Al-Radd ʿalā man qāla bi-fanāʾ al-Janna wa-al-Nār - Ibn Taimiya - (48)

Al-Radd ʿalā man qāla bi-fanāʾ al-Janna wa-al-NārIbn Taimiya

that the leading Imams of Islam censured him for it, and the majority even declared him an unbeliever. (1) Those who agreed with him on the basic premise nevertheless rejected the corollaries it entailed, thereby contradicting themselves.

Some have tried to draw a distinction between the past and the future, claiming that the past has come into existence whereas the future has not. This is a weak distinction ⦗3a⦘ for several reasons:

First: They have treated the past as finite, and comparison—whether of superiority or inferiority—can apply only to what is finite, not to what is infinite, as has already been shown. Thus they consider only that portion which they themselves assume to be finite; they posit finitude and then measure what they have declared finite. This would hold only if it were even possible for the series to have an endpoint—how much more untenable is it when such an endpoint is impossible?

Second: The proof covers both categories. One may ask: Are the sequences of events from the Hijrah onward into infinity and from the Flood onward into infinity unequal, or are they identical? If identical, that is impossible, for one series is greater than the other; and if unequal, that too is impossible, because disparity within an infinite series is impossible.

(2) Should someone object that this merely posits equality or inequality in matters that have not yet occurred, we reply: Yes—but it is a positing of equality and inequality on the assumption that those events exist, not while they are still nonexistent; just as past events were assessed for sameness and difference after they had ceased to exist, not while they were present. Indeed, they treated those bygone events, now annihilated, as though they were still in being.

In both cases, then, what is being entertained is only a hypothetical assessment of equality and inequality with respect to what does not exist. If such a hypothesis is admissible in one instance, it is admissible in the other; and if it is impossible in one, it is impossible in the other.

(1) In the original manuscript below the line is written “tanaqaḍū” (“they contradicted”), with a note that it likewise appears in another copy and is correct. (2) In the original above the line is written “wa-idhā” (“and if”).

عليه أئمة الإسلام، وجمهورهم كفروه. والذين وافقوه على الأصل خالفوه في لوازمه فتناقضوا (١) . وفرق من فرق بين الماضي والمستقبل، بأن الماضي دخل في الوجود بخلاف المستقبل، فرق ضعيف "٣أ" لوجوه: أحدها: إن الماضي قد جعله متناهيا، فلم يقع التفاضل إلا فيما تناهى دون ما لا تناهى كما تقدم، وحينئذ فما دخل في الوجوه إلا ما يتناهى من هذا الجانب، فهو تقدير يتناهى فما قدر متناهيا، ثم هذا إذا قدر أن تنهايه ممكن، فكيف إذا كان ممتنعا؟. الثاني: أن الدليل شامل للنوعين، فإنه يمكن أن يقال: الحوادث من الهجرة، ومن الطوفان إلى ما لا يتناهى، هل هما متفاضلان؟ أم متماثلان. فإن تماثلا فهو محال، لأن أحدهما أزيد من الآخر، وإن تفاضلا فهو محال، لأن التفاضل في ما لا يتناهى محال. فإن (٢) قيل: هذا تقدير التفاضل، والتماثل في ما لم يكن بعد. قيل: نعم، لكنه تقدير التفاضل والتماثل، بتقدير وجوده لا في حال كونه معدوما، كما أن الماضي قدرتهم فيه التماثل، والتفاضل بعد عدمه بعد عدمه لا في حال وجوده، لكن قدرتهم تلك الحوادث الماضية التي عدمت كأنها موجودة. ففي كلا الموضعين إنما هو تقدير التفاضل، والتماثل فيما هو معدوم. فإن صح في أحد الموضعين صح في الآخر، وإن امتنع في أحدهما امتنع في الآخر.

(١) تحته بالأصل "تناقضوا" مع الإشارة إلى مجيئه هكذا بنسخة أخرى وأنه صحيح أيضا. (٢) فوقه بالأصل "وإذا".