How Ibn Taymiyya Became So Influential — Ali Shukri Amin
First published on my writing site: www.aliamin.info/2026/07/how-ibn-taymiyya-became-so-influential/
By Ali Shukri Amin. I first wrote this as a comment on r/AcademicQuran, in the thread “Ibn Taymiyya was considered a fringe scholar in his day. How did he become so widely respected today?”, copied here as written.
Your question & post should be reframed. While ibn Taymiyyah had less historical influence than he does today, that doesn’t make him “fringe.” It also doesn’t mean there is a straight line between ibn Taymiyyah & modern Salafism.
If anything, ibn Taymiyyah was an extremely successful scholar in his time. We do not know much about the vast majority of Islamic scholars throughout history, if we even know their names and that they were scholars. Even scholars whose texts are still studied to this day often have scant biographical information.
Not only do we know a lot about ibn Taymiyyah himself, he was a prolific author, and the vast majority of his thought was preserved. He had many students, engaged in military campaigns, was important enough to imprison 4 times, was famous enough that ibn Batutta knew who he was, and his funeral was famously well attended.
After his death, he became widely acknowledged as a lesser mujtahid in the Hanbali madh’hab – perhaps the 4th or 5th most important authority on fiqh. His views on Aqidah were not widely studied, but he was seen as a preeminent scholar.
There’s a reason Mohammed ibn Abd al-Wahhab even heard of ibn Taymiyyah and his student ibn al-Qayyim, and it’s not because they were fringe.
That being said, ibn Taymiyyah attempted to reconstruct all of Islamic theology in a new light that he claimed would disprove didactic theology (Ash’ari Kalam). By developing his own theory of linguistics and applying it to Arabic, ibn Taymiyyah attempted to revive the radical literalism of early Hanbali thought and reframe it in an advanced philosophical fashion.
Believe it or not, ibn Taymiyyah’s political & governmental thinking is perhaps some of his least controversial. Besides his incitement of rebellion against the Mongal Ilkhanate (which the Seljuks supported), ibn Taymiyyah was primarily maligned for his abstract theological (istighatha, Sifat) and practical jurisprudential views (triple talaq).
Salafism relies upon ibn Taymiyyah because he is most robust iconoclast against Asharism, istighatha, contemporary Tasawuff, taqlid, etc. However, Salafism is a movement while ibn Taymiyyah was a person. Later scholars took aspects of ibn Taymiyyah they liked while often contradicting others.
Mohammed ibn Abd al-Wah’hab codified the istighatha views of ibn Taymiyyah while also adding his own system to define the boundaries of Islam and excommunicate (takfir) others. While the politics of Mohammed ibn Abd al-Wahhab are highly problematic within Muslim circles, the politics of ibn Taymiyyah and ibn Abd al-Wahhab are broadly aligned with the rest of Sunnism on how to deal with non-Muslim political bodies (ahkam al-sultaniyyah).
If you are talking about the philosophy of language, the Attributes of God, ontology, saint worship, tawassul, or particular rulings of fiqh – ibn Taymiyyah held unique views on all of those. However, if you are talking about unprecedented geopolitical positions, you’re better off discussing Mohammed ibn Abd al-Wahhab.
Modern Salafism is broadly speaking a product of early Hanbali thought, some Taymiyyan influence, ibn Abd al-Wahhab, and some influence from modernist thinkers (Rashid Rida, Albani in his rejection of fiqh). It is less a philosophical movement and the istighatha issue is for all practical purposes irrelevant today (the practice is mostly eradicated).
Posted July 13, 2026. Read it on Reddit.
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