and location, it would have to be said either that He was infinite (ġayr mutanāhin) on all sides, or that He was infinite on some sides and finite on other sides, or that He was finite on all sides. The three divisions are false.¹²⁰

Al-Rāzī provides three reasons that a spatial God cannot be infinite on all sides. First, an infinite dimension (buʿd) is absurd. Al-Rāzī offers the following proof for this. Imagine two lines in parallel, one infinite in length and the other finite. Then, incline the line of finite length so that the path or course extending outward from it intersects with the infinite line. There is presumably a point on the infinite line that marks the first point of contact between it and the course of the inclined finite line. However, there is in fact always a point further up the infinite line with which the course of the finite line will have intersected earlier. There can never be a point of first intersection with the infinite line without there being a prior point of first intersection. This is absurd and shows that an infinite dimension is impossible. Al-Rāzī’s second argument against a spatially infinite God proceeds as follows. If an infinite distance or dimension were possible, it would be impossible to prove that the world in its entirety is finite. This, claims al-Rāzī, is known to be false by consensus (iǧmāʿ). (The finitude of the world is a key premise in al-Rāzī’s proof that God is the Creator.) Al-Rāzī’s third reason has to do with protecting God from impurity. The essence of an infinitely extended God would exist everywhere, and it would therefore mix with the world and all its filth.¹²¹

Al-Rāzī also denies that God could be infinite on some sides and finite on other sides. As in the first case, God cannot have any infinite sides because an infinite dimension is impossible. Additionally, if the finite and the infinite sides were equal in essence (ḥaqīqa) and quiddity (māhiyya), then all of the sides would have to become either infinite or finite and that would introduce increase or decrease into the essence of God. Alternatively, if the sides differed in essence and quiddity, God’s essence would be composed of parts of fundamentally different kinds.¹²²

Finally, al-Rāzī argues that God cannot be finite on all sides. As in the case of a God with both finite and infinite sides, such a God would be susceptible to increase and decrease. This God would have required an external cause, a preponderater (muraǧǧiḥ), to determine His size or measure, and that determination would have to have occurred in time subjecting God to temporal origination. Moreover, a God with only finite sides would leave empty spaces and locations above Him. This God could even create a body above Himself, and He would then no longer be above all things.¹²³

Ibn Taymiyya refutes al-Rāzī’s arguments against a completely finite-sided God first. He rejects al-Rāzī’s claim that such a God must be subject to temporal origination. He has already shown in response to al-Rāzī’s previous proof that God could be both eternal and spatially extended. Ibn Taymiyya moreover observes that al-Rāzī takes spaces and locations to be real existents and that these could exist above God. He responds that he has already explained that spaces do not have independent existences. Additionally, he contends, the revealed sources deny that anything exists above God. In support, he quotes the Qurʾānic verse, “He is the First and the Last, the Manifest and the Hidden” (huwa l-awwalu wa-l-āḫiru wa-l-ẓāhiru wa-l-bāṭinu; Kor 57, 3), and he interprets it with the following report from the ḥadīṯ collection of Muslim (d. 261/875): “You are the First; there is nothing before You. You are the Last; there is nothing after You. You are the Manifest; there is nothing above You. You are the Hidden; there is nothing below You” (anta l-awwal fa-laysa qabla-ka šayʾ wa-anta l-āḫir fa-laysa baʿda-ka šayʾ wa-anta l-ẓāhir fa-laysa fawqa-ka šayʾ wa-anta l-bāṭin fa-laysa dūna-ka šayʾ).¹²⁴ As God is above all things, there are no existent spaces and locations above God, and God does not create anything above Himself. Besides, Ibn Taymiyya asks, how could al-Rāzī posit spaces above God when he rejects the possibility of an infinite dimension and, by implication, an infinity of spaces? If al-Rāzī does not permit infinite dimensions and spaces beyond the finite world, he cannot posit spaces existing above God. Ibn Taymiyya concludes that al-Rāzī ultimately has no proof for his suppositions.¹²⁵

Having refuted al-Rāzī’s arguments against a fully finite-sided God, Ibn Taymiyya also challenges al-Rāzī’s proofs against a God with sides that are all infinite in extent. It is true, he says, that no point of first intersection can occur between an infinite line and the intersecting course of a finite line. However, he rejoins, this does not prove the impossibility of an infinite line or dimension per se. As for the second argument, Ibn Taymiyya has no time for al-Rāzī’s worry that the possibility of infinite dimension would undermine the consensus around the world’s finitude. He retorts that a consensus does not rest on any specific proof. Consensus is a proof on its own, and al-Rāzī’s worry is groundless. Al-Rāzī’s third concern was that the essence of an infinitely extended God would mix with the impurities of the world. Ibn Taymiyya simply retorts that some Ǧahmīs affirm that God is in every place and that the Ittiḥādīs – followers of the Sufi theorist Ibn al-ʿArabī (d. 638/1240) – equate God’s existence with that of dogs, pigs, and impurities.¹²⁶ Ibn Taymiyya of course agrees with al-Rāzī that God cannot mix with filth. As noted earlier, he maintains that there is a boundary between God and the world. This boundary also implies that God cannot be infinite on all sides.

Al-Rāzī’s remaining category is a God who is finite on some sides and infinite on the others. Ibn Taymiyya responds,

فما علمت به قائلا فإن قال هذا أحد فإنه يقول إنه فوق العرش ذاهبا إلى غير نهاية فهو متناه من جهة العالم غير متناه من الجهة الأخرى وهذا لم يبلغني أن أحدا قاله.

I have never known anyone to say this. If someone says this, he will say that [God] is above the Throne extending to infinity. He is finite in the direction toward the world and infinite in the other direction. It has not come to my attention that anyone says that.¹²⁷

Ibn Taymiyya himself apparently does not hold this view either. Nevertheless, he adds that al-Rāzī has not given any proof to falsify it. Al-Rāzī’s proof against an infinite dimension was already shown to be ineffective, and a God with a finite side toward the world would not suffer from mixing with the world’s filth.¹²⁸

As we saw above, al-Rāzī also subjects a God with both infinite and finite sides to the following disjunction. The infinite sides and the finite sides are either equal in essence and quiddity or unequal. If the various sides of God are equal in essence and quiddity, the infinite sides will need to be reduced to a finite measure or the finite sides increased to an infinite dimension. If they are unequal, God is composed of parts. Ibn Taymiyya dismisses the claim that different sides of a God equal in essence and quiddity must have the same dimensions. Things can be the same in essence but different in measures and sizes, like different amounts of gold and silver. As for the second half of the disjunction, Ibn Taymiyya denies that unequal sides in God entail composition, and he refers to his earlier argument that spatial extension need not imply composition.¹²⁹

Ibn Taymiyya does not state explicitly that God is finite on all sides. However, that is the gist of his argumentation. He refutes al-Rāzī’s arguments against a fully finite-sided God, and he agrees with al-Rāzī that God is not infinite on all sides. He does not entirely dismiss the third view that God is finite on some sides and infinite on others, but he has never heard of it. So, he presumably understands God to have sides of finite extension all around. A brief discussion later in Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya bears this out. Ibn Taymiyya distinguishes between existents with respect to time, which can extend infinitely into the future, and with respect to space, body, and place (makān), which are finite. He writes, “[A place] must have a boundary and an essence. The existence of an infinite place or an infinite body is not possible” (fa-lā budda la-hu min ḥadd wa-ḥaqīqa wa-lā yumkinu wuǧūd makān lā nihāya la-hu wa-lā ǧism lā nihāya la-hu).¹³⁰ Therefore, Ibn Taymiyya continues, it is said that God’s existence has no beginning and no end in time. However, “the same is not said of the bigness of His essence and His measure. On the contrary, it is said, ‘Eyes cannot grasp Him’ (Kor 6, 103), ‘They do not encompass Him in knowledge’ (Kor 20, 110), ‘And they do not measure God with a true measure. The earth in its entirety will be in His grip on the Day of Resurrection’ (Kor 39,67)” (lā yuqālu miṯl ḏālika fī ʿaẓamat ḏāti-hi wa-qadri-hi bal yuqālu “lā tudriku-hu l-abṣāru” “wa-lā yuḥīṭūna bi-hi ʿilman” “wa-mā qadarū Llāha ḥaqqa qadri-hi wa-l-arḍu ǧamīʿan qabḍatu-hu yawma l-qiyāmati”).¹³¹ Ibn Taymiyya conceives of God as infinite temporally but not spatially because infinite spatial extension is not possible. God is extremely large, so large as to be beyond human comprehension, but God’s spatial measure is nonetheless finite. It does not extend to infinity in any direction. There is moreover nothing above God, not even empty space, as empty space does not exist.

9 God Surrounding the World

The fourth and last of al-Rāzī’s proofs that we take up is the fifth in Part One, Section Four of Taʾsīs al-taqdīs. This proof affords Ibn Taymiyya opportunity to clarify how he understands God to be located above the world. Al-Rāzī writes:

الأرض كرة، فإذا كان كذلك امتنع كونه تعالى في الحيز والجهة. بيان الأول أنه إذا حصل خسوف قمري فإذا سألنا سكان أقصى المشرق عن ابتدائه قالوا إنه حصل في أول الليل وإذا سألنا سكان أقصى المغرب قالوا إنه حصل في آخر الليل، فعلمنا أن أول الليل في أقصى المشرق هو بعينه آخر الليل في أقصى المغرب وذلك يوجب كون الأرض كرة. وإنما قلنا إن الأرض لما كانت كرة امتنع كون الخالق في شيء من الأحياز وذلك لأن الأرض إذا كانت كرة فالجهة التي هي فوق بالنسبة إلى سكان أهل المشرق هي تحت بالنسبة إلى سكان أهل المغرب وبالعكس، فلو كان اللّٰه تعالى مختصا بشيء من الجهات لكان تعالى في جهة التحت بالنسبة إلى بعض الناس وذلك بالاتفاق بيننا وبين الخصم محال. فثبت أنه يمتنع كونه تعالى مختصا بالجهة.

The earth is a sphere, and if that is so, it is impossible that [God] is in a space or a location. The elucidation of the first [assertion, namely, that the earth is a sphere] is this: when a lunar eclipse occurs and when we ask those living in the far east about when it began, they say that it occurred at the beginning of the night, and, when we ask those living in the far west, they say that it occurred at the end of the night. Thus, we know that the beginning of the night in the far east is identical to the end of the night in the far west. So, the earth must be a sphere. Then, we say that if the earth is a sphere, it is impossible that the Creator is in any spaces. That is because, if the earth is a sphere, the location that is above relative to those who live in the east is below relative to those who live in the west. The opposite [is also the case]. If God were localized in one of [these] locations, He would be in the location “below” relative to some people. We and the opponent agree that that is absurd. So, it has been established that it is impossible that [God] is localized in a location.¹³²

Al-Rāzī first argues here that the earth is spherical by invoking differing perceptions of a lunar eclipse. The earth passes between the sun and the moon and casts its shadow on the moon simultaneously for everyone on the nighttime side of the earth. However, the eclipse occurs when different places on the earth are at different stages of the night. As al-Rāzī puts it, when the lunar eclipse occurs early in the night for those on the east side of the earth, it occurs near the end of the night for those on the west side. Then, al-Rāzī explains, given a spherical earth, what is above the heads of people on the eastern side of the earth will be below the feet of people on the west side. So, if God were located above the heads of those people standing on the east, God would be below those standing on the west. Al-Rāzī says that this is absurd, and so God cannot be in a space or location.

In Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya Ibn Taymiyya first emphasizes that he has no dispute with al-Rāzī over the roundness of the earth (arḍ) and the celestial spheres (aflāk). Ibn Taymiyya allows that some people disagree, but he counters that they have no evidence from revelation, reason, or earlier scholars of Islam to support their views. On the contrary, he continues, some scholars claim that the roundness of the celestial spheres is the consensus of the Muslims. Various scholars have mentioned proofs from the Qurʾān and the Sunna for the roundness of the spheres, and no one among the salaf contests that.¹³³

With this common ground established, Ibn Taymiyya addresses al-Rāzī’s argument. Ibn Taymiyya first observes that no one disputes that the earth is below the sky, no matter where one happens to be on the earth. No one says that the sky in the east is below the sky in the west or vice versa. Wherever one is on the earth, the sky is always above, and the earth is always below. The sky will be above the head of someone on the east side of the earth just as it will be above the head of someone on the west side. Likewise, the earth will be below the feet of each of them. Above and below are fixed locations or directions relative to the spherical earth. The six directions that apply to creatures on the earth – above, below, left, right, front, and behind – do not apply to the sky. In like fashion, God is always regarded as above, never below.¹³⁴

Ibn Taymiyya’s argument strongly suggests that God surrounds the universe in its entirety like the sky surrounds the spherical earth. He makes this explicit when addressing an objection that his view turns God into a celestial sphere. He dismisses the comparison because God and celestial spheres are not members of the same genus (ǧins). However, he does affirm that God surrounds the world: “The Creator of all things is above all things and surrounds them from His location that surrounds all of [the celestial spheres]” (an yakūna ḫāliq al-ǧamīʿ fawq al-ǧamīʿ wa-muḥīṭan bi-hi).¹³⁵ Ibn Taymiyya corroborates this with a comment from the early Qurʾān exegete Ibn ʿAbbās (d. ca 68/687-688): “The seven heavens and the seven earths and what is in them and between them in the hand of the All-Merciful are nothing but a mustard seed in the hand of one of you” (mā l-samawāt al-sabʿ wa-l-araḍūna l-sabʿ fī yad Allāh illā ka-ḫardala fī yad aḥadi-kum), and he underlines the smallness of the created world compared to God.¹³⁶

10 God’s Spatial Relation to the World in Ibn Taymiyya’s Darʾ taʿāruḍ al-ʿaql wa-l-naql and Minhāǧ al-sunna l-nabawiyya

It remains for further research to establish the extent to which Ibn Taymiyya reiterates and develops his rational explanation of God’s spatial distinction from the world in other works. It will suffice here to note that Ibn Taymiyya defends the same theological vision articulated in Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya in his two later theological tomes Darʾ taʿāruḍ al-ʿaql wa-l-naql and Minhāǧ al-sunna l-nabawiyya. The fullest treatment of the issues within Darʾ taʿāruḍ al-ʿaql wa-l-naql quotes and discusses the chapter on God’s exoneration from location (ǧiha) and place (makān) in Sirāǧ al-Dīn al-Urmawī’s (d. 682/1283) Lubāb al-Arbaʿīn (The Quintessence of the Forty), an abridgement of Faḫr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s al-Arbaʿīn fī uṣūl al-dīn (The Forty in the Foundations of Religion). This abridgement includes short versions of arguments found also in al-Rāzī’s Taʾsīs al-taqdīs such as the following: it would be irrational to follow the Karrāmīs and Ḥanbalīs in denying an existent that has no location or measure; a spatially extended God would be divisible and composite; and it would be absurd to imagine that God could be located above a spherical world from both of its opposite sides. Al-Urmawī’s abridged chapter ends with al-Rāzī’s taʾwīl-tafwīd rule for interpreting revealed texts that contradict rational proofs.¹³⁷

At 483 pages, Ibn Taymiyya’s response takes up the whole of Volume 6 and part of Volume 7 in the 11-volume critical edition of Darʾ taʿāruḍ al-ʿaql wa-l-naql.¹³⁸ Ibn Taymiyya argues as he does in Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya that all existents are perceptible to the senses and that any one of two existents must either indwell the other or exist separately from it spatially. There is no third non-spatial category for God.¹³⁹ Also, the human natural constitution (fiṭra) knows necessarily that God is over and above the world in a spatial sense.¹⁴⁰ God surrounds the spherical world, and God is over every point in the world just as the sky is over every location on the earth.¹⁴¹ Furthermore, it is not true that every spatial extension is divisible, and God’s finite extension does not mean that there are void spaces above God because there is in fact nothing above God at all.¹⁴² Finally, Ibn Taymiyya denies that there is any contradiction between rational proofs and revealed texts. The texts indicate that God is above the world, and reason indicates likewise.¹⁴³

Ibn Taymiyya’s discussion in Minhāǧ al-sunna l-nabawiyya is shorter and less developed than that of Darʾ taʿāruḍ al-ʿaql wa-l-naql. He affirms that God is distinct from creation, above the heavens, and over the Throne. There is nothing above the world except God, and God is not subject to composition. Furthermore, there is nothing above God or encompassing Him. Ibn Taymiyya discusses the term mutaḥayyiz (spatially extended) in Minhāǧ al-sunna l-nabawiyya and implies that this applies to God in the sense of an existent perceptible to the senses, but he does not speak of God as mutaḥayyiz expli-citly in the way that he does in Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya.¹⁴⁴

Conclusion

Ibn Taymiyya’s Bayān talbīs al-Ǧahmiyya marks a new departure in his polemics against Ašʿarī kalām theology. Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya not only reprises the hermeneutical critique of Ašʿarī reinterpretation (taʾwīl) found in his earlier Ḥamawiyya fatwa and al-Ǧawāb ʿan al-iʿtirāḍāt al-miṣriyya. It also refutes the rational arguments for the incorporeality and non-spatiality of God spelled out in Faḫr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s Taʾsīs al-taqdīs and explicates an alternative theological rationality of God’s relation to space. Ibn Taymiyya would much prefer to limit discourse about God to the affirmations of the Qurʾān and the Sunna, as this is what he understands to be the teaching of the salaf. Yet, when pressed by the needs of his intellectual context, Ibn Taymiyya translates his understanding of the sacred sources into the terminology of his adversaries. The God that Ibn Taymiyya envisions in the language of al-Rāzī’s kalām is a very large existent of finite spatial extension that surrounds the created world and is distinct and separate from it. If one is to call this God a body – and Ibn Taymiyya is extremely reticent to do so – it must be completely clear that it is neither divisible nor composite. As this God is finite in dimension, it might be thought that Ibn Taymiyya imagines open space above God, but he draws on Ibn Rušd’s Aristotelian denial of independently self-subsisting space to banish that thought from possibility. Nothing exists apart from the created universe and God who surrounds it. While Ibn Taymiyya’s Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya provides the fullest expression of a spatialist view of God known to exist within his corpus, and indeed within the whole Islamic tradition, it is not unique in its underlying theology. Ibn Taymiyya expands on earlier spatialisms of the sort found in al-Dārimī and the Ḥanbalī al-Radd ʿalā l-zanādiqa wa-l-ǧahmiyya attributed to Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, and he reprises his spatialist views and arguments more briefly in his later tomes Darʾ taʿāruḍ al-ʿaql wa-l-naql and Minhāǧ al-sunna l-nabawiyya. Given the extent to which Ibn Taymiyya works out this spatialist vision of God in his three largest theological works – Bayān talbīs al-ǧahmiyya, Darʾ taʿāruḍ al-ʿaql wa-l-naql, and Minhāǧ al-sunna l-nabawiyya – it is not possible to assimilate his thought to Ḥanbalī noncognitivism, which precludes theological reflection entirely, or to Ašʿarī tafwīḍ, which explicitly rejects divine corporeality and then delegates the meaning of God’s attributes to God without further consideration. Ibn Taymiyya’s thoroughly reasoned theology of divine spatiality stands firmly against al-Rāzī’s Ašʿarī incorporealism and theological incorporealism more generally.