A Shi'ite Encyclopedia (chapter 9)

Subject: Re: Ahl Al-sunnah and Ibn Taymiya

Dear brothers,

as-Salamou alykum wa rahmatoullahi wa barakatouh,

I agree with brother Masud when he says that we can NOT rely on ibn taymiyya in matters os aqueedah in the end part of his posting (I only pur the beginning here above).

Someone was defending ibn taymiyya a few weeks, so please find a contribution on this subject taken from the aqueedah of Ahl-es-Sunna wal Jamaa (ashaira wa maturidiyya).

In article , U58369@uicvm.uic.edu writes:

Assalamo Alaikum Wa Rahmatullahi Wa Barakatu

Concerning the accusation of Ibn Taymiyyah that he attempted to ascribe human qualities to Allah Subhana wa Ta'ala: Some of the people who lived in the same era as Ibn Taymiyyah accused him of this and they had no proof to back up their accusations whatsoever.

The people after them received this information from what Ibn Batutah collected. As most of us know, Ibn Batutah was not a scholar either of hadith OR aquidah. Besides, he never met nor heard Ibn Taymiyyah speak.

The biography of Ibn Taymiyyah shows that he always strongly opposed those people who attempted to ascribe human qualities to Allah Subhana waTa'ala (See Hayat Sheikh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah by Muhammad al-Baytar). You can find more proofs in Ibn Taymiyyah's book, Sharh Hadith An-Nuzool (Commentary on the Hadith of Nuzool).

There are many proofs that Ibn Taymiyyah had the same be- lief and aquidah as the Sahabah and the scholars of As-Salaf. To show just one example: Ibn Taymiyyah says in his book, al-Aquidah al-Wasitiya, pg. 9, ...and

from the belief in Allah is the belief in what Allah ascribed for himself in the Quran and in the Sunnah without falsifying or denying or "takeef" (ie-to question how his attributes are). And he quotes this ayah from the Quran, Sur- ah al-Shurah, Ayah 11:

...there is nothing whatsoever like unto Him and He is the one that hears and sees.

And Ibn Taymiyyah explains that the Muslims from Ahl al-Sunnah wa Jama'ah don't deny what Allah ascribed to Himself & don't falsify His words. And they believe in all His names and ayat. And they don't make comparisons between Allah and his creatures because there is nothing like Him. And Allah knows best about everything and about Himself.

This is one of many examples that proves that Ibn Taymiyyah never claimed "tashbeeh" (ie-never attempted to ascribe human qualities to Allah). I read many of ibn taymiyya books and the books wrote by other scholars to refute him. It is very clear that ibn taymiyya was refuted by the majority of scholars.

he was accused not to belong to the Salafi school. I showed this in a previous message and I will repost this message soon in sha'a Allah. The scholars of Ahl eSunna wal Jamaa from the 4 schools refuted his opinions and ibn taymiyya always tried to escape from punishment by saying the 2 shahadas.

ibn taymiyya and his disciple ibn aljawziyya (different from the great hanbali scholar Ibn alJawzi) are not considered to belong to the salafi school. ibn taymiyya was put in jail because of many of his wrong teachings concerning the aqeeda. He was not put in jail by some tyranic ruler.

He was put in jail to preserve the people from his ideas. (See Rihlat Ibn Battoutah where ibn battoutah said: when i came to damascus there was a man called ibn taymiyya speaking about religion science, but there was something strange in his mind... Once he was doing "kutbat aljuma'a" and he said yanzilou rabbuna ila assam'a adunya, then he went down two steps on the minbar and he said "kanuzuli hatha" (like my descending). the people of damascus jumped on him and wanted to kill him. al-'imam al-mujtahid asSubkiy wrote many books to refute ibn taymiya.

This event of ibn Taymiya is registered by the bokks of history and they are available and may be the Muslims need to read them or some of their contents. Ibn Taymiyah was put in jail by the agreement of the Muslim scholars of Egypt and ashSham. His imprisonment came as a result of the ijma^ of the scholars of his age..

In addition, not only ibn battouta spoke about ibn taymiyya but a lot of scholars wrote books and letters to warn the people from this man. i have a long list of these Ulema and their books. I have a lot of their books also.

Among the great Ulemas from ahl es-Sunna wal jama'a who refuted him and decalred that his is out of the right way of islam:

1. "aSubki" in his "aRasae'l aSubkiyya firrad ala ibn taymiyya",
2. ibn hajar alhaytami, in al-Fatawa al-Hadithiyya
3. Abou hayyan alandaloussi in an-Nahr almaadd
4. ibn hajar alaskalani in fath albari page 410 fascicle 13 kitab atawhid. from the 12th hegire century
5. Sheikh ahmad ibn Zayni dihlane in finat alwahhabiyya,
6. sheikh Muhammad ibn darwiche al-Hout from beirut in his book Rasail fi akidat ahl-esunna waljamaa. from the 20th century
7. sheikh muhammad Ouwayss from alAzhar in his book ibn taymiyya laysa salafiyyan, and many others.

In fact, there are many sayings of ibn taymiyya related to TAJSIM, in his own books. He pretended in his fatawa, (al-asma'a was-sifat) that the ahl-esSunna wal Jamaa did not refute Mujassima (those who attributed body to Allah).

He even said that there isn't any single text from the Salaf to refute mujassima. While in fact, al-'imam Ahmad said that the person commits kufr if he says Allah is a body (jism) even if he says that Allah is a body not like other bodies (jism la kalajsam).

He was quoted saying that "The terms are taken from language and al-'Islam and the people of language have put this term (body) on something that has length, width, thickness, image, structure and components and it was not narrated in ash-shari^ah (Islamic law). Therefore, it is invalid and cannot be used" (end of quotation of Imam Ahmad).

al-bayhaqiyy narrated that about Ahmad in his book manaqib Ahmad and az-Zarkashiyy narrated the first saying of Ahmad. Notice that Ahmad did not accept the term (body not like other bodies) because it does not befit Allah and the language does not accept that. I also quoted the saying of al-Imam al-Ash^ary from Kitab An-Nawader:

"If someone belives that Allah is a body then he ignores Allah and he is a kafir".

To be continued..

In sha'a Allah

Walid Dabbous

Ibn Taymiyyah:

Ibn Taymiyah (d. 728/1328) was a theologian who was sent to the jail by the consensus (Ijma'a) of prominent Sunni scholars of his time (in Egypt and Damascus) because of his heretical beliefs.

He was considered an innovator and a heretic and some Sunni scholars went so far as to declare his writings as Kufr. Now he has become a Muslim scholar for Wahhabis! I don't want to go into the details of the charges against Ibn Taymiyah which was raised by prominent Sunni scholars about his heretical beliefs such as his idea that Allah has limbs and these limbs are physical (Haqiqi) and so on since it needs thousands of lines by itself.

Among those Sunni scholars who denounced him, are Taqi al-Din Subki, Ibn Hajar al-Haythami, Ibn Hajar al- Asqalani, al-Izz ibn Jama'a, Muhammad Zahid al-Kawthari, Abu Hayyan al- Andalusi, Shaykh Ahmad Ibn Zayni dihlani, Shaykh Mohammad Ouwayss from al- Azhar, and many others.

In their fatwa, they called Ibn Taymiyah as a misguided person who was deserting the Sunni tenets. I refer Sunni brothers to their authentic Fiqh book called "The Reliance of the Traveller" for a biography of Ibn Taymiyah.

Now, as for Ibn Taymiyyah: A number of prominent Muslim scholars of great repute -have- in fact pronounced kufr on Ibn Taymiyyah, although the majority of scholars of ahl-al-Sunnah have not pronounced kufr on him. Many have, however, criticized him for innovation (bid`ah). Among those who criticized him are -Ibn Hajar al-`Asqalani (FatH al-Baaree, [Vol 12, p202], [V 13, p 410]),

-Ibn Hajar al-Haytami ([al-Fataawaa al-Hadeethiyyah p116, p203], [Haashiyah, p443, p489])

-Taqi al-Deen al-Subki ([al-sayf al-Saqeel], [al-durrah al- maDiyyah]

Others include Taj al-Deen al-Subki, al-Hafiz al-Dhahabi, Ibn Daqeeq al-`Eed and Zayn al-Deen al-`Araaqee.

Firstly, we should realize that those scholars who pronounced kufr on him based their verdicts on very real evidence from Ibn Taymiyyah's own books. One of the primary contentions of these group of scholars was that Ibn Taymiyyah believed in - eternity of the universe, which is that he said that some kind of creation always existed.

Also a large number of scholars, of both former and latter times, have criticized some of Ibn Taymiyyah's opinions as innovations. It cannot be denied that in some issues, Ibn Taymiyyah (though he may have had good intentions) has contradicted the consensus (ijmaa`) of the Muslim scholars. Some of these issues are doctrinal (e.g. he believed that Allah can be described with (limits), compare this to the mainstream Sunni creed as presented by Imam al-Shafi`ee, for example in , p8, or Abu Haneefah (al-fiqh al-akbar, p57), al-Tahawi (al- `aqeeedah al-TaHaawiyyah), al-Bayhaqi (al-Asmaa' waS-Sifaat, p410), etc), others are related to fiqh (jurisprudence) (e.g. his opinion that three divorces pronounced together do not all take effect - this fatwaa incidentally was the reason that Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali forsook Ibn Taymiyyah).

The following article is written by a Sunni brother. This also shows the fact that ortodox Sunnis beleive that Allah can be seen but we don't know how? He talks but we don't know how?

He is stablished on the trone but we don't know how? On the other hand Wahhabis attribute physical entities to it, while shia do not beleieve Allah has hand at all. Shia also beleive he can not be seen at all, and so on.