Muwaffaq al-Din Ibn Qudama (1147-1223) was an ascetic, jurisconsult and traditionalist theologian of the Hanbali school mainly resident in Damascus. His Tahrim al-Nazar is an attack on the rationalist views of the earlier jurist of Baghdad, Ibn 'Aqil (d. 119). Ibn Qudama took the traditionalist position that speculative theology (kalam) and allegorical interpretation (ta'wil) were innovations and ipso facto not permissible. The edition is based on...