Ibn Taymiyya and the Attributes of God

Ibn Taymiyya and the Attributes of God, by Farid Suleiman (translated by Carl Sharif El-Tobgui). Leiden/Boston: BRILL, 2024, 389pp. ISBN: 978-9004499898.

Reviewed by: Ifthahar Ahmed, Cardiff University, UK

In recent decades, the figure of Ibn Taymiyyah has attracted renewed scholarly attention, yet many aspects of his thought remain insufficiently explored in a systematic manner. Farid Suleiman’s Ibn Taymiyya and the Attributes of God represents a major contribution in this regard, offering a detailed and carefully argued study of what is arguably the centrality of Ibn Taymiyyah’s theological project: the doctrine of the divine attributes (ṣifāt). The book addresses a longstanding gap in modern scholarship. Although Ibn Taymiyyah is often invoked in discussions of theology, law, and contemporary Islamic movements, his views on the divine attributes have typically been treated either superficially or through a strong focus on one particular attribute. Suleiman’s study seeks to reconstruct Ibn Taymiyyah’s theological method from within his own writings. The result is a nuanced portrait which challenges widespread assumptions, particularly the tendency to label him as a crude literalist or anthropomorphist.