A Study and Critique of Literary Foundations of Ibn Taymiyyah in Quranic Exegesis

As the most influential Salafi scholar, Ibn Taymiyyah holds particular views with regard to Quranic exegesis. Extensive publications have been published about the foundations of his views. Yet, no research has been carried out about his literary foundations in exegesis. In the present study, the most important literary foundations of Ibn Taymiyyah in Quranic exegesis were explicated and critiqued to show that 'denial of trope' is the most important basis in the exegetic view of Ibn Taymiyyah. The reasons why Ibn Taymiyyah denies trope are: no mention of trope in the words of the companions and followers and salafi ulema, the lack of a comprehensive definition of trope, the denial of the creation of words and the claim for the banning nature of the language, the absence of proper signs for the recognition of truth versus trope and finally the denial of trope usages. Additionally, other exegetic foundations of Ibn Taymmiyah addressed in this study are: non-emphasizable feature of trope, the necessity of conflicts for references, the denial of eternal negation for “Lan” (literally 'will not'), not using letters instead of each other and the alteration of idioms and proverbs.