A critical study of the seeing of God due to Ibn Taymiyya’s thought

Gyour Al-Hassanein

Abstract

The idea of seeing God was present in Ahmad bin Hanbal’s school of thought. Ibn Taymiyyah - a follower of Ahmad bin Hanbal- took this idea, theorized and organized it fully. He took the [religious] texts for their apparent meanings without paying attention to interpretation and authorization, nor did he refrain before ambiguous texts. In this study, we mentioned his views on the matter of seeing God in this world -at waking and sleeping - and in the afterworld in detail, besides criticizing them. He claims that he is a real monotheist, while the rest of Muslims, who disagree with him on proving the matter of seeing God, are disbelievers. However, when we look at the beliefs of Ibn Taymiyya, we would be astonished; because his beliefs are so far from the monotheism which the rest of Muslims believe in. He believes that seeing God in this world is possible objectivy and not subjectivy , but on the Day of Resurrection, it is possible objectivy and not subjectivy.  Through the study, it has become clear that Almighty God can never be seen by man’s eye, neither in this world nor in the afterworld, for there is nothing whatever like Him. Religious texts confirm this meaning.

Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)