No medieval Muslim author has had a greater impact on modern Islamic thought than Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328). His considerable influence in the modern world can be attributed to the strong resonance of his thought with modern Muslim sensibilities: in particular, his scriptural originalism, critique of Sufi practices and classical scholastic theology, and his uncompromising attitude towards non-Muslims. This fundamentalist portrait overlooks, however, the more constructive elements of Ibn Taymiyya’s thought, which have an equally “modern” tinge to them. A remarkable example of this is Ibn Taymiyya’s uniquely functionalist approach to politics and religion, which he based on an elaborate theory of how human societies form and develop. Indeed, in looking to his broader theological project of religious fundamentalism, the centrality of his sociological thought cannot be overstated, although it has to date been severely neglected in the study of Ibn Taymiyya. In my paper, I aim to rectify this glaring lacuna by analyzing a few of Ibn Taymiyya’s treatises and fatwas in which he employs sociological evidence in support of his idiosyncratic theological positions within the Islamic tradition. For example, long before Émile Durkheim (d. 1917), Ibn Taymiyya recognized the role of religion as a source of camaraderie and solidarity, which led him to develop a universal definition of religion that emphasized its empirical, social aspect. On the basis of this definition, he was able to promote a relatively disenchanted view of religion that implicitly criticized the reigning mystical understandings of Islam. Similarly, in the realm of politics he was committed to an almost modern teleological theory of secularization that led him to politicize religion in such a way that would ensure that Islam remains the hegemonic force in medieval Muslim society. A striking feature of each of these discussions is the quasi-naturalist approach to the development of human societies, which presumes the existence of a natural sociological law that, for all intents and purposes, operated outside the direct continuous intervention of God. By analyzing this neglected aspect of Ibn Taymiyya’s thought, I hope to illuminate an important strand of Ibn Taymiyya’s proto-modernism, one which has not found a strong reception amongst the modern Salafiyya, but one which is equally integral to a proper understanding of this controversial medieval figure.