texts: opponent of socialism. In 1999, Philip Williamson published a collection of essays on <mask> that attempted to explain his beliefs and defended his policies as prime minister. <mask>'s defenders argued that with pacifist appeasement the dominant political view in Britain, France and the United States, he felt he could not start a programme of rearmament without a national consensus on the matter. Williamson argued that <mask> had helped create "a moral basis for rearmament in the mid 1930s" that contributed greatly to "the national spirit of defiance after Munich".Williamson admitted that there was a clear postwar consensus that repudiated and denigrated all interwar governments: <mask> was targeted with the accusation that he had failed to rearm Britain in the 1930s, despite Hitler's threat. Williamson said that the negative reputation was chiefly the product of partisan politics, the bandwagon of praise for Churchill, selective recollections, and the need for scapegoats to blame for Britain's very close call in 1940. Only during the 1960s would political distance and then the opening of government records lead to more balanced historical assessments, but the myth had become so central to larger myths about the 1930s and 1940s that it persists as conventional wisdom about the period. By 2004, Ball could report, "The pendulum has swung almost completely towards a positive view." Ball noted, "<mask> is now seen as having done more than most and perhaps as much as was possible in the context, but the fact remains that it was not enough to deter the aggressors or ensure their defeat. Less equivocal was his rediscovery as a moderate and inclusive Conservative for the modern age, part of a


type: original

texts:
 'one nation tradition'." Governments as prime minister

First government, May 1923 – January 1924
 <mask> – Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the House of Commons
 Lord Cave – Lord Chancellor
 Lord Salisbury – Lord President of the Council
 Lord Robert Cecil – Lord Privy Seal (Viscount Cecil of Chelwood from 28 December 1923)
 William Bridgeman – Home Secretary
 Lord Curzon of Kedleston – Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Leader of the House of Lords
 The Duke of Devonshire – Secretary of State for the Colonies
 Lord Derby – Secretary of State for War
 Lord Peel – Secretary of State for India
 Sir Samuel Hoare – Secretary of State for Air
 Lord Novar – Secretary for Scotland
 Leo Amery – First Lord of the Admiralty
 Sir Philip Lloyd-Greame – President of the Board of Trade
 Sir Robert Sanders – Minister of Agriculture
 E. F. L. Wood – President of the Board of Education
 Sir Anderson Montague-Barlow – Minister of Labour
 Neville Chamberlain – Minister of Health
 Sir William Joynson-Hicks – Financial Secretary to the Treasury
 Sir Laming Worthington-Evans – Postmaster-General

Changes
 August 1923 – Neville Chamberlain took over from <mask> as Chancellor of the Exchequer.Sir William Joynson-Hicks succeeded Chamberlain as Minister of Health. Joynson-Hicks' successor as Financial Secretary to the Treasury was not in the Cabinet. Second cabinet, November 1924 – June 1929
 <mask> – Prime Minister and Leader of the House of Commons
 Lord Cave – Lord Chancellor
 Lord Curzon of Kedleston – Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Lords
 Lord Salisbury – Lord Privy Seal
 Winston Churchill – Chancellor of the Exchequer
 Sir William Joynson-Hicks

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Stanley Baldwin
Baldwin
Stanley Baldwin


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 – Home Secretary
 Sir Austen Chamberlain – Foreign Secretary and Deputy Leader of the House of Commons
 Leo Amery – Colonial Secretary
 Sir Laming Worthington-Evans – Secretary of State for War
 Lord Birkenhead – Secretary of State for India
 Sir Samuel Hoare – Secretary for Air
 Sir John Gilmour – Secretary for Scotland
 William Bridgeman – First Lord of the Admiralty
 Lord Cecil of Chelwood – Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
 Sir Philip Cunliffe-Lister – President of the Board of Trade
 E. F. L. Wood – Minister of Agriculture
 Lord Eustace Percy – President of the Board of Education
 Lord Peel – First Commissioner of Works
 Sir Arthur Steel-Maitland – Minister of Labour
 Neville Chamberlain – Minister of Health
 Sir Douglas Hogg – Attorney-General

Changes
 April 1925 – On Curzon's death, Lord Balfour succeeded him as Lord President. Lord Salisbury became the new Leader of the House of Lords, remaining also Lord Privy Seal. June 1925 – The post of Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs was created, held by Leo Amery in tandem with Secretary of State for the Colonies. November 1925 – Walter Guinness succeeded E. F. L. Wood as Minister of Agriculture. July 1926 – The post of Secretary of Scotland was upgraded to Secretary of State for Scotland.October 1927 – Lord Cushendun succeeded Lord Cecil of Chelwood as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
 March 1928 – Lord Hailsham (former Sir Douglas Hogg) succeeded Lord Cave as Lord Chancellor. Hailsham's successor as Attorney-General was not in the Cabinet. October 1928 – Lord Peel succeeded Lord Birkenhead as Secretary of State for India. Lord Londonderry succeeded Peel as First Commissioner of Public Works

Third cabinet, June 1935 –


texts:
 May 1937
 <mask> – Prime Minister and Leader of the House of Commons
 Lord Hailsham – Lord Chancellor
 Ramsay MacDonald – Lord President of the Council
 Lord Londonderry – Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Lords
 Neville Chamberlain – Chancellor of the Exchequer
 Sir John Simon – Home Secretary and Deputy Leader of the House of Commons
 Sir Samuel Hoare – Foreign Secretary
 Malcolm MacDonald – Colonial Secretary
 J. H. Thomas – Dominions Secretary
 Lord Halifax – Secretary for War
 Lord Zetland – Secretary of State for India
 Lord Swinton – Secretary of State for Air
 Sir Godfrey Collins – Secretary of State for Scotland
 Bolton Eyres-Monsell – First Lord of the Admiralty
 Walter Runciman – President of the Board of Trade
 Walter Elliot – Minister of Agriculture
 <mask> – President of the Board of Education
 Ernest Brown – Minister of Labour
 Sir Kingsley Wood – Minister of Health
 William Ormsby-Gore – First Commissioner of Works
 Anthony Eden – Minister without Portfolio with responsibility for League of Nations Affairs
 Lord Eustace Percy – Minister without Portfolio with responsibility for government policy

Changes
 November 1935 – Malcolm MacDonald succeeded J. H. Thomas as Dominions Secretary. Thomas succeeded MacDonald as Colonial Secretary. Lord Halifax succeeded Lord Londonderry as Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Lords. Duff Cooper succeeded Halifax as Secretary for War.Sir Philip Cunliffe-Lister became Viscount Swinton and Bolton Eyres-Monsell became Viscount Monsell, both remaining in the Cabinet. December 1935 Anthony Eden succeeded Sir Samuel Hoare as Foreign Secretary and was not replaced as Minister without Portfolio. March 1936 – Sir Thomas Inskip

masks:
Stanley Baldwin
Oliver Stanley


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 entered the Cabinet as Minister for the Coordination of Defence. Lord Eustace Percy left the Cabinet. May 1936 – William Ormsby-Gore succeeded J. H. Thomas as Colonial Secretary. Lord Stanhope succeeded Ormsby-Gore as First Commissioner of Works. June 1936 – Sir Samuel Hoare succeeded Lord Monsell as First Lord of the Admiralty.October 1936 – Walter Elliot succeeded Collins as Scottish Secretary. William Morrison succeeded Elliot as Minister of Agriculture. Leslie Hore-Belisha entered the Cabinet as Minister of Transport. Honours

Cultural depictions

Bibliography
 <mask>, <mask>. Service of Our Lives: Last Speeches as Prime Minister (London: National Book Association, Hutchinson & Co., 1937). viii, 167 pp. speeches from between 12 December 1935 to 18 May 1937.See also
 Interwar Britain

 List of people on the cover of Time Magazine: 1920s

Notes

Further reading
   a short scholarly biography
 Ball, Stuart. <mask> & the Conservative Party: The Crisis of 1929–1931 (1988) 266pp

 Campbell, John. "<mask>" in John P, McIntosh, ed, British Prime Ministers in the 20th Century: volume 1 Balfour to Chamberlain (1977) 1:188–218
 Cowling, Maurice. The Impact of Labour. 1920–1924. The Beginnings of Modern British Politics (Cambridge University Press, 1971). Cowling, Maurice.The Impact of Hitler. British Politics and British Policy, 1933–1940 (U of Chicago Press, 1977). Dunbabin, J. P. D. "British Rearmament in the 1930s: a Chronology and Review." Historical Journal 18#3 (1975): 587–609. Argues <mask> rearmed enough to save Britain while it stood alone in 1940–41. Delays in rearmament were caused by slow decision-making. not by any political scheme to insure <mask>'s return to office in

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Stanley
Baldwin
Stanley Baldwin
Baldwin
Baldwin


texts:
 1935.Hyde, H. Montgomery. <mask>: The Unexpected Prime Minister (1973); 616pp;
 Jenkins, Roy<mask> (1987)
  McKercher, B. J. C. Second Baldwin Government & the United States, 1924–1929: Attitudes & Diplomacy (1984),  271pp. Malament, Barbara C. '<mask> Re-restored? ', The Journal of Modern History, (Mar. 1972), 44#1 pp. 87–96.in JSTOR, historiography
 Mowat, C. L.  '<mask> Restored? ', The Journal of Modern History, (June. 1955) 27#2  pp. 169–174. in JSTOR
 Middlemas, Keith, and John Barnes, Baldwin: A Biography (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1969); 1100 pp of details
 Ramsden, John. The age of Balfour and <mask>, 1902–1940. Vol.3 Of the history of the Conservative Party (1978). Raymond, John. "The Baldwin Age" History Today (Sep 1960) 10#9 pp 598–607. on the frivolous features of  frivolous years of the Baldwin era, 1923-1937. Rowse, A. L. 'Reflections on <mask>', Political Quarterly, XII (1941), pp. 305–17. Reprinted in Rowse, End of an Epoch (1947).Stannage, Tom. <mask> Thwarts the Opposition: The British General Election of 1935 (1980) 320pp. Somervell, D.C. The Reign of King George V, (1936)  pp 342 – 409.online free
 Taylor, A. J. P. English History, 1914–1945 (Oxford University Press, 1990). Taylor, Andrew J. "<mask>, Heresthetics and the Realignment of British Politics," British Journal of Political Science, (July 2005), 35#3 pp 429–463, <mask> polarized politics with Labour, squeezing out the Liberals
 Thorpe, Andrew. "<mask>, first <mask> of Bewdley."in Robert Eccleshall and Graham S. Walker, eds. Biographical Dictionary of British Prime Ministers (1998): 273–280. Williamson, Philip. <mask>. Conservative Leadership and National Values (Cambridge University Press, 1999).

masks:
Baldwin
. Baldwin
Baldwin
Baldwin
Baldwin
Lord Baldwin
Baldwin
Stanley Baldwin
Baldwin
Stanley Baldwin
Earl Baldwin
Stanley Baldwin


texts:
 Williamson, Philip. "<mask>'s Reputation: Politics and History, 1937–1967," Historical Journal (Mar 2004) 47#1 pp 127–168 in JSTOR
 Williamson, Philip.Safety First': <mask>, the Conservative Party, and the 1929 General Election," Historical Journal, (June 1982) 25#2 pp 385–409 in JSTOR
 Williamson, Philip. <mask>: conservative leadership and national values  ( Cambridge UP, 1999). Introduction

External links

 Churchill, Baldwin & The Gold Standard – UK Parliament Living Heritage
 <mask> Baldwin on the Downing Street

masks:
Baldwin
Baldwin
Stanley Baldwin
Stanley


texts:
<mask> (December 9, 1806 – December 12, 1899) was an American activist in the anti-slavery, women's rights, and prison reform movements of the mid-to-late 19th century. She was inducted into the Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame in 2002. Birth and early life
<mask> was born <mask> in Smithfield, Rhode Island on December 9, 1806, to <mask> and Rebecca Gould, the <mask> and Gould families were some of the oldest families in New England. A birthright Quaker, <mask> grew up in a household that was anti-slavery, her father Arnold holding strong beliefs in that regard and being president of the New England Anti-Slavery Society. Marriage and early activities
On April 4, 1828, Buffum married <mask>, also a birthright Quaker of an old New England family. It was after her marriage to Samuel that <mask> began to become truly influential in the anti-slavery movement. Although Samuel was not as outspoken as his wife, he shared her beliefs and together, they opened their home in Valley Falls, Rhode Island as a Station on the Underground Railroad, at great personal risk, to runaway slaves helping them escape to Canada.<mask> had ten children with Samuel. The first five died in childhood to diseases that ravaged the families of that time. In 1835, <mask> helped to found the Fall River Female Anti Slavery Society, after the original group struggled to integrate the free black women who wished to join as members. She and her sisters held the point of view of working to end all racist practices, and not just working towards abolition as the original group intended. She named the group the "Fall River Anti-Slavery Sewing Society" (The word Sewing was later changed to include Female)

The Civil War Years

masks:
Elizabeth Buffum Chace
Elizabeth Buffum Chace
Elizabeth Buffum
Arnold Buffum
Buffum
Elizabeth Buffum
Samuel Buffington Chace
Elizabeth
Elizabeth
Elizabeth


texts:
With the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, the Chaces continued their striving for the outlaw of slavery and although firmly supportive of the Union cause, were disappointed that Abraham Lincoln did not move immediately to abolish slavery. <mask> <mask> met and corresponded regularly with many of the most significant Anti-Slavery figures of that time; she associated personally with William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, and William Wells Brown, and hosted them frequently at her home. As an illustration of just how dedicated to and involved in the anti-slavery movement the Buffum family were, while John Brown was being held in Virginia after his actions at Harpers Ferry and right prior to being hanged, <mask>'s sister Rebecca Buffum and her son Edward journeyed to Virginia from Rhode Island specifically to visit with Brown in his cell.They requested and received special permission from the Virginia authorities to do so thinking that they could "minister" to John Brown. By their own account of the visits, John Brown welcomed them openly. Later years
In her later life, <mask> continued to advocate for the political rights for women and for prison and workplace reform. She and other influential women were involved in the creation of the RI State Home and School for Dependent and Neglected Children, which resulted in a bill in 1884 to create a home for them. The School was opened in 1885. She died on December 12, 1899, aged 93, and was buried at Swan Point Cemetery in Providence, Rhode Island. Legacy

Conscience of Rhode Island
In 2001, Rhode Island Secretary of State, Edward S. Inman III selected <mask> <mask> out of a field of 36 nominees including Anne Hutchinson and

masks:
Elizabeth Buffum
Chace
Elizabeth
Elizabeth
Elizabeth Buffum
Chace


texts:
 Christiana Carteaux Bannister, to be singularly honored with a bronze bust in the Rhode Island State House as "The Conscience of Rhode Island" for her tireless championing of the rights of the less fortunate.This was the first time in the history of the Rhode Island State House that an image of a woman was displayed within the building. The bust of <mask> Chase was created and sculpted by the Bolivian born artist Pablo Eduardo of Gloucester, Massachusetts. Influence of the family
Samuel and <mask>'s progeny played large roles in higher education in the 20th century. Their son, <mask> <mask>, became the Chancellor of Brown University and a renowned mathematician associated with the Rhind Papyrus. Their daughter, Lillie <mask> <mask> Wyman, became an author publishing several books and writing regularly for such magazines as The Atlantic Monthly in addition to being a tireless social reformer. Samuel and <mask>'s grandson, Malcolm Greene <mask>, was a US Collegiate Tennis Champion, and father of American ice hockey. Two of their other grandsons, <mask> Tolman and <mask> Tolman, both became professors of renown.Richard played a crucial role as Scientific Liaison for the United States Army on the Manhattan Project, and Edward, a pioneer in Behaviorism, successfully sued the University of California, Berkeley for firing him for refusing to sign the infamous Loyalty Oath of the 1950s during the McCarthy Era. However, the <mask> family is perhaps best known for its involvement in textile manufacturing. The textile company associated with the <mask> family, the Valley Falls Company, later became known as Berkshire Fine Spinning Associates, later Berkshire Hathaway. Influence on the Foundation

masks:
Elizabeth Buffum
Elizabeth
Arnold Buffum
Chace
Buffum
Chace
Elizabeth
Chace
Richard Chace
Edward Chace
Chace
Chace


texts:
 of the Rhode Island State Home and School
Buffum was one of the largest impetuses in the Foundation of the Rhode Island State Home and School in 1885. See also
<mask>. References

Further reading
 <mask> <mask>, 1806–1899, Her Life and its Environment, In Two Volumes, by Lillie <mask> <mask> Wyman and Arthur Crawford Wyman, WB Clarke Co., Boston, 1914. Two Quaker Sisters, From the Original Diaries of <mask> <mask> and <mask> Lovell, with an introduction by Malcolm R. Lovell, and foreword by Rufus M. Jones.New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation, 1937. <mask> <mask> and Lillie <mask> Wyman: A Century of Abolitionist, Suffragist and Workers' Rights Activism, by <mask>. Stevens, McFarland and Company, 2003. <mask> <mask> and Lillie <mask> Wyman, by <mask>. Stevens, Unstoppable mother and daughter activists
<mask> <mask> Anti-Slavery Reminiscences (archive.org)

External links

First Petition for Women's Suffrage in Rhode Island from the Rhode Island State Archives

American women's rights activists
American Quakers
People from Providence, Rhode Island
People from Smithfield, Rhode Island
People from Cumberland, Rhode Island
1806 births
1899 deaths
Underground Railroad people
Burials at Swan Point Cemetery
Quaker abolitionists
Quaker feminists
19th-century American

masks:
Oliver Chace
Elizabeth Buffum
Chace
Buffum
Chace
Elizabeth Buffum
Chace
Lucy Buffum
Elizabeth Buffum
Chace
Chace
Elizabeth C
Elizabeth Buffum
Chace
Chace
Elizabeth C
Elizabeth Buffum
Chace


texts: Taqī ad-Dīn ʾAḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥalīm ibn ʿAbd al-Salām al-Numayrī al-Ḥarrānī (, January 22, 1263 – September 26, 1328), known simply <mask>h (), was a Sunni Islamic scholar, muhaddith, polymath, theologian, judge, philosopher, and sometimes controversial thinker and political figure. He is known for his diplomatic involvement with the Ilkhanid ruler Ghazan Khan and for his involvement at the Battle of Marj al-Saffar which ended the Mongol invasions of the Levant. A member of the Hanbali school, <mask>h's iconoclastic views on widely accepted doctrines of his time such as the veneration of saints and the visitation to their tomb-shrines made him unpopular with many scholars and rulers of the time, under whose orders he was imprisoned several times. A polarising figure in his own times and in the centuries that followed, <mask>h has become one of the most influential medieval writers in contemporary Islam, where his particular interpretations of the Qur'an and the Sunnah and his rejection of some aspects of classical Islamic tradition are believed to have had considerable influence on contemporary ultra-conservative movements such as Salafi-Jihadism. Particular aspects of his teachings had a profound influence on Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, the founder of the Hanbali

masks:
Ibn Taymiyya
Ibn Taymiyya
Ibn Taymiyya


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 reform movement practiced in Saudi Arabia, and on other later Wahabi scholars. Rashid Rida considered him as the renewer of the Islamic 7th century of Hijri year. Moreover, <mask>h's controversial fatwa allowing jihad against other Muslims is referenced by al-Qaeda and other jihadi groups.Their reading of <mask>h's thought has been challenged by recent scholarship. Name
<mask>h's full name is ʾAḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥalīm ibn ʿAbd as-Salām ibn ʿAbdullāh ibn al-Khiḍr ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Khiḍr ibn ʾIbrāhīm ibn ʿAli ibn ʿAbdullāh an-Numayrī al-Ḥarrānī (). <mask>h's () name is unusual in that it is derived from a female member of his family as opposed to a male member, which was the normal custom at the time and still is now. Taymiyyah was a prominent woman, famous for her scholarship and piety and the name <mask>h was taken up by many of her male descendants. Overview
<mask>h had a simple life, most of which he dedicated to learning, writing, and teaching. He never married nor did he have a female companion throughout his years. Al-Matroudi says that this may be why he was able to engage fully with the political affairs of his time without holding any official position such as that of a judge.An offer of an official position was made to him but he never accepted. His life

masks:
Ibn Taymiyya
Ibn Taymiyya
Ibn Taymiyya
Ibn Taymiyya
Ibn Taymiyya
Ibn Taymiyya


texts: was that of a religious scholar and a political activist. In his efforts he was persecuted and imprisoned on six occasions with the total time spent inside prison coming to over six years. Other sources say that he spent over twelve years in prison. His detentions were due to certain elements of his creed and his views on some jurisprudential issues. However, according to Yahya Michot, "the real reasons were more trivial". Michot gives five reasons as to why <mask>h was imprisoned, they being: not complying with the "doctrines and practices prevalent among powerful religious and Sufi establishments, an overly outspoken personality, the jealousy of his peers, the risk to public order due to this popular appeal and political intrigues."Baber Johansen, a professor at the Harvard Divinity School, says that the reasons for <mask>h's incarcerations were, "as a result of his conflicts with Muslim mystics, jurists, and theologians, who were able to persuade the political authorities of the necessity to limit <mask>h's range of action through political censorship and incarceration." <mask>h's own relationship, as a religious scholar, with the ruling apparatus was not always amicable. It ranged from silence to open rebellion. On occasions when he shared the same views and aims

masks:
Ibn Taymiyya
Ibn Taymiyya
Ibn Taymiyya
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 as the ruling authorities, his contributions were welcomed but when <mask>h went against the status quo, he was seen as "uncooperative" and on occasions spent much time in prison. <mask>h's attitude towards his own rulers, was based on the actions of Muhammad's companions when they made an oath of allegiance to him as follows; "to obey within obedience to God, even if the one giving the order is unjust; to abstain from disputing the authority of those who exert it; and to speak out the truth, or take up its cause without fear in respect of God, of blame from anyone." Early years

Background
His father had the Hanbali chair in Harran and later at the Umayyad Mosque. Harran was a city part of the Sultanate of Rum, now Harran is a small city on the border of Syria and Turkey, currently in Şanlıurfa province.At the beginning of the Islamic period, Harran was located in the land of the Mudar tribe (Diyar Mudar). Before its destruction by the Mongols, Harran was also well known since the early days of Islam for its Hanbali school and tradition, to which <mask>h's family belonged. His grandfather, Abu al-Barkat Majd ad-Din ibn <mask> al-Hanbali (d. 1255) and his uncle, Fakhr al-Din (d. 1225) were reputable scholars of the Hanbali school of law. Likewise, the scholarly

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Ibn Taymiyya
Ibn Taymiyya
Ibn Taymiyya
Taymiyyah


texts:
 achievements of his father, Shihab al-Din Abd al-Halim ibn Taymiyyah (d. 1284) were also well known. Immigration to Damascus
In 1269, aged seven, <mask>h, left Harran together with his father and three brothers. The city was completely destroyed by the ensuing Mongol invasion. <mask>h's family moved and settled in Damascus, Syria, which at the time was ruled by the Mamluk Sultanate.Education
In Damascus, his father served as the director of the Sukkariyya Madrasa, a place where <mask>h also received his early education. <mask>h acquainted himself with the religious and secular sciences of his time. His religious studies began in his early teens, when he committed the entire Qur'an to memory and later on came to learn the Islamic disciplines of the Qur'an. From his father he learnt the religious science of fiqh (jurisprudence) and usul al-fiqh (principles of jurisprudence). <mask>h learnt the works of Ahmad ibn Hanbal, al-Khallal, <mask> and also the works of his grandfather, Abu al-Barakat Majd ad-Din. His study of jurisprudence was not limited to the Hanbali tradition but he also learnt the other schools of jurisprudence. The number of scholars under which he studied hadith is said to number more than two hundred, four of whom were women.Those who are known by name

masks:
Ibn Taymiyya
Ibn Taymiyya
Ibn Taymiyya
Ibn Taymiyya
Ibn Taymiyya
Ibn Qudamah


texts: amount to forty hadith teachers, as recorded by <mask>h in his book called Arba`un Hadithan. Serajul Haque says, based on this, <mask>h started to hear hadith from the age of five. One of his teachers was the first Hanbali Chief Justice of Syria, Shams ud-Din Al-Maqdisi who held the newly created position instituted by Baibars as part of a reform of the judiciary. Al-Maqdisi later on, came to give <mask>h permission to issue Fatawa (legal verdicts) when he became a mufti at the age of 17. <mask>h's secular studies led him to devote attention to Arabic language and Arabic literature by studying Arabic grammar and lexicography under Ali ibn `Abd al-Qawi al-Tufi. He went on to master the famous book of Arabic grammar, Al-Kitab, by the Persian grammarian Sibawayhi. He also studied mathematics, algebra, calligraphy, theology (kalam), philosophy, history and heresiography.Based on the knowledge he gained from history and philosophy, he used to refute the prevalent philosophical discourses of his time, one of which was Aristotelian philosophy. <mask>h learnt about Sufism and stated that he had reflected on the works of; Sahl al-Tustari, Junayd of Baghdad, Abu Talib al-Makki, Abdul-Qadir Gilani, Abu Hafs Umar al-Suhrawardi and <mask>. At the age of 20 in the year 1282,

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Ibn Taymiyya
Ibn Taymiyya
Ibn Taymiyya
Ibn Taymiyya
Ibn Arabi


texts:
 <mask>h completed his education. Life as a scholar

After his father died in 1284, he took up the then vacant post as the head of the Sukkariyya madrasa and began giving lessons on Hadith. A year later he started giving lessons, as chair of the Hanbali Zawiya on Fridays at the Umayyad Mosque, on the subject of tafsir (exegesis of Qur'an). In November 1292, <mask>h performed the Hajj and after returning 4 months later, he wrote his first book aged twenty nine called Manasik al-Hajj (Rites of the Pilgrimage), in which he criticized and condemned the religious innovations he saw take place there. <mask>h represented the Hanbali school of thought during this time.The Hanbali school was seen as the most traditional school out of the four legal systems (Hanafi, Maliki and Shafii) because it was "suspicious of the Hellenist disciplines of philosophy and speculative theology." He remained faithful throughout his life to this school, whose doctrines he had mastered, but he nevertheless called for ijtihad (independent reasoning by one who is qualified) and discouraged taqlid. Relationship with authorities
<mask>h's emergence into the public and political sphere began in 1293 at the age of 30, when he was asked by the authorities to issue a fatwa (legal verdict) on Assaf


texts: al-Nasrani, a Christian cleric accused of insulting Muhammad. He accepted the invitation and delivered his fatwa, calling for the man to receive the death penalty. Despite the fact that public opinion was very much on <mask>h's side, the Governor of Syria attempted to resolve the situation by asking Assaf to accept Islam in return for his life, to which he agreed. This resolution was not acceptable to <mask>h who then, together with his followers, protested outside the governor's palace demanding Assaf be put to death, on the grounds that any person—Muslim or non-Muslim—who insults Muhammad must be killed. This unwillingness to compromise coupled with his attempt to protest against the governor's actions, resulted in him being punished with a prison sentence, the first of many such imprisonments to come.The French orientalist Henri Laoust says that during this incarceration <mask>h "wrote his first great work, al-Ṣārim al-maslūl ʿalā shātim al-Rasūl (The Drawn Sword against those who insult the Messenger)." <mask>h, together with the help of his disciples, continued with his efforts against what, "he perceived to be un-Islamic practices" and to implement what he saw as his religious duty of commanding good and forbidding wrong. Yahya Michot says that some of these


texts: incidences included: "shaving children's heads", leading "an anti-debauchery campaign in brothels and taverns", hitting an atheist before his public execution, destroying what was thought to be a sacred rock in a mosque, attacking astrologers and obliging "deviant Sufi Shaykhs to make public acts of contrition and to adhere to the Sunnah." <mask>h and his disciples used to condemn wine sellers and they would attack wine shops in Damascus by breaking wine bottles and pouring them onto the floor. A few years later in 1296, he took over the position of one of his teachers (Zayn al-<mask> al-Munadjdjaal), taking the post of professor of Hanbali jurisprudence at the Hanbaliyya madrasa, the oldest such institution of this tradition in Damascus. This is seen by some to be the peak of his scholarly career. The year he began his post at the Hanbaliyya madrasa, was a time of political turmoil.The Mamluk sultan Al-Adil Kitbugha was deposed by his vice-sultan Al-Malik al-Mansur Lajin who then ruled from 1297 to 1299. Lajin had a desire to commission an expedition against the Christians of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia who formed an alliance with the Mongol Empire and taking part of the military campaign which lead to the destruction of Baghdad the capital of the Abbasid

masks:
Ibn Taymiyya
Din Ibn


texts: Caliphate and Harran the birthplace of <mask>h, for that purpose he urged <mask>h to call the Muslims to Jihad. In 1298, <mask>h wrote an explanation of the ayat al-mutashabihat (the unclear verses of the Qur'an) called Al-`Aqidat al-Hamawiyat al-Kubra (The creed of the great people of Hama). The book is about divine attributes and it served as an answer to a question from the city of Hama, Syria. At that particular time Ash'arites held prominent positions within the Islamic scholarly community in both Syria and Egypt, and they held a certain position on the divine attributes of God. <mask>h in his book strongly disagreed with their views and this heavy opposition to the common Ash'ari position, caused considerable controversy. <mask>h collaborated once more with the Mamluks in 1300, when he joined the punitive expedition against the Alawites and Shiites, in the Kasrawan region of the Lebanese mountains.<mask>h thought of the Alawites as "more heritical yet than Jews and Christians", (بالنصيرية هم وسائر أصناف القرامطة الباطنية أكفر من اليهود والنصارى ; بل وأكفر من كثير من المشركين), and according to Carole Hillenbrand, the confrontation with the Alawites resulted because they "were accused of collaboration with Christians and Mongols." <mask> had further active

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Ibn Taymiyya
Ibn Taymiyya
Ibn Taymiyya
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 involvements in campaigns against the Mongols and their alleged Alawite allies. Second expedition against the Alawites
<mask>h took part in a second military offensive in 1305 against the Alawites and the Isma`ilis in the Kasrawan region of the Lebanese mountains where they were defeated. The majority of the Alawis and Ismailis eventually converted to Twelver Shiism and settled in south Lebanon and the Bekaa valley, with a few Shia pockets that survived in the Lebanese mountains. Involvement in Mongol invasion

First invasions
The first invasion took place between December 1299 and April 1300 due to the military campaign by the Mamluks against the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia who were allied with the Mongols. The Ilkhanate army managed to reach Damascus by the end of December 1299. <mask>h went with a delegation of Islamic scholars to talk to Ghazan Khan, who was the Khan of the Mongol Ilkhanate of Iran, to plead clemency and to stop his attack on the Muslims.It is reported that none of the scholars said anything to the Khan except <mask>h who said:

You claim that you are Muslim and you have with you Mu'adhdhins, Muftis, Imams and Shaykhs but you invaded us and reached our country for what? While your father and your grandfather, Hulagu were non-believers, they did


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 not attack and they kept their promise. But you promised and broke your promise. By early January 1300, the Mongol allies, the Armenians and Georgians, had caused widespread damage to Damascus and they had taken Syrian prisoners. The Mongols effectively occupied Damascus for the first four months of 1303. Most of the military had fled the city, including most of the civilians. <mask>h however, stayed and was one of the leaders of the resistance inside Damascus and he went to speak directly to the Ilkhan, Mahmud Ghazan, and his vizier Rashid al-Din Tabib.He sought the release of Muslim and dhimmi prisoners which the Mongols had taken in Syria, and after negotiation, secured their release. Second Mongol invasion
The second invasion lasted between October 1300 and January 1301. <mask>h at this time began giving sermons on jihad at the Umayyad mosque. <mask>h also spoke to and encouraged the Governor of Damascus, al-Afram, to achieve victory over the Mongols. He became involved with al-Afram once more, when he was sent to get reinforcements from Cairo. Third invasion and the Anathematization of the Mongols
The year 1303 saw the third Mongol invasion of Syria by Ghazan Khan. What has been called <mask>h's "most famous" fatwā was issued against the Mongols in the Mamluk's


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 war.<mask>h declared that jihad against the Mongol attack on the Malmuk sultanate was not only permissible, but obligatory. The reason being that the Mongols could not, in his opinion, be true Muslims despite the fact that they had converted to Sunni Islam because they ruled using what he considered 'man-made laws' (their traditional Yassa code) rather than Islamic law or Sharia, whilst believing that the Yassa code was better than the Sharia law. Because of this, he reasoned they were living in a state of jahiliyyah, or pre-Islamic pagan ignorance. The fatwa broke new Islamic legal ground because "no jurist had ever before issued a general authorization for the use of lethal force against Muslims in battle",

<mask>h called on the Muslims to jihad once again and personally participated Battle of Marj al-Saffar against the Ilkhanid army. The battle began on 20 April of that year. On the same day, <mask>h declared a fatwa which exempted Mamluk soldiers from fasting during Ramadan so that they could preserve their strength. Within two days the Mongols were severely defeated and the battle was won.Facing charges against his anthropomorphism
<mask>h was imprisoned several times for conflicting with the prevailing opinions of the jurists and theologians of his day. A


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 judge from the city of Wasit, Iraq, requested that <mask>h write a book on creed. His subsequent creedal work, Al-Aqidah Al-Waasitiyyah, caused him trouble with the authorities. <mask>h adopted the view that God should be described as he was literally described in the Qur'an and in the hadith, and that all Muslims were required to believe this because according to him it was the view held by the early Muslim community (salaf). Within the space of two years (1305–1306) four separate religious council hearings were held to assess the correctness of his creed. 1305 hearing
The first hearing was held with Ash'ari scholars who accused <mask>h of anthropomorphism. At the time <mask>h was 42 years old.He was protected by the then Governor of Damascus, Aqqush al-Afram, during the proceedings. The scholars suggested that he accept that his creed was simply that of the Hanbalites and offered this as a way out of the charge. However, if <mask>h ascribed his creed to the Hanbali school of law then it would be just one view out of the four schools which one could follow rather than a creed everybody must adhere to. Uncompromising, <mask>h maintained that it was obligatory for all scholars to adhere to his creed. 1306 hearings and imprisonment
Two separate councils were held a


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 year later on 22 and 28 of January 1306. The first council was in the house of the Governor of Damascus Aqqush al-Afram, who had protected him the year before when facing the Shafii scholars. A second hearing was held six days later where the Indian scholar Safi al-Din al-Hindi found him innocent of all charges and accepted that his creed was in line with the "Qur'an and the Sunnah".Regardless, in April 1306 the chief Islamic judges of the Mamluk state declared <mask>h guilty and he was incarcerated. He was released four months later in September. Further objections after release
After his release in Damascus, the doubts regarding his creed seemed to have resolved but this was not the case. A Shafii scholar, <mask>-Sarsari, was insistent on starting another hearing against <mask>h which was held once again at the house of the Governor of Damascus, Al-Afram. His book Al-Aqidah Al-Waasitiyyah was still not found at fault. At the conclusion of this hearing, <mask>h and <mask>-Sarsari were sent to Cairo to settle the problem. Life in Egypt

Debate on anthropomorphism and imprisonment
On arrival of <mask>h and the Shafi'ite scholar in Cairo in 1306, an open meeting was held.The Mamluk sultan at the time was Al-Nasir Muhammad and his deputy attended the open meeting.

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 <mask>h was found innocent. Despite the open meeting, objections regarding his creed continued and he was summoned to the Citadel in Cairo for a munazara (legal debate), which took place on 8 April 1306. During the munazara, his views on divine attributes, specifically whether a direction could be attributed to God, were debated by the Indian scholar Safi al-Din al-Hindi, in the presence of Islamic judges. <mask>h failed to convince the judges of his position and so was incarcerated for the charge of anthropomorphism on the recommendation of al-Hindi. Thereafter, he together with his two brothers were imprisoned in the Citadel of the Mountain (Qal'at al-Jabal), in Cairo until 25 September 1307. He was freed due to the help he received from two amirs; Salar and Muhanna ibn Isa, but he was not allowed to go back to Syria.He was then again summoned for a legal debate, but this time he convinced the judges of his views and was allowed to go free. Trial for intercession and imprisonment

<mask>h continued to face troubles for his views which were found to be at odds with those of his contemporaries. His strong opposition to what he believed to be religious innovations, caused upset among the prominent Sufis of Egypt including <mask> Allah and Karim al-Din al-Amuli, and

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 the locals who started to protest against him. Their main contention was <mask>h's stance on tawassul (intercession). In his view, a person could not ask anyone other than God for help except on the Day of Judgement when intercession in his view would be possible. At the time, the people did not restrict intercession to just the Day of Judgement but rather they said it was allowed in other cases. Due to this, <mask>h, now aged 45, was ordered to appear before the Shafi'i judge Badr al-Din in March 1308 and was questioned on his stance regarding intercession.Thereafter, he was incarcerated in the prison of the judges in Cairo for some months. After his release, he was allowed to return to Syria, should he so wish. <mask>h however stayed in Egypt for a further five years. House arrest in Alexandria
1309, the year after his release, saw a new Mamluk sultan accede to the throne, Baibars al-Jashnakir. His reign, marked by economical and political unrest, only lasted a year. In August 1309, <mask>h was taken into custody and placed under house arrest for seven months in the new sultan's palace in Alexandria. He was freed when al-Nasir Muhammad retook the position of sultan on 4 March 1310.Having returned to Cairo a week later, he was received by al-Nasir. The sultan would


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 sometimes consult <mask>h on religious affairs and policies during the rest of his three-year stay in Cairo. During this time he continued to teach and wrote his famous book Al-Kitab al-Siyasa al-shar'iyya (Treatise on the Government of the Religious Law), a book noted for its account of the role of religion in politics. Return to Damascus and later years
He spent his last fifteen years in Damascus. Aged 50, <mask>h returned to Damascus via Jerusalem on 28 February 1313. Damascus was now under the governorship of Tankiz. There, <mask>h continued his teaching role as professor of Hanbali fiqh.This is when he taught his most famous student, <mask> Al-Jawziyya, who went on to become a noted scholar in Islamic history. <mask>m was to share in <mask>h's renewed persecution. Three years after his arrival in the city, <mask>h became involved in efforts to deal with the increasing Shia influence amongst Sunni Muslims. An agreement had been made in 1316 between the amir of Mecca and the Ilkhanid ruler Öljaitü, brother of Ghazan Khan, to allow a favourable policy towards Shi'ism in the city. Around the same time the Shia theologian Al-Hilli, who had played a crucial role in the Mongol ruler's decision to make Shi'ism the state religion of Persia, wrote the book Minhaj

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 al-Karamah (The Way of Charisma'), which dealt with the Shia doctrine of the Imamate and also served as a refutation of the Sunni doctrine of the caliphate. In response, <mask>h wrote his famous book, Minhaj as-Sunnah an-Nabawiyyah, as a refutation of Al-Hilli's work. Fatwa on divorce and imprisonment
In 1318, <mask>h wrote a treatise that would curtail the ease with which a Muslim man could divorce his wife.<mask>h's fatwa on divorce was not accepted by the majority of scholars of the time and this continued into the Ottoman era. However, almost every modern Muslim nation-state has come to adopt <mask>h's position on this issue of divorce. At the time he issued the fatwa, <mask>h revived an edict by the sultan not to issue fatwas on this issue but he continued to do so, saying, "I cannot conceal my knowledge". As in previous instances, he stated that his fatwa was based on the Qur'an and hadith. His view on the issue was at odds with the Hanbali position. This proved controversial among the people in Damascus as well as the Islamic scholars who opposed him on the issue. According to the scholars of the time, an oath of divorce counted as a full divorce and they were also of the view that three oaths of divorce taken under one occasion counted as three separate

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texts: divorces.The significance of this was, that a man who divorces the same partner three times is no longer allowed to remarry that person until and if that person marries and divorces another man. Only then could the man, who took the oath, remarry his previous wife. <mask>h accepted this but rejected the validity of three oaths taken under one sitting to count as three separate divorces as long as the intention was not to divorce. Moreover, <mask>h was of the view that a single oath of divorce uttered but not intended, also does not count as an actual divorce. He stated that since this is an oath much like an oath taken in the name of God, a person must expiate for an unintentional oath in a similar manner. Due to his views and also by not abiding to the sultan's letter two years before forbidding him from issuing a fatwa on the issue, three council hearings were held, in as many years (1318, 1319 and 1320), to deal with this matter. The hearing were overseen by the Viceroy of Syria, Tankiz.This resulted in <mask>h being imprisoned on 26 August 1320 in the Citadel of Damascus. He was released about five months and 18 days later, on 9 February 1321, by order of the Sultan Al-Nasir. <mask>h was reinstated as teacher of Hanbali law and he resumed teaching. Risāla on


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 visiting tombs and final imprisonment
In 1310, <mask>h had written a risāla (treatise) called Ziyārat al-Qubūr or according to another source, Shadd al-rihal. It dealt with the validity and permissibility of making a journey to visit the tombs of prophets and saints. It is reported that in the book "he condemned the cult of saints" and declared that visiting Muhammad's grave was a blameworthy religious innovation. For this, <mask>h, was imprisoned in the Citadel of Damascus sixteen years later on 18 July 1326, aged 63, along with his student <mask>m.The sultan also prohibited him from issuing any further fatwas. Hanbali scholar Ahmad ibn Umar al-Maqdisi accused <mask>h of apostasy over the treatise. Life in prison

<mask>h referred to prison as "a divine blessing". During his incarceration he wrote that, "when a scholar forsakes what he knows of the Book of God and of the sunnah of His messenger and follows the ruling of a ruler which contravenes a ruling of God and his messenger, he is a renegade, an unbeliever who deserves to be punished in this world and in the hereafter." Whilst in prison he faced opposition from the Maliki and Shafii Chief Justices of Damascus, Taḳī al-Dīn al-Ikhnāʾī. He remained in prison for over two years and ignored the sultan's

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texts: prohibition, by continuing to deliver fatwas. During his incarceration <mask>h wrote three works which are extant; Kitāb Maʿārif al-wuṣūl, Rafʿ al-malām, and Kitāb al-Radd ʿala 'l-Ikhnāʾī (The response to al-Ikhnāʾī).The last book was an attack on Taḳī al-Dīn al-Ikhnāʾī and explained his views on saints (wali). When the Mongols invaded Syria in 1300, he was among those calling for Jihad against them and ruled that even though they had recently converted to Islam, they should be considered unbelievers. He went to Egypt to win support to this cause and became embroiled in religio-political disputes there. <mask>h's enemies accused him of anthropomorphism, a view that was objectionable to the teachings of the Ash'ari school of Islamic theology, and he was imprisoned for more than a year in 1306. Upon release, he condemned popular Sufi practices and the influence of <mask> (d. 1240), earning him the enmity of leading Sufi shaykhs in Egypt and another prison sentence. He was released by the Egyptian Sultan in 1310. The Sultan allowed <mask>h to return to Damascus in 1313, where he worked as a teacher and jurist.He had supporters among the powerful, but his outspokenness and nonconformity to traditional Sunni doctrine and Sufi ideals and practices continued to draw the

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 wrath of the religious and political authorities in Syria and Egypt. He was arrested and released several more times, although he was usually allowed to continue writing Fatwas (advisory opinions in matters of law) and defenses of his ideas while in prison. Despite the controversy that surrounded him, <mask>h's influence reached well beyond Hanbali circles to members of other Sunni legal schools and Sufi groups. Among his foremost students were <mask> (d. 1373), a leading medieval historian and Quran commentator, and <mask> al-Jawziya (d. 1350), a prominent Hanbali jurist and theologian who helped spread his teacher's influence after his death in 1328. <mask>h died a prisoner in the citadel of Damascus and was buried in the city's Sufi cemetery. Death
<mask>h fell ill in early September 1328 and died at the age of 65, on 26 September of that year, whilst in prison at the Citadel of Damascus. Once this news reached the public, there was a strong show of support for him from the people.After the authorities had given permission, it is reported that thousands of people came to show their respects. They gathered in the Citadel and lined the streets up to the Umayyad Mosque. The funeral prayer was held in the citadel by scholar Muhammad Tammam, and a second was held in

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texts: the mosque. A third and final funeral prayer was held by <mask>'s brother, Zain al-Din. He was buried in Damascus, in Maqbara Sufiyya ("the cemetery of the Sufis"). His brother Sharafuddin had been buried in that cemetery before him. Oliver Leaman says that being deprived of the means of writing led to <mask>h's death.It is reported that two hundred thousand men and fifteen to sixteen thousand women attended his funeral prayer. <mask> says that in the history of Islam, only the funeral of Ahmad ibn Hanbal received a larger attendance. This is also mentioned by <mask>Abd al-Hadi. Caterina Bori says that, "In the Islamic tradition, wider popular attendance at funerals was a mark of public reverence, a demonstration of the deceased's rectitude, and a sign of divine approbation." <mask> is said to have "spent a lifetime objecting to tomb veneration, only to cast a more powerful posthumous spell than any of his Sufi contemporaries." On his death, his personal effects were in such demand "that bidders for his lice-killing camphor necklace pushed its price up to 150 dirhams, and his skullcap fetched a full 500." A few mourners sought and succeeded in "drinking the water used for bathing his corpse."His tomb received "pilgrims and sightseers" for 600 years. Almost 600 years

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 after his death, the large Sufi cemetery where he was buried in was razed for redevelopment by French colonial authorities. His grave alone was left untouched after the Arab demolition teams "insisted" that his grave "was too holy to touch." . His resting place is now "in the parking lot of a maternity ward", though as of 2009 its headstone was broken, according to author Sadakat Kadri. Students
Several of <mask>h's students became scholars in their own right. His students came from different backgrounds and belonged to various different schools (madhabs). His most famous students were <mask> Al-Jawziyya and <mask>.His other students include:
 Al-Dhahabi
 Al-Mizzi
 <mask> al-Hadi
 <mask>lih
 ʿImad al-Din Aḥmad al-Wasiti
 Najm al-Din al-Tufi
 Al Baʿlabakki
 Al Bazzar
 <mask> al-Jabal
 <mask> al-Amri
 <mask> al-Manj
 Ibn Abdus-Salam al-Batti
 <mask>-Wardi
 Umar al-Harrani

Legacy
In the 21st century, <mask> is one of the most cited medieval authors and his treatises are regarded to be of central intellectual importance by several Islamic revivalist movements. <mask>'s disciples, consisting of both Hanbalis and non-Hanbalis, were attracted to his advocacy of Ijtihad outside the established boundaries of the madhabs and shared his taste for activism and religious

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texts: reform. Some of his unorthodox legal views in the field of Fiqh were also regarded as a challenge by mainstream Fuqaha. Many scholars have argued that <mask>h did not enjoy popularity among the intelligentsia of his day. Yossef Rapoport and Shahab Ahmed assert that he was a minority figure in his own times and the centuries that followed. Caterina Bori goes further, arguing that despite popularity <mask> may have enjoyed among the masses, he appears to have been not merely unpopular among the scholars of his day, but somewhat of an embarrassment. Khalid El-Rouayheb notes similarly that <mask>h had "very little influence on mainstream Sunni Islam until the nineteenth century" and that he was "a little-read scholar with problematic and controversial views."He also comments "the idea that <mask>h had an immediate and significant impact on the course of Sunni Islamic religious history simply does not cohere with the evidence that we have from the five centuries that elapsed between his death and the rise of Sunni revivalism in the modern period." It was only since the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries that the scholarly influence of <mask> has come to acquire an unprecedented prominence in Muslim societies, due to the efforts of Islamic revivalists like


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 Rashid Rida. On the other hand, Prof. Al-Matroudi of SOAS university says that <mask>h, "was perhaps the most eminent and influential Hanbali jurist of the Middle Ages and one of the most prolific among them. He was also a renowned scholar of Islam whose influence was felt not only during his lifetime but extended through the centuries until the present day." <mask>h's followers often deemed him as Sheikh ul-Islam, an honorific title with which he is sometimes still termed today. In the pre-modern era, <mask>h was considered a controversial figure within Sunni Islam and had a number of critics during his life and in the centuries thereafter. The Shafi'i scholar <mask> al-Haytami stated that,

He also stated that,

Taqi al-Din al-Hisni condemned <mask> in even stronger terms by referring to him as the "heretic from Harran" and similarly, Munawi considered <mask>h to be an innovator though not an unbeliever.Taqi al-Din al-Subki criticised <mask>h for "contradicting the consensus of the Muslims by his anthropomorphism, by his claims that accidents exist in God, by suggesting that God was speaking in time, and by his belief in the eternity of the world." <mask> (d. 770/1369) famously wrote a work questioning <mask>h's mental state. The possibility of psychological

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texts: abnormalities not with-standing, <mask>'s personality, by multiple accounts, was fiery and oftentimes unpredictable. The historian Al-Maqrizi said, regarding the rift between the Sunni Ash'ari's and <mask>h, "People are divided into two factions over the question of <mask>h; for until the present, the latter has retained admirers and disciples in Syria and Egypt." Both his supporters and rivals grew to respect <mask>h because he was uncompromising in his views. Dhahabi's views towards <mask> were ambivalent. His praise of <mask> is invariably qualified with criticism and misgivings and he considered him to be both a "brilliant Shaykh" and also "cocky" and "impetuous".The Hanafi-Maturidi scholar 'Ala' al-Din al-Bukhari said that anyone that gives <mask> the title Shaykh al-Islām is a disbeliever. As a reaction, his contemporary Nasir ad-Din ad-Dimashqi wrote a refutation in which he quoted the 85 greatest scholars, from <mask>h's till his time, who called <mask>h with the title Shaykh al-Islam. Despite the prevalent condemnations of <mask>i scholars such as Ibrahim al-Kurrani(d.1690), Shāh Walī Allāh al-Dihlawi(d.1762), Mehmet Birgiwi(d.1573),  <mask>-Amīr Al-San'ani (d. 1768), Muḥammad al-Shawkānī (d. 1834), etc. would come to the defense of <mask> and advocate his

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texts: ideas during this era. In the 18th century, influential South Asian Islamic scholar and revivalist Shah Waliullah Dehlawi would become the most prominent advocate of the doctrines of <mask>yya, and profoundly transformed the religious thought in South Asia. His seminary, Madrasah-i-Rahimya, became a hub of intellectual life in the country, and the ideas developed there quickly spread to wider academic circles. Making a powerful defense of <mask> and his doctrines, Shah Waliullah wrote: "Our assessment of <mask> after full investigation is that he was a scholar of the 'Book of God' and had full command over its etymological and juristic implications.He remembered by heart the traditions of the Prophet and accounts of elders (salaf)... He excelled in intelligence and brilliance. He argued in defence of ahl al-Sunnah with great eloquence and force. No innovation or irreligious act is reported about him... there is not a single matter on which he is without his defence based on the Qur'an and the Sunnah. So it is difficult to find a man in the whole world who possesses the qualities of <mask>. No one can come anywhere near him in the force of his speech and writing. People who harassed him [and got him thrown in prison] did not possess even one-tenth of his scholarly

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 excellence..."

The reputation and stature of <mask> amongst non-Ḥanbalī Sunni scholars would significantly improve between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries.From a little-read scholar considered controversial by many, he would become one of the most popular scholarly figures in the Sunni religious tradition. The nineteenth-century Iraqi scholar Khayr al-Dīn al-Ālūsī (d. 1899) wrote an influential treatise titled Jalā’ al-‘aynayn fi muḥākamat al-Aḥmadayn in defense of <mask>iyya movement in Syria and Egypt, such as Jamāl al-Dīn al-Qāsimī (d. 1914) and Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā (d. 1935). Praising <mask> as a central and heroic Islamic figure of the classical era, Rashid Rida wrote:"...after the power of the Ash‘aris reigned supreme in the Middle Ages (al-qurūn al-wusṭā) and the ahl al-ḥadīth and the followers of the salaf were weakened, there appeared in the eighth century [AH, fourteenth century AD] the great mujaddid, Shaykh al-Islam Aḥmad Taqī al-Dīn <mask>yya, whose like has not been seen in mastery of both the traditional and rational sciences and in the power of argument. Egypt and India have revived his books and the books of his student <mask> al-Jawziyya, after a time when they were only available in Najd. Now, they have spread to both east and west, and will

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 become the main support of the Muslims of the earth." <mask>h's works served as an inspiration for later Muslim scholars and historical figures, who have been regarded as his admirers or disciples.In the contemporary world, he may be considered at the root of Wahhabism, the Senussi order and other later reformist movements. <mask>h has been noted to have influenced Rashid Rida, Abul A`la Maududi, Sayyid Qutb, Hassan al-Banna, Abdullah Azzam, and Osama bin Laden. The terrorist organization Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant used a fatwa of <mask>h to justify the burning alive of Jordanian pilot Muath al-Kasasbeh. Influences

<mask>h was taught by scholars who were renowned in their time. However, there is no evidence that any of the contemporary scholars influenced him. A strong influence on <mask>h was the founder of the Hanbali school of Islamic jurisprudence, Ahmad ibn Hanbal. <mask>h was trained in this school and he had studied <mask>'s Musnad in great detail, having studied it over multiple times.Though he spent much of his life following this school, in the end he renounced taqlid (blind following). His work was most influenced by the sayings and actions of the Salaf (first 3 generation of Muslims) and this showed in his work where he would give preference to

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 the Salaf over his contemporaries. The modern Salafi movement derives its name from this school of thought. In what may justifiably be described as an unscrupulous attempt of magnifying the purported influence of <mask>h on Jewish theology, the claim of the late Pakistani Islamic scholar Mawdudi deserves to be mentioned; if only for the purpose of correcting the published record. In his treatise Tajdīd-o-Ahyā-e-Dīn (Lahore: Islamic Publications, 31st Printing: 1999, p. 76; English edition translated by Al-Ash`ari titled: A Short History of the Revivalist Movement in Islam, Lahore: Islamic Publications, 9th edition: 2004, p. 43), Mawdudi advances the following claim about the influence of <mask>h by appealing to the authority of the great scholar Goldziher:
... he had acquired such an insight into the Jewish and Christian literatures and the differences between their religious sects that, according to Goldziher, no scholar who wanted to deal with the characters of the Bible could lose sight of and set aside the researches of <mask>-Taimiyyah. As a matter of fact Goldziher expressed his views and analyses about <mask>h's influence in his The Zāhirīs (Engl. tr.2008, pp. 173–177) as well as in his article on <mask>h in the Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics (Vol. 7,

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 p. 72). In neither of the mentioned writings does Goldziher say anything amounting to what Mawdudi attributed to him in his above-cited claim. What Goldziher did write was the following:
In his writings he [i.e. <mask>] is a zealous adversary of Greek philosophy, Judaism, and Christianity. By way of inciting the Muslims against them, he pointed to the Mongol invasion which had just swept over Syria, asserting that the visitation was in part due to the laxity of his co-religionists.He issued a fatwa demanding
that the Jewish synagogues in Cairo should be destroyed, and urging his people not to allow the chapels of other faiths to exist in their midst...

Views

God's attributes
<mask>h said that God should be described as he has described himself in the Qur'an and the way Prophet Muhammad has described God in the Hadith. He rejected the Ta'tili's who denied these attributes, those who compare God with the creation (Tashbih) and those who engage in esoteric interpretations (ta'wil) of the Qur'an or use symbolic exegesis. <mask>h said that those attributes which we know about from the two above mentioned sources, should be ascribed to God. Anything regarding God's attributes which people have no knowledge of, should be approached in a manner, according to <mask>h, where

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Ibn Taymiyya
Ibn Taymiyya


texts: the mystery of the unknown is left to God (called tafwid) and the Muslims submit themselves to the word of God and the Prophet (called taslim). Henri Laoust says that through this framework, this doctrine, "provides authority for the widest possible scope in personal internationalization of religion." In 1299, <mask>h wrote the book Al-Aqida al-hamawiyya al-kubra, which dealt with, among other topics, theology and creed. When he was accused of anthropomorphism, a private meeting was held between scholars in the house of Al-Din `Umar al-Kazwini who was a Shafii judge.After careful study of this book, he was cleared of those charges. <mask>h also wrote another book dealing with the attributes of God called, Al-Aqidah Al-Waasitiyyah. He faced considerable hostility towards these views from the Ash'ari's of whom the most notable were, Taqi al-Din al-Subki and his son Taj al-Din al-Subki who were influential Islamic jurists and also chief judge of Damascus in their respective times. <mask>h's highly intellectual discourse at explaining "The Wise Purpose of God, Human Agency, and the Problems of Evil & Justice" using God's Attributes as a means has been illustrated by Dr. Jon Hoover in his work <mask>h's Theodicy of Perpetual Optimism. <mask> regarded Tawhid al-Asma wa


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 Sifat (‘monotheism of God’s Names and Attributes’) as the third aspect of Tawhid and as part of Tawhid al-Uluhiyya (monotheism of Worship). According to <mask>, God must be worshipped by His Own Names and Attributes - by which He described himself in the Qur’ān and Hadith - and to do otherwise would be to commit shirk (polytheism) by associating God with improper ideas. Duration of Hellfire
<mask>h held the belief that Hell was not eternal even for unbelievers.According to <mask>h, Hell is therapeutic and reformative, and God's wise purpose in chastising unbelievers is to make them fit to leave the Fire. This view contradicted the mainstream Sunni doctrine of eternal hell-fire for unbelievers. <mask>h was criticised for holding this view by the chief Shafi scholar Taqi al-Din al-Subki  who presented a large body of Qur'anic evidence to argue that unbelievers will abide in hell-fire eternally. <mask>h was partially supported in his view by the Zaydi Shi'ite <mask>-Wazir. Sources of Sharīʿa
Of the four fundamental sources of the sharia accepted by thirteenth century Sunni jurists—
Qur'an,
sunnah,
consensus of jurists (ijma), and
qiyas (analogical reasoning),

—<mask>h opposed the use of consensus of jurists, replacing it with the consensus of the "companions"

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Ibn Taymiyya
Ibn Taymiyya
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Ibn al
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 (sahaba). Like all Islamic jurists <mask>h believed in a hierarchy sources for the Sharia. Most important was the Quran, and the sunnah or any other source could not abrogate a verse of the Qur'an.(For him, an abrogation of a verse, known in Arabic as Naskh, was only possible through another verse in the Qur'an.) Next was sunnah which other sources (besides the Quran) must not contradict. Consensus (ijmaʾ)
Concerning Consensus (ijma), he believed that consensus of any Muslims other than that of the companions of Muhammad could not be "realistically verifiable" and so was speculative, and thus not a legitimate source of Islamic law (except in certain circumstances). The consensus (ijma) used must be that of the companions found in their reported sayings or actions. According one supporter, Serajul Haque, his rejection of the consensus of other scholars was justified, on the basis of the instructions given to the jurist Shuraih ibn al-Hârith from the Caliph Umar, one of the companions of Muhammad; to make decisions by first referring to the Qur'an, and if that is not possible, then to the sayings of the Prophet and finally to refer to the agreement of the companions like himself. An example of <mask>h use of his interpretation was in defense of the (temporary) closing

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 of all Christian churches in 1299 in the Mamluk Sultanate during hostility against crusader states. The closing was in violation of a 600-year-old covenant with Christian dhimmis known as the Pact of Umar.But as <mask>h pointed out, while venerable, the pact was written 60 years or so after the time of the companions and so had no legal effect. Analogy (qiyās)
<mask>h considered the use of analogy (qiyas) based on literal meaning of scripture as a valid source for deriving legal rulings. Analogy is the primary instrument of legal rationalism in Islam. He acknowledged its use as one of the four fundamental principles of Islamic jurisprudence. <mask>h argued against the certainty of syllogistic arguments and in favour of analogy. He argues that concepts founded on induction are themselves not certain but only probable, and thus a syllogism based on such concepts is no more certain than an argument based on analogy. He further claimed that induction itself depends on a process of analogy.His model of analogical reasoning was based on that of juridical arguments. Work by John F. Sowa have, for example, have used <mask>h's model of analogy. He attached caveats however to the use of analogy because he considered the use of reason to be secondary to the use of revelation.

masks:
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Ibn Taymiyya
Ibn Taymiyya
Ibn Taymiyya


texts: <mask>h's view was that analogy should be used under the framework of revelation, as a supporting source. There were some jurists who thought rulings derived through analogy could contradict a ruling derived from the Qur'an and the authentic hadith. However, <mask>h disagreed because he thought a contradiction between the definitive canonical texts of Islam, and definitive reason was impossible and that this was also the understanding of the salaf. Racha el-Omari says that on an epistemological level, <mask>h considered the Salaf to be better than any other later scholars in understanding the agreement between revelation and reason.One example for this is the use of analogy in the Islamic legal principle of maslaha (public good) about which <mask> believed, if there were to be any contradiction to revelation then it is due to a misunderstanding or misapplication of the concept of utility. He said that to assess the utility of something, the criteria for benefit and harm should come from the Qur'an and sunnah, a criterion which he also applied to the establishment of a correct analogy. An example of <mask>h's use of analogy was in a fatwa forbidding the use of hashish on the grounds that it was analogous to wine, and users should be given 80 lashes in punishment.


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 "Anyone who disagreed was an apostate, he added, whose corpse ought not to be washed or given a decent burial." Prayer (Duʿāʾ)
<mask>h issued a fatwa deeming it acceptable to perform dua in languages other than Arabic:

It is permissible to make du’aa’ in Arabic and in languages other than Arabic. Allaah knows the intention of the supplicant and what he wants, no matter what language he speaks, because He hears all the voices in all different languages, asking for all kinds of needs. This view was also shared by an earlier theologian and jurist, Abu Hanifa.Interest (Rįbā)
<mask> held the view that the lender of a loan is  allowed to recover the original, inflation adjusted value. Ahmad ibn Hanbal, the eponym of the Hanbali madh'hab believed that only the practice of 'pay or increase' - which extended delay to debtors in exchange for rise in the principal - as the only form of riba (i.e., Riba al-Jahiliyya) that was definitively and conclusively prohibited in Shari'ah (Islamic law). <mask>, another notable Hanbali jurist that preceded <mask>; opined that  debtors who took loans involving unweighable, immeasurable objects should give back the original value to the creditors. This provided a basis for the argument that a creditor is allowed to "recover a sum equivalent

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Ibn Qudama
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 to the amount by which the original principal lent has depreciated in real terms during the period of the loan". Building on <mask>'s specific argument on unweighable objects, <mask> would argue for a more general view. He stipulated that the lender should be able to recover the original, inflation-adjusted value; reasoning that lenders unable to recover for losses from inflation would be far less inclined to grant future loans. In <mask>'s view, such a lender was not involved in riba, since he has not made any actual profit out of the transaction.<mask> held that the term riba also included all types of interest resulting from late payment (riba al-nasi'ah) or due to unequal exchange of the same commodity (riba al-fadl). Riba thus covers some cases of barter which involve exchanges unequal by way of quantity or time of delivery. Reason (ʿAql)
Issues surrounding the use of reason ('Aql) and rational came about in relation to the attributes of God for which he faced much resistance. At the time, Ashari and Maturidi theologians thought the literal attributes of God as stated in the Qur'an were contradictory to reason so sought to interpret them metaphorically. <mask>h believed that reason itself validated the entire Qur'an as being reliable and in light of that he

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Ibn Taymiyya
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 argued, if some part of the scripture was to be rejected then this would render the use of reason as an unacceptable avenue through which to seek knowledge. He thought that the most perfect rational method and use of reason was contained within the Qur'an and sunnah and that the theologians of his time had used rational and reason in a flawed manner. Criticism of the grammarians
<mask>h had mastered the grammar of Arabic and one of the books which he studied was the book of Arabic grammar called Al-Kitab, by Sibawayh.In later life he met the Quranic exegete and grammarian Abu Hayyan al-Gharnati to whom he expressed that, "Sibawayh was not the prophet of syntax, nor was he infallible. He committed eighty mistakes in his book which are not intelligible to you." <mask>h is thought to have severely criticized Sibawayh but the actual substance of those criticisms is not known because the book within which he wrote the criticisms, al-Bahr, has been lost. He stated that when there is an explanation of an Ayah of the Qur'an or a Hadith, from the Prophet himself, the use of philology or a grammatical explanation becomes obsolete. He also said one should refer only to the understanding of the Salaf (first three generations of Muslims) when interpreting a word within the


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 scriptural sources. However he did not discount the contributions of the grammarians completely. <mask>h stated that the Arabic nouns within the scriptural sources have been divided by the fuqaha (Islamic jurists) into three categories; those that are defined by the shari'a, those defined by philology (lugha) and finally those that are defined by social custom (`urf).For him each of these categories of nouns had to be used in their own appropriate manner. Maddhabs

<mask>h censured the scholars for blindly conforming (Taqlid) to the precedence of early jurists without any resort to the Qur'an and Sunnah. He contended that although juridical precedence has its place, blindly giving it authority without contextualization, sensitivity to societal changes, and evaluative mindset in light of the Qur'an and Sunnah can lead to ignorance and stagnancy in Islamic Law. <mask>h likened the extremism of Taqlid (blind conformity to juridical precedence or school of thought) to the practice of Jews and Christians who took their rabbis and ecclesiastics as gods besides God. In arguing against taqlid, he stated that the Salaf, who in order to better understand and live according to the commands of God, had to make ijtihad using the scriptural sources. The same approach, in his view,

masks:
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Ibn Taymiyya
Ibn Taymiyya


texts: was needed in modern times. <mask>ī school as a scholarly choice based on his Ijtihad (independent legal reasoning), rather than on imitation (taqlīd).Based on the principles and legal methodology of Imam <mask> Hanbal, <mask>yya issued fatwas as per scriptural evidence, rather than juristic opinion (ra'y). He insisted that the dominant opinion of Hanbali school transmitted through Ahmad's reports is not necessarily the correct view in sharia and often critiqued the rulings of prominent Hanbali Fuqaha. <mask>h believed that the best role models for Islamic life were the first three generations of Islam (Salaf); which constitute Muhammad's companions, referred to in Arabic as Sahaba (first generation), followed by the generation of Muslims born after the death of Muhammad known as the Tabi'un (second generation) which is then followed lastly by the next generation after the Tabi'un known as Tabi' Al-Tabi'in (third generation). <mask>h gave precedence to the ideas of the Sahaba and early generations, over the founders of the Islamic schools of jurisprudence. For <mask>h it was the Qur'an, the sayings and practices of Muhammad and the ideas of the early generations of Muslims that constituted the best understanding of Islam. Any deviation from their practice was viewed

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Ahmad Ibn
Ibn Taymi
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texts: as bid'ah, or innovation, and to be forbidden. He also praised and wrote a commentary on some speeches of Abdul-Qadir Gilani.<mask> asserted that every individual is permitted to employ Ijtihad partially as per his potential; despite the fact that scholars, jurists, etc. had superior knowledge and understanding of the law than the laity. <mask> writes:"Ijtihād is not one whole that cannot be subject to division and partition. A man could be a mujtahid in one discipline or one field (bāb) or an individual legal question, without being a mujtahid in all other disciplines, or books, or questions. Everyone can practice ijtihād according to his abilities. When one observes a legal question that has been subject to a dispute among the scholars, and then one finds revealed texts in support of one of the opinions, with no known counter-evidence (mu‘āriḍ), then there are two choices.... The second option is to follow the opinion that he, in his own judgment, finds preponderant by the indicants from the revealed texts.He is then in agreement with the founder of a different school, yet for him the revealed texts remain uncorrupted, as they are not contradicted by his actions. And this is the right thing to do." Conscious of the limitations of the human mind, <mask> does not


texts: reject taqlid completely; since most people are not capable to be a legal expert  who can derive law from its sources. <mask> asserted throughout his legal writings that "God does not burden men with more than they are capable of undertaking." Even Fuqaha are allowed to attach themselves to a mad'hab (law school) so long as they prefer the evidences. However, <mask> denounced all manifestations of Madh'hab fanaticism and was careful to emphasize that school affiliations are not obligatory. He argued that opinions of any jurist, including the school founders were not proofs, and decried the prevalent legal approach; wherein the Fuqaha confined themselves to the opinions within their legal school without seeking the Scriptures.Consequently, <mask> stripped Sunni legal conformism of any definitive, static religious authority. In his treatise "Removal of Blame from the Great Imams", <mask> explained the reasons for difference of opinions between jurists of various schools of law and justified the necessity for tolerance between the scholars of the madh'habs and their eponyms; reminding that every Mujtahid is rewarded twice if his Ijtihad is correct and rewarded once if his Ijtihad is faulty. Hence, a jurist acting in good faith should not incur blame for reaching the


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 wrong conclusions. Thus, the Islamic scholarly system championed by <mask> subjected all Islamic jurists just to the authority of the revealed texts and not to the views of madh'habs, or jurists or any similar affiliations. Thus, <mask> envisioned a world in which individuals stand before the Divine revelation, with the intellectual freedom to discern the universal rulings of God's law to the best of their abilities. Ikhtilaf

Even though jurists may err in their fatwas; <mask> asserted that they should never be deterred from pursuing ijtihād. His outlook which was incompatible with a stagnated juristic system; propelled <mask> to advance legal pluralism; that defended the freedom of multiple juristic interpretations.According to <mask>, on legal issues which are subject to Ikhtilaf (scholarly disagreement); every Muslim is allowed to formulate and express his own opinion:"In these general matters [i.e., not a specific trial case] no judge, whoever he may be—even if he was one of the Companions—can impose his view on another person who does not share his opinion... In these matters, judgment is reserved for God and His messenger.. But, as long as the judgment of God is concealed, each of them is allowed to hold his opinion—the one saying ‘this is my opinion’ while

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Ibn Taymiyya
Ibn Taymiyya
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 the other says ‘this is my opinion.’ They are not allowed to prevent each other from expressing his opinion, except through the vehicles of knowledge, proof (ḥujja) and evidence (bayān), so that each speaks on the basis of the knowledge that he has." Islamic law and policy
<mask> believed that Islamic policy and management was based on , and that the goal of al-siyasa (politics, the political) should be to protect al-din (religion) and to manage al-dunya (worldly life and affairs). Religion and the State should be inextricably linked, in his view, as the state was indispensable in providing justice to the people, enforcing Islamic law by enjoining good and forbidding evil, unifying the people and preparing a society conducive to the worship of God. He believed that "enjoining good and forbidding wrong" was the duty of every state functionary with charge over other Muslims, from the caliph to "the schoolmaster in charge of assessing children's handwriting exercises." <mask>h supported giving broad powers to the state.In Al-siyasa al-Sharʿiyah, he focused on duties of individuals and punishments rather than rules and procedural limits of authorities. Suspected highway robbers who would not reveal their accomplices or the location of their loot, for example should be


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 held in detention and lashed for indefinite periods. He also allowed the lashing of imprisoned debtors, and "trials of suspicion"  (daʿsawī al-tuḥam) where defendants could be convicted without witnesses or documentary proof. Henri Laoust said that <mask>h never propagated the idea of a single caliphate but believed the Muslim ummah or community would form into a confederation of states. Laoust further stated that <mask>h called for obedience only to God, and the Islamic Prophet Muhammad, and he did not put a limit on the number of leaders a Muslim community could have. However Mona Hassan, in her recent study of the political thoughts of <mask>h, questions this and says laoust has wrongly claimed that <mask>h thought of the caliphate as a redundant idea. Hassan has shown that <mask>h considered the Caliphate that was under the Rashidun Caliphs; Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali, as the moral and legal ideal.The Caliphate in his view could not be ceded "in favour of secular kingship (mulk). Jihad
<mask>h was noted for emphasis he put on the importance of jihad and for the "careful and lengthy attention" he gave "to the questions of martyrdom" in jihad, such as benefits and blessings to be had for martyrs in the afterlife. He asserted that martyrdom and eternal rewards

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Ibn Taymiyya
Ibn Taymiyya
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 and blessings, . He wrote that, "It is in jihad that one can live and die in ultimate happiness, both in this world and in the Hereafter. Abandoning it means losing entirely or partially both kinds of happiness." He defined jihad as:

It comprehends all sorts of worship, whether inward or outward, including love for Allah, being sincere to Him, relying on Him, relinquishing one's soul and property for His sake, being patient and austere, and keeping remembrance of Almighty Allah. It includes what is done by physical power, what is done by the heart, what is done by the tongue through calling to the way of Allah by means of authoritative proofs and providing opinions, and what is done through management, industry, and wealth.He gave a broad definition of what constituted "aggression" against Muslims and what actions by non-believers made jihad against them permissible. He declared

It is allowed to fight people for (not observing) unambiguous and generally recognized obligations and prohibitions, until they undertake to perform the explicitly prescribed prayers, to pay zakat, to fast during the month of Ramadan, to make the pilgrimage to Mecca and to avoid what is prohibited, such as marrying women in spite of legal impediments, eating impure things, acting unlawfully


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 against the lives and properties of Muslims and the like. It is obligatory to take the initiative in fighting those people, as soon as the Prophet's summons with the reasons for which they are fought has reached them. But if they first attack the Muslims then fighting them is even more urgent, as we have mentioned when dealing with the fighting against rebellious and aggressive bandits. In the modern context, his rulings have been used by some Islamist groups to declare jihad against various governments. Innovation (Bidʿah)

Even though <mask>h has been called a theologian, he claimed to reject ʿilm al-kalam, known as Islamic theology,  as well as some aspects of Sufism and Peripatetic philosophy, as an innovation (Bid'ah). Despite this, <mask>h's works contained numerous arguments that openly refer to rational arguments (kalam) for their validity and therefore he is included by some scholars as amongst the Mutakallimin.On the other hand, <mask> has also been regarded by various scholars as "a literalist and reactionary" and as the "thirteenth-century scourge of reason", who saw it as his mission to purify Islam of all inauthentic outgrowths and return to the purity of Prophet's time. Islam, in the eyes of <mask>, was to adhere strictly to the Qur’an, Hadith, and the


texts: practices and interpretations of the salaf – a view <mask> called madhhab al-salaf or ‘the doctrine of the predecessors’. Any idea not found in these fundamental sources was bid‘a, reprehensible innovations to pristine Islam. He engaged in fierce debates against Ash'arite scholars and denounced the rationalist Qur'anic commentary of Ash'arite theologian Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, as a heresy that altered the meaning of Scriptures. According to <mask>, philosophically minded Ash‘ari theologians like Al-Razi were "innovators who prefer the pseudo -philosophical approach of recent ages", rather than the approach of the Salaf. <mask>h opposed giving any undue religious honors to mosques (even that of Jerusalem, the Al-Aqsa Mosque), to approach or rival in any way the Islamic sanctity of the two most holy mosques within Islam, Masjid al-Haram (in Mecca) and Al-Masjid al-Nabawi (in Madina). As for the practice of making journey for the sole purpose of visiting a mosque, <mask>h stated in his books; Majmuʿat al-Rasaʾil al-Kubra, Minhaj al-Sunna and Majmuʿat Fatawa, that, "Journey must not be made except to three mosques; Masjid al-Haram, Masjid al-Nabawi and Masjid Al-Aqsa".Regarding this Serajul Haque says that, "In the opinion of <mask>h only these three mosques have been


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 accepted by the Prophet as the object of journeys, on account of their excellence over all other mosques and places of prayer. <mask>h uses a saying (hadith) of the Islamic prophet Muhammad in Bukhari and Muslim to justify his view that it is not permitted to journey exclusively to any mosque other than the sacred mosques in Mecca, Medina, or Jerusalem. Existence of saints
Although it is sometimes supposed that <mask>h rejected the very idea of saints, which had become a cardinal Sunni belief in the medieval period, scholarship has shown that this is not true. Nevertheless, it's important to note that the term saint (wali) in Islam is not equal to the Catholic definition of it. Saint in islamic theology designates righteous people from the past, who became well-known for their piety. There is, though, no process of canonization or veneration of icons, which is strongly condemned in Islam as violations of the basic monotheism. Indeed, while <mask>h did indeed reject widely-established orthodox practices associated with the veneration of saints in Islam at his time, like the visitation to their graves and the seeking of their intercession, he never rejected the actual existence of saints as such.On the contrary, he explicitly states: "The miracles of saints are


texts: absolutely true and correct, by the acceptance of all Muslim scholars. And the Qur'an has pointed to it in different places, and the sayings of the Prophet have mentioned it, and whoever denies the miraculous power of saints are only people who are innovators and their followers." In this particular respect, he differed little from all his contemporaries; for just as practically all of the era's scholars believed that "the lives of saints and their miracles were incontestable", so also did <mask>yyah. <mask>h's most categorical declaration of accepting the existence of saints and their miracles appears in his famous creed 'Aqīda al-Wāsitīya, in which he states: "Among the fundamentals of the belief of the People of the Sunna is belief in the miracles of the saints (karāmāt al-awliyā) and the supernatural acts which God achieves through them in all varieties of knowledge, illuminations (mukāshafāt), power, and impressions as it is handed down about the ancient nations in the chapter of the Cave and in other Quranic chapters and is known of the early men among this Community of Believers among the Companions and Followers and the rest of the generations of this Community of Believers. It [the blessing of having saints and saintly miracles] will be with them until the

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 Day of Resurrection." Visitation of the tombs of the Prophets and the saints (Ziyarah)

<mask>h considered the visitation of the tombs of Prophets and saints as impermissible, a blameworthy innovation and comparable to worshiping something besides God (shirk). His pilgrimage (Hajj) to the city of Mecca in 1293 motivated Ibn Taymiyya to compile the treatise Manasik al-Hajj wherein he harshly attacked the practice of travelling to visit Prophet Muhammad’s grave as a bid'ah (religious innovation).In <mask>'s view, if early Muslims did not visit Muhammad’s grave, and especially if Muhammad forbade the visiting of his grave as a religious ritual; then doing so would be an innovation as per Islamic teachings. According to <mask>, all religious journeys with the purpose of visiting other than the three mosques of Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem are prohibited. This includes even the Prophet’s grave in Medina. Although a person staying in Medina may visit the Prophet’s grave, <mask> argues, this cannot be its purpose. Nevertheless, <mask> did not condemn ziyara in its entirety and affirms a form of ziyāra that aligned with his reading of the salaf; which did not place the dead between the believer and God. <mask> categorised unlawful grave-visits into three distinct types. One


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 category was the practice in which a person travels to a grave, invokes God directly yet includes the name of saint in that supplication directed to God as part of Tawassul.<mask> dismisses this as unlawful innovation but does not label it as shirk (polytheism). The second category of unlawful ziyāra involves visiting graves with the purpose of seeking the intercession (Shafa'a) of the dead with God. <mask> strongly condemned this as shirk and compared it to the Meccan opponents of the Prophet, writing:"If he says, “I ask him so that he may intercede with God for me, because he is closer to God than me.. And I seek a means to God through him, just as a means to the ruler is sought through his special counsel and helpers’ - this is from the actions of the mushrikūn and Christians, for they claim to take priests and rabbis as intercessors, who intercede for them in their requests, and God informs us of the mushrikūn that they said, "We do not worship them except that they bring us closer to God." (Q 39:3)

The type of grave-visits which <mask>yya considered as the most heinous form of shirk and condemned most harshly were the ones involving direct supplication to the dead. Excommunicating those who practised this as apostates and calling for their execution, <mask>

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texts: writes:"As for the one who comes to a grave of a prophet or a righteous person and asks his need from him such as asking him to end his illness…or fulfil his debt, or take vengeance from his enemy, or to heal him, his family or his beast and what is like this, from those matters that none but God, the Mighty and Majestic has power over, then this is clear shirk (shirk sarīḥ), it is obligatory that his repentance be sought, or he is (to be) killed. "<mask>ymiyya's views on Ziyara would be vigorously rejected by those Sunni scholars who opposed his views both during his life and after his death. The Shafi'i scholar <mask> Hajar al-Asqalani stated that "This is one of the ugliest positions that has been reported of <mask>ymiyya" and also added that travelling to visit the tomb of the Prophet was "one of the best of actions and the noblest of pious deeds with which one draws near to God, and its legitimacy is a matter of consensus."The Hanafi hadith scholar Ali al-Qari stated that, "Amongst the Hanbalis, <mask> has gone to an extreme by prohibiting travelling to visit the Prophet – may God bless him and grant him peace" Qastallani stated that "The Shaykh Taqi al-Din <mask> has abominable and odd statements on this issue to the effect that travelling to visit the Prophet

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Ibn
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 is prohibited and is not a pious deed." Other scholars in opposition to <mask>h's views include Ghazali, Nawawi, Munawi and Qadi Ayyad who stated that visiting the Prophet was "a sunna of the Muslims on which there was consensus, and a good and desirable deed." Intercession
<mask> became the most influential stalwart of  a critical trend of Islamic thought which rejected key features of the cult of saints, beliefs in intercession, the sanctity of saints’ relics, veneration of graves, etc. He is widely regarded as amongst the most incisive and tireless critics of saint veneration in Islam. Some scholars like Yahya Michot liken <mask>'s views to Protestant denunciations of Catholic "idolatry". German scholar of Islam Marco schoeller compared the treatises of <mask> to that of the 16th century European Protestant theologian John Calvin. <mask>h had developed a comprehensive teleology and methodology that aimed to affirm Tawhid by prohibiting bid’a.The various customs and acts <mask>h considered as religious innovations and/or shirk included associating intermediaries with God, seeking intercession from anything other than God, visiting the tombs of saints, interpreting the Qur’an metaphorically, venerating any being other than God, replacing religious institutions with


texts: secular ones, denying God’s Attributes, etc. One of the core teachings espoused by <mask>yya (pre-Islamic era) had not associated their deities with God in all aspects. Rather, they acknowledged God as their Supreme Lord and Creator but associated their deities with God in terms of love and veneration. <mask>h believed that seeking the assistance of God through intercession is allowed, as long as the other person is still alive. However, he believed that those who seek assistance from the graves of the Prophet or saints, are mushrikin (polytheists), someone who is engaged in shirk. <mask>’s vehement denunciation of intercession, saint-veneration, cult of saints, etc were based on his conception of worship (‘Ibāda), which included a broad range of religious practices. According to <mask>, Worship includes acts such as sacrificial offerings, fasting, praying, supplications (du‘ā’), etc.The practice of supplication (du‘ā’) was significant; since both  <mask> and <mask>m described du‘ā’ as the “essence of worship” (mukhkh al-‘ibāda). Declaring Takfir (Excommunication) upon those people who adhered to these practices, <mask> states:"Requesting healing from illness, or the wellbeing of the family, or deliverance from adversity in this world and the hereafter, or victory

masks:
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Ibn Taymiyya
Ibn Taymiyya
Ibn Taymiyya
Ibn Taymiyya
Ibn Qayyi
Ibn Taymiyya


texts: over one’s enemy, or guidance of the heart, or forgiveness of sins, or entry into heaven or deliverance from hell… it is only permissible to request this from God alone. It is not permissible to say to a King, prophet or shaykh – living or dead – ‘forgive my sins’… and other things like that. Whoever asks this from a created being is a mushrik with his Lord." This view was also vigorously rejected by his Sunni opponents who dominated the contemporary religious scholarship. For example, the chief judge of Damascus, Taqi al-Din al-Subki stated that, "It is proper to entreat and ask for the help and intercession of the Prophet ﷺ with God. No one from amongst the salaf and khalaf denied this, until <mask> came along and disapproved of this, and deviated from the straight path, and invented a position that no scholar has said before, and he became a deterrent example for Muslims".Similarly, <mask> al-Haytami rejected <mask>'s view on intercession and held that he had broken with the established consensus of Sunni scholars, as did many other scholars such as Zurqani and Khalil ibn Ishaq. On the other hand, <mask> firmly upheld his views -which he regarded as the orthodox Sunni position- as religiously indisputable and quoted a scholarly consensus (Ijma) in support of his

masks:
Ibn Taymiyya
Ibn Hajar
Ibn Taymiyya
Ibn Taymiyya


texts:
 beliefs:"Whoever makes the angels and Prophets intermediaries, calling upon them, putting his trust in them, asking them to bring benefits and ward off harm – such as asking them for forgiveness of sins, guidance, relief of distress and meeting of needs – is a disbeliever according to Muslim consensus." Mutakallimun

The mutakallimun are scholars who engage in ilm al-Kalam (rationalist theology) and they were criticised by <mask>h for their use of rationalist theology and philosophy. He said that the method of kalam was used by the Mu`tazilites, Jahmites and Ash`ari's. <mask>h considered the use of philosophical proofs and kalam to be redundant because he saw the Qur'an and the Sunna as superior rational proofs. <mask>h said that these explanations were not grounded in scriptural evidence such as the philosophical explanation of the divine attributes of God or the proof of God using the cosmological argument. He said that the call to Islam was not made using such methods by the Qur'an or the Prophet and that these theories have only caused errors and corruption.The mutakallimun called their use of rationalist theology "Usul al-Din" (principles of religion) but <mask>h said that the use of rationalist theology has nothing to do with the true usul al-din which comes