Taymiyyan Taá¹£awwuf meets Ottoman Orthodoxy: Reformed Sufism in the thought of Aḥmad al-Rumi al-qḥiá¹£ari Parts of this article were originally published in Ottoman Puritanism and Its Discontents: Aḥmad al-Rumi al-qḥiá¹£ari and the Qaá¸izadelis by Mustapha Sheikh, and have been reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press

• Published in: The Muslim world (Hartford) Vol. 108; no. 1; p. 186
• Main Author: Sheikh, Mustapha
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hartford Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01-01-2018
• Subjects: ibn Taymiyya, Shaykh al-Islam Taqi al-Din (d 728/1328); Mass media; Theology
• ISSN: 0027-4909; 1478-1913
• DOI: 10.1111/muwo.12234

Shaykh al‐Islām Taqī al‐Dīn Aḥmad b. Taymiyya (d. 728/1328) is undoubtedly one of the most widely cited of the classical Islamic thinkers in present‐day Muslim discourse. Unfortunately, however, it is more common to find his name and thought invoked in the unsavory context of radical Islam than in the contexts of sophisticated theological, juridical or even philosophical debates related to Islam and Islamic thought. His name and legacy, it is fair to say, has in many ways been tarnished, as has been highlighted recently by the Western world's leading expert on Taymiyyan thought, Yahya Michot: ‘Whether coming from government circles or militant Islamists, from incompetent Orientalists or the Western media, a plethora of writings accuse the Mamlūk theologian and mufti of opposition to reason and mysticism, of fundamentalism and intolerance, of radical extremism.’2While Ibn Taymiyya's influence has probably been exaggerated with respect to modern Islamic militancy, his influence has been significantly under‐estimated in respect of early modern Islamic revivalism and reform.