[source: How To Win a Cosmic War, p. Born in 1263 CE, Ibn Taymiyyah is widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest thinkers in Islamic history, a philosopher and theologian whose immense oeuvre - he wrote more than three hundred individual works - and famed piety led his disciples to give him the title of Shaykh al-Islam, an honor reserved only for the most supreme legal authorities. [source: How To Win a Cosmic War, p. 105] Ibn Taymiyyah was reared in a family of prominent religious scholars. Both his father and his grandfather belonged no the Hanbali School of Law, the most conservative of the four schools in Sunni Islam (the other three are the Hanafi, the Maliki, and the Shafi'i). [source: How To Win a Cosmic War, p. 105] A diligent student who had memorized the Qur'an before he was nine years old, ibn Taymiyyah joined his father and his grandfather as a Hanbali cleric at the astonishingly young age of nineteen... [source: How To Win a Cosmic War, p. 105] ...though, significantly, only after he had spent a number of years under the tutelage of major scholars from the other three schools of law, an unusual practice at the time, especially for someone from such an ultraconservative background. [source: How To Win a Cosmic War, p. 105] The decision to dabble so deeply in other schools may have annoyed his father and grandfather, but the experience provided ibn Taymiyyah with a comparative perspective on legal issues that would, in later years, allow him to challenge certain Hanbali orthodoxies in a way that had rarely been attempted. [source: How To Win a Cosmic War, p. 105] Baghdad (the name means "the gift of God" in Persian) was the wealthies and, with approximately one million inhabitants, most populous city in the world. [source: How To Win a Cosmic War, p. 106] It was also the most learned; it is said that every citizen in Baghdad was expected to know how to read and write. While Europe was mired in the Dark Ages, a steady stream of scholars and artisans from every corner of the world, of every religion and ethnicity, flowed into Baghdad to study medicine, mathematics, astronomy, and the arts. A corps of royal scribes worked day and night translating the accumulated knowledge of the Western world from Greek, Latin, Syriac, Sanskrit, and Persian into Arabic, the lingia franca of the arts and sciences. [source: How To Win a Cosmic War, p. 106] The texts were transferred fcob ancient scraps of parchment and papyrus onto fresh sheets of paper, made in Baghdad's very own paper mill (the first paper mill in the world), and placed inside the legendary Library of Baghdad - known in Arabic as bayt al-hakma or "the House of Wisdom" - where they were preserved for future generations. [source: How To Win a Cosmic War, p. 106] (Were it not for the work of these scribes, the world might well have lost track of Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras, Euclid, Plotinus, and the rest of the foundation of Western philosophy, much of which was translated into European languages from Arabic). Algebra was invented in the Library of Baghdad; so was the science of optics. Anatomy and physiology, music and meteorology, logic and philosophy, all were developed or advanced by the scholars who made Baghdad their home. [source: How To Win a Cosmic War, p. 106] At the dawn of the thirteenth century, Genghis Khan united the nomadic tribes scattered along the grass-fed steppes of the Central Asian plateau into a mobile machine of death and destruction. In just a few years, Ghenghis's army had swept through modern-day China, Russia, Afghanistan, and India, razing entire towns and slaughtering millions of people (eighteen million, by some estimates). The Mongolian horsemen continued westward, descending upon the legendary cities of Iran - Merv, Nishapur, Samarkand - laying waste to everything, killing everyone in sight, uprooting graves, flattening buildings, looting, pillaging, burning. [source: How To Win a Cosmic War, pp. 106-107] MONGOLS TOLD CALIPH SURREND OR WE WILL DESTROY EVERYTHING In 1258, the Mongol army, led by Ghengis's grandson Hulegu Khan, arrived at the gates of Baghdad. As per Mongol custom, Hulegu sent an emissary to the Abbasid caliph, al-Mustasim, giving him the option of laying down his arms and surrendering the city. When the caliph refused, Hulegu's army forced its way through Baghdad's fortified walls and unleashed a brutal punishment upon its inhabitants. [source: How To Win a Cosmic War, p. 107] MONGOLS DESTROYED LIBRARY OF BAGHDAD, TURNED RIVER BLACK FROM ALL THE BOOKS THROWN INTO IT The Mongols burned everything. The books in the Library of Baghdad were flung into the Tigris, turning the waters black with ink. [source: How To Win a Cosmic War, p. 107] CALIPH WRAPPED IN A RUG AND KICKED TO DEATH BY MONGOLS, WHO SLAUGHTERED HIS ENTIRE FAMILY Al-Mustasim's family was massacred, down to the last child. The caliph himself was wrapped in a rug and kicked to death. [source: How To Win a Cosmic War, p. 107] MONGOL ARMY BEHEADED ALL THE SCHOLARS IN BAGHDAD, PILED THE HEADS INTO A GIANT PYRAMID IN CENTER OF CITY No one was spared. Hulegu's army rounded up Baghdad's soldiers, scribes, and artisans and chopped off their heads. The bodies they left to be picked clean by birds. The heads they piled into a giant pyramid in the center of the city. The stench of decay carried on for miles. By the time the Mongols' thirst for blood had been sated, Baghdad had been practically depopulated. [source: How To Win a Cosmic War, p. 107] PARENTS OF IBN TAYMIYYAH FLED BAGHDAD, ARRIVED IN DAMASCUS...BUT MONGOLS SACKED DAMASCUS TOO, THREE YEARS LATER Somehow, in the midst of the devastation, ibn Taymiyyah's family managed to flee to Damascus, leaving behind everything but their books. But they could not escape the Mongol horde. Four years after the fall of Baghdad, in 1260 CE, the Mongols entered Syria and sacked Damascus. Three years later, in 1263 CE, Ahmad ibn Taymiyyah was born. [source: How To Win a Cosmic War, p. 107] MANY MONGOLS CONVERTED TO ISLAM, MUSLIM POPULATION DID NOT TRUST THE INVADERS, DEEP SPIRITUAL CRISIS ...the descendants of Hulegu, rather than moving on to other conquests, had begun to settle in the occupied Muslim lands and even to adopt Islam as their religion. The Mongols were actually quite tolerant of other faiths, and they easily absorbed Islamic beliefs and practices into their won shamanistic spiritual system, creating a kind of hybrid of Sunni Islam and Eastern paganism. This created a dilemna for Muslims under Mongol rule, many of whom did not know how to respond to the conversion of their new and unfamiliar masters. Now that the Mongols had become Muslims, must they be obeyed as God's regents on earth? Should the same people who only a few years earlier had killed millions of Muslims, enslaved their children, plendered their property, burned their mosques, and uprooted their graves now be considered Muslims just because they had declared that "there is no god but God"? [source: How To Win a Cosmic War, pp. 107-108] IBN TAYMIYYAH'S FATWA REJECTED THE ISLAMIC FAITH OF THE MONGOL INVADERS, SAID MUST NOT OBEY THEM The Mongols, ibn Taymiyyh wrote, are "unbelievers [and] hypocrites who do not really believe in Islam...every type of hypocrisy, unbelief, and outright rejection of the faith is found among the Mongol followers. They are among the most ignorant people, who least know the faith and are far from following it." They were, in short, apostates and need not be obeyed. [source: How To Win a Cosmic War, p. 108] IBN TAYMIYYAH DISAGREED WITH HANBALI, SAID NON-PIOUS RULERS WERE KAFIR AND SO WERE THOSE WHO AGREED TO LIVE UNDER THEM Ibn Taymiyyah disagreed with his master. To live freely and justly as Muslims required a leader committed to Islamic guidance, he argued. If that leader failed in his duty to uphold Muslim principles and did not abide by Islamic law, then he was not really a Muslim but a kafir; his rule was invalid. Ibn Taymiyyah declared that it was incumbment upon all Muslims under the rule of an impious leader to rebel. Employing the practice of takfir, he even went so far as to argue that any Muslim who was willing to abide by the rule of the kafir was himself a kafir. [source: How To Win a Cosmic War, p. 108-109] IBN TAYMIYYAH DREW ON PRECEDENT OF KHARIJITES, WHO OPPOSED RULE OF 3RD CALIPH, UTHMAN There was a precedent for such an extreme view. Six hundred years earlier, a sect called the Kharijites had made a similar argument when they rebeled against the leadership of the third caliph, Uthman ibn Affan. The Kharijites believed that the leader of the Muslim community must be blameless and without sin. He must exceed all other Muslims in his piety and learning; otherwise he had no right to lead the community and must be removed from power by any means necessary. [source: How To Win a Cosmic War, p. 109] IBN TAYMIYYAH DEVELOPED THE NOTION OF DAR AL-ISLAM AND DAR AL-KUFR Ibn Taymiyyah was certainly no Kharijite, but he agreed that it was the obligation of every Muslim to ensure the purity of the community by purging it of all innovation (bida) and heresy. He also drew inspiration from the Kharijites in proposing a strict geographical division of the world into realms of belief (dar al-Islam) and unbelief (dar al-kufr), with the former in constant pursuit of the latter. [source: How To Win a Cosmic War, p. 109] IBN TAYMIYYAH SAID IT IS A DUTY FOR ALL TO FIGHT THE MONGOL INVADERS ...ibn Taymiyyah focused his attention strictly on the enemy living inside dar al-Islam - that is, on his fellow Muslims who did not adequately follow Islamic law; on those he considered "heretics," such as the Shi'a, whom ibn Taymiyyah despised; and most especially on the Mongol invaders, who despite claiming to be Muslims were, in ibn Taymiyyah's view, apostates against whom it was incumbent upon all Muslims to declare jihad. "To fight the Mongols who came to Syria," he wrote, "is a duty prescribed [to all]." [source: How To Win a Cosmic War, p. 109] IBN TAYMIYYAH: JIHAD IS A PERSONAL DUTY - NO NEED FOR A QUALIFIED IMAM Ibn Taymiyyah reconceptualized jihad as an "individual obligation" (fard 'ala l'ayn), overturning centuries of consensus among his fellow legal scholars that jihad must be a "collective obligation" (fard 'ala l-kifaya) - a defensive struggle against the oppression and injustice that could be authorized only by a qualified imam. [source: How To Win a Cosmic War, p. 109] IBN TAYMIYYAH SAID JIHAD WAS EVEN SUPERIOR TO FASTING, PRAYER, AND THE HAJJ Jihad, for ibn Taymiyyah, was an offensive weapon that could be employed, on one's own and without guidance, to propagate Islam, to purify it and make it prevail over the whole of the globe. Indeed, Ibn Taymiyyah elevated jihad into the highest form of devotion. "Jihad implies all kinds of worship," he wrote in the Religious and Moral Doctrine of Jihad. "It is the best voluntary act that man can perform...it is better than the hajj (greater pilgrimage) and the umrah (lesser pilgrimage), better than voluntary salaat (prayer) and voluntary fasting." [source: How To Win a Cosmic War, pp. 109-110] TAYMIYYAH'S STUDENT, QAYYIM AL-JAWZIYYAH, COPIED AND CIRCULATED HIS TEACHINGS Ibn Taymiyyah spent many years in prison for his writings and ultimately died there in 1328 CE. Although his disciples, and in particular his secretary and successor, ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, managed to keep his teachings alive for a generation or two, copying his works and sharing them with others, for most scholars, ibn Taymiyyah's opinions regarding what he called "apostate rulers" were deemed dangerous and far too radical. [source: How To Win a Cosmic War, p. 110] MOST SCHOLARS REGARD IBN TAYMIYYAH AS TOO DANGEROUS AND RADICAL Ibn Taymiyyah spent many years in prison for his writings and ultimately died there in 1328 CE. Although his disciples, and in particular his secretary and successor, ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, managed to keep his teachings alive for a generation or two, copying his works and sharing them with others, for most scholars, ibn Taymiyyah's opinions regarding what he called "apostate rulers" were deemed dangerous and far too radical. [source: How To Win a Cosmic War, p. 110] SADAT ASSASSIN JUSTIFIED MURDER OF SADAT ON IBN TAYMIYYAH'S WRITINGS Faraj based his justification for the assassination squarely on the writings of ibn Taymiyyah. "The rulers of this age are in apostasy from Islam," he wrote, channeling the famed Hanbali jurist. "They carry nothing from Islam but their names, even though they pray and fast and claim to be Muslim." According to Faraj, even Mongol rule would be better than "the laws which the West has imposed on countries like Egypt and which have no connection with Islam or with any revealed religion." Faraj argued that by signing a peace treaty with Israel (the 1978 Camp David Accords) at the urging of US President Jimmy Carter, Sadat had committed a grave sin. He had forfeited the right to be called a Muslim. He was a kafir; it was not the duty of every Muslim to shed his blood. TAYMIYYAH'S STUDENT, QAYYIM AL-JAWZIYYAH, COPIED AND CIRCULATED HIS TEACHINGS Ibn Taymiyyah spent many years in prison for his writings and ultimately died there in 1328 CE. Although his disciples, and in particular his secretary and successor, ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, managed to keep his teachings alive for a generation or two, copying his works and sharing them with others, for most scholars, ibn Taymiyyah's opinions regarding what he called "apostate rulers" were deemed dangerous and far too radical. [source: How To Win a Cosmic War, pp. 111-112]