This paper highlights the significance of Ibn Taymiyya’s theology and ethics for making sense of his conflict with the Mamluk religious establishment in the early 1300s. Ibn Taymiyya was imprisoned in Cairo in 1306 for holding heretical theological views. Then, he was released from prison in 1307 when, according to some reports, he signed a retraction of his doctrine. Earlier scholarship downplayed the significance of theology in Ibn Taymiyya’s 1306 imprisonment and followed contemporary Mamluk chroniclers in ascribing his troubles to rivalries with other scholars. Recent scholarship has called for giving more attention to Ibn Taymiyya’s theology to explain his difficulties and has shown that he held views on God’s corporeality and God’s speech fundamentally at odds with the prevailing Ash‘ari theology. While rivalries certainly played a part, Ibn Taymiyya was imprisoned mainly because his theological views threatened the hegemony of Ash‘ari orthodoxy in the Mamluk sultanate. With this background in place, the present paper will examine why the Mamluk authorities released Ibn Taymiyya from prison in 1307, a question that has received limited scholarly attention. Some Mamluk-era sources are reserved or evasive about what took place to effect the release. However, the chronicle of Egyptian bureaucrat al-Nuwayri states that Ibn Taymiyya confessed Ash‘arism and voluntarily signed a confession to procure his freedom. It also copies in the confession text. Much more briefly, the traditionalist Shams al-Din al-Dhahabi mentions that Ibn Taymiyya signed something to secure his release, but under threat of death. Al-Nuwayri’s story does not fit Ibn Taymiyya’s reputation for intransigence. Nor does Ibn Taymiyya adhere to the doctrines found in the confession in any of his books. It has thus been suggested that the confession copied by al-Nuwayri was a forgery. However, as this paper will show, it is very difficult to explain how the document could have been forged in light of the socio-political circumstances of the moment. This paper instead accepts al-Nuwayri’s report as credible and turns instead to Ibn Taymiyya’s ethics for explanation. Ibn Taymiyya articulates a utilitarian ethic in his writings, and some of his actions betray utilitarian reasoning as well. Thus, it is not implausible that Ibn Taymiyya weighed up the benefits and harms of signing a confession retracting his doctrine and concluded that procuring his release from prison would be of greater benefit to the Muslim community than suffering a martyr’s death.