Mustapha Sheikh - A Treasury of Ibn Taymiyyah: His Timeless Thought and Wisdom

A TREASURY OF IBN TAYMIYYAH

THE TREASURY SERIES IN ISLAMIC THOUGHT AND CIVILIZATION

I. A Treasury of adth, Ibn Daqq al-d

II. A Treasury of Ghazl, Mustafa Abu Sway (forthcoming)

III. A Treasury of Sacred Maxims, Dr. Shahrul Hussain

IV. A Treasury of Ibn Taymiyyah, Mustapha Sheikh

Mustapha Sheikh

A TREASURY OF IBN TAYMIYYAH

His Timeless Thought and Wisdom

TO MY PARENTS

A Treasury of Ibn Taymiyyah: His Timeless Thought and Wisdom

First published in England by

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Mustapha Sheikh, 2017

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The right of Mustapha Sheikh to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

CIP data for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978-1-84774-103-5 casebound

ISBN 978-1-84774-106-6 ebook

Cover design Inspiral Design

Book design Imtiaze Ahmed

Arabic & English typesetting Naiem Qaddoura

Printed by IMAK Offset, Istanbul, Turkey

Contents

Arabic Consonants

Initial, unexpressed medial and final:

with a shaddah, both medial and final consonants are doubled.

Vowels, diphthongs, etc.

I would like to thank my dear friend and colleague, Tajul Islam, for contributing his thoughts on takfir that form the basis of Chapter 18. Usaama al-Azamis editorial support has been invaluable throughout the publication process, and he has often gone beyond the call of dutyI pray Allah reward him for his efforts. I am grateful to Yahya Birt for coming up with the original idea for a book on Ibn Taymiyyah and for suggesting me as its author. Finally, my gratitude to my wife, Sofia Rehman, for reading the final version and providing very useful suggestions for its improvement.

S haykh al-Islm Ibn Taymiyyah is doubtless the most famous and, in many ways, the single-most important intellectual figure in all of Mamluk history. Born in Harrn on 22 January 1263 to a family of anbal ulama, he and his family were forced to flee their home as a result of the Mongol invasions. In a near escape, the family was able to reach Damascus safely, where they subsequently took up permanent residence. Shaykh al-Islms early years were spent in study, firstly with his father, and then with a number of prominent anbal ulama of Damascus. Theology, Sufism, logic, philosophy and heresiography were subjects which he gained quick mastery over, besides the foundational disciplines typical of any scholars education, such as Hadith, fiqh and the memorisation of the Quran. He quickly demonstrated unique intellectual prowess, which led to his appointment as mufti at the tender age of seventeen. By twenty-five, he had succeeded his father in the capacity of shaykh al-adth at the Sukkariyyah school in Damascus and was appointed to a chair in the Umayyad mosque for the teaching of exegesis.

In the following years, Ibn Taymiyyah would have endless encounters with the

In spite of the efforts of the authorities to circumscribe his influence, Ibn Taymiyyah succeeded in creating a legacy unparalleled in the world of classical Muslim thought, one which would impress on all branches of learning and scholarship. The occasions in prison when he was prevented access to books thwarted him not in the least. He simply relied on his infallible memory and continued to write lengthy treatises and responsa in the service of his followers.

Today, nearly seven-hundred years after his death in a prison in Damascus in 728/1328, Shaykh al-Islm Ibn Taymiyyah remains one of the most intriguing of the classical Islamicate thinkers. This is because, despite the breadth and depth of his intellectual legacy, he is more often than not identified as the intellectual forebear of contemporary Islamic radicalism and militancy, especially since 11th September 2001. In the words of Yahya These are three examplesmany more could be given.

Yet it is also abundantly clear from Ibn Taymiyyahs magnificent corpus that there is more to his work than simply pro- With raised hands turned upwards towards the Heavens, we have only to say, amn!

___________

D. Little, The Historical and Historiographical Significance of the Detention of Ibn Taymiyya, International Journal of Middle East Studies (4) 1973, pp. 311-327, p. 326.

See Chapter 10 for commentary on this statement.

Y. Michot, Ibn Taymiyya: Against Extremisms (Paris: Editions Albouraq, 2012) p. xx.

(accessed 28 Sep. 2016).

Ibn Taymiyya: Against Extremisms, p. xxix.

Let us not turn ourselves away from the names with which God has named us for the names that some people have invented, that they have given, they and their fathers, and for which God never sent down any enabling authority.

T he act of naming has a force all of its own. While it has the power to elevate, it also has the power to debase. Names convey symbolic ideas beyond their meaning. They have the power to set a person upon a path destined for greatness, yet they also have the power to ruin a person, rendering life a misery. As one writer has put it, the power of names is like an And God knows best!