A Critical Assessment of Ibn Taymiyyah's Definition of 'Ibadah (Worship)

According to Ibn Taymiyyah, 'ibadah (lit. worship) means extreme humbleness twixt with love. This perspective of worship has become a yardstick for determining and differentiating Islam from disbelief and heresy. However, unfortunately, in spite of this definition being against Ibn Taymiyyah's salafist and literalist foundations – because there is no trace of this definition in the words of his predecessors nor is the outward meaning of this word in harmony with the above definition – there are multiple other problems with this definition since it is not inclusive and exclusive. That is, there are acts excluded which are certainly acts of worship and there are acts included which are not acts of worship, not to mention the fact that there is no reason to prove that the definition is correct. Furthermore, it runs counter to the Holy Quran, opposes some established acts of worship, counters the preference of the acts of worship as well as some definitions offered by prominent Sunni scholars. In fact, even if none of the criticisms is supposedly in place and the definition is presumed to be correct, it is still not qualified to prove shirk and the said practices cannot be labeled as disbelief because such kinds of worship cannot be established and ascertained by anyone and therefore no one can be accused or worshipping someone other than God. That is because love is an inward characteristic, and to prove the purpose of love with humbleness is possible only for those who are well aware of the hearts and minds of other people. Who can make such a claim? Keeping in view these problems which entail multiple misgivings and doubts about establishing the acts of worship and considering that the divine rules are rendered null by these doubts, another question would arise as to the basis of excommunication as to how someone is sentenced to death and none of the said problems prevent the implementation of any of these divine rules. The issues raised in these few passages which, in fact, provide counter-response to Ibn Taymiyyah's definition constitute the subject of this research.