Ibn Taimiya condemns the metaphor theory in some of his works like “al-Haqiqa wa al-majaz” and the Kitab al-iman, and he defends the ahl al-hadith's position that they should refrain from metaphorical interpretation of the Qur'an and the Sunna.First he shows that the metaphor theory which devides the meaning into the literal (haqiqa) and the metaphorical (majaz) is not found in the sayings of the salaf and appears only after the 3rd Islamic century. Then he theoretically refutes the metaphor theory adopted by the theologians, who define the literal meaning as follows: (1) The word has a literal meaning when it is used in the meaning in which it was originally coined; and (2) the literal meaning is what the word means without context.The linguistic notion that a word makes sense without its context originates from the same mentality as that of the philosophical notion that the universal without concrete dimensions has a substantial existence. The latter notion forms a metaphysics Ibn Taimiya severely criticizes.Ibn Taimiya criticizes the metaphor theory on the level of its philosophical foundation, through which he discloses the fictitiousness of the metaphor theory. Thus he gives a theoretical ground to the hermeneutical position of the ahl al-hadith.