Sheikh Al-Islam Taqi Al-Din Ahmed bin Taymiyyah, one of the most prominent Muslim scholars between the seventh and eighth centuries AH, was known for his extensive knowledge in the arts of Sharia and Arabic, the diversity of his intellectual and critical knowledge, and the large number of his classifications in the various sciences prevailing in his time.
He was famous for his boldness in the rift with what he believed in. He took up arms in the face of the Tatars, and watched his opponents until the lords of divisions and boredom slandered him, so the rulers of his time and sultans attacked him, and he was imprisoned several times, the last of which died in the year 728 AH / 1328 AD.
Birth and upbringing
Sheikh Al-Islam Taqi Al-Din Abu Al-Abbas Ahmed bin Abdul Halim bin Taymiyyah was born on the 10th of Rabi’ Al-Awwal 661 AH / 1263 AD in the city of Harran, located today in southern Turkey. Including safety, tranquility and stability.
Ibn Taymiyyah grew up in the shadow of a family that had an interest in science and politics, as his father, Shihab al-Din Abdel Halim, was one of the famous scholars of Harran, and as soon as he set foot in Damascus, his virtue became known and his command became famous, and he had a chair for teaching and preaching in its great mosque, and in addition to that he assumed the chiefdom of Dar Sugary talk.
Shams al-Din al-Dhahabi (died: 748 AH), the modernist and contemporary historian of Ibn Taymiyyah, described Sheikh Abdul Halim as being the ruler and sheikh of Harran, which indicates a special interest in politics and public life.
He was known from among the notables in his family other than his father: his grandfather Majd al-Din Abu al-Barakat Abd al-Salam, and he was a Hanbali jurist, modernist and scholar of the Arabic language, and his aunt Sitt al-Dar bint Abd al-Salam, and her nephew Ahmad Ibn Abd al-Halim had read some knowledge to her, and his brother Sharaf al-Din Abu Muhammad Abdullah bin Abdul Halim.
His mother, Sitt al-Na’am bint Abd al-Rahman al-Harraniya, had a great credit for him, as she vowed him early to serve and collect knowledge, and she left in himself the most profound impact because of her humility and kindness to him, and this is evidenced by the letters he sent to her during his stay in Egypt between the years 705 and 712 AH.
Ibn Taymiyyah was known in his youth for the strength of his memorization, the capacity of his memory and the speed of his intuition.
Al-Hafiz Al-Bazzar - one of his students - says about him that "from his childhood he was keen on seeking, diligent in attaining and persevering."
And it is narrated from Taqi al-Din the child that whenever he went to the book to study, a Jew who lived in his way would confront him and ask him about issues, and he would answer them quickly, and he was not satisfied with the answer, but every time he sought to convince the Jew of the invalidity of the belief that he was upon, he soon converted to Islam on his hands.
Study and scientific training
Ibn Taymiyyah’s upbringing in Damascus - the metal of scholars and their nest as described by Muhammad Abu Zahra, one of his biographers - had a great impact on his scientific formation, as there were schools of Hanafi, Shafi’i and Hanbali jurisprudence, and there were the greatest scholars of the era that preceded Ibn Taymiyyah’s presence there, such as Ezz bin Abd al-Salam (T.: 660 AH), Al-Nawawi (T.: 676 AH), Ibn Daqiq Al-Eid (T.: 702 AH), and others who have circles and students who teach them jurisprudence, so they balance his views, which resulted in a wide product of encyclopedic classifications in what is known as comparative jurisprudence, such as the book al-Majmu` fi fiqh Al-Shafi’i by Al-Nawawi, and Al-Mughni in Hanbali Fiqh by Ibn Qudamah (d. 620 AH).
And they were studying hadith alongside jurisprudence, which enriched the library specialized in hadiths of rulings, and the councils of beliefs, logic and philosophy existed for those who taught it from among the students.
Ibn Taymiyyah achieved with these two factors - sticking with his father, and his upbringing in Damascus - what students and lovers of knowledge aspired to. It was narrated that he memorized Al-Humaidi’s Book of Combining the Two Sahihs when he was young and did not reach the dream.
And because the Ibn Taymiyyah family is ancient in its doctrine of the jurisprudence of Imam Ahmad bin Hanbal (T.: 241 AH), the Sheikh of Islam - as he was known later - had a special interest in Hanbali jurisprudence in doctrine, study and teaching.
Ibn Taymiyyah’s determination was not limited to religious sciences alone. He became passionate about Arabic until he was known for his critical violation of some of what Sibawayh (d. 180 AH) concluded, in addition to a deep dive into logic and philosophy, and there is no evidence for this from his scientific production of these two arts, such as the book “Refutation.” Logic" and the book "Refutation of the Logicians", and other messages in response to the philosophers and refuting their arguments and opinions.
What is contradicted by Ibn Taymiyyah is that he mentioned in his books that the polytheists of the Arabs were acknowledging the monotheism of Godliness (communication sites)
Scientific and political experience
The translators of Ibn Taymiyyah’s biography agree that the most important factors of his encyclopedia were his intense intelligence and his great passion for science and learning. Therefore, he issued a fatwa at the age of nineteen, and composed and classified before he was twenty, and took the lesson at the Great Mosque of Damascus, succeeding his father, who died at the age of twenty-two.
His first lesson was held on Muharram 2, 683 AH, and was attended by a group of Damascus figures and scholars who witnessed his ordination as a mufti, preacher and teacher.
In Safar of the same year, the interpretation of the Noble Qur’an began on a special pulpit after Friday prayers in the Great Mosque in Damascus, and this lesson continued for many years.
His lessons aroused a great resounding among scholars and the general public, and drew attention to him, and people were divided regarding him into those who loved him and supported him, and others who resisted him and separated from him. Rather, from this group of infidels, and between these and those there was a third sect who saw in him a diligent who made mistakes and was right.
Imam Al-Dhahabi described him as “the individual of time and the ocean of sciences, and no one in his time reached his rank.” What was well-known in his time was that “every hadith that Ibn Taymiyyah does not know is not a hadith.”
Al-Dhahabi described him by saying, "He is a human being, he is severely affected by his search, anger and shock to his opponents, which sows enmity in the souls of him."
What al-Dhahabi described was a reality that colored Ibn Taymiyyah’s practical life from the first day he responded to people’s questions and their knowledge needs.
When the people of Hama asked him about the attributes by which God Almighty described Himself in the Qur’an, he answered them in the “Hamwiyah Risalah” according to his Hanbali method in understanding the attributes, and in contradiction to the method of the Ash’aris who were most of the people in Damascus, which aroused their anger, so they raised their complaints to the judges and rulers asking them Responding to Ibn Taymiyyah and prosecuting him to change his opinion to theirs.
Many of his works were in response to facts that occurred in his scientific and societal environment, and therefore his letters were attributed to countries whose people asked him about issues in science, politics or society, and this matter had its impact on the ordeals that Ibn Taymiyyah experienced as a result of direct contact with social or scientific groups. affair or connection with the Sultan.
In the year 699 AH, the Tatars arrived at the doorstep of the Levant and defeated the soldiers of Al-Nasir bin Qalawun (d. 741 AH), and his army took over. Many of the notables of Damascus fled to Egypt, and only Ibn Taymiyyah remained in the city with a few of his companions. They agreed to control matters in it.
And he went at the head of a delegation of them to address the Tatar king to stop the entry into Damascus, and the king responded to that.
He continued to call out to the people for jihad for a whole year until the sultans, notables and the common people mobilized to confront the Tatars, who preferred to withdraw and leave the confrontation, until the battle of Shaqhab occurred in Ramadan 702 AH, in which Ibn Taymiyyah stood fighting and inciting the soldiers and the common people until victory was achieved for them.
This incident had a great impact on the veneration of Ibn Taymiyyah in the hearts of the people, so he became the uncrowned king, the trusted advisor and the reliable reference for the rulers and the ruled.
Just as his direct contact with the leaders of the sects and groups - such as the Shiites, the Union and the Holocaust - had an effect in inciting those with interests against him, the position he attained by standing in the face of the Tatars aroused the wrath and envy of those who were angry. fully.
He entered prison again in 707 AH, following a discussion with the Sufis, but he did not stay there for only a few months.
Then he was exiled to Alexandria to alleviate the conflict between him and them.
After returning to Damascus, he returned to fatwas, teaching and research, and his view led him to a fatwa that was a reason for him to be exposed to the ordeal again at the hands of his opponents, and he had issued a fatwa that swearing to divorce does not count as divorce, and that it differs from the suspension of divorce, which was intended for the occurrence of divorce when the suspended matter occurs on him.
And it is a matter that contradicts what the imams of the four schools of thought, so the jurists denounced it, and the sultan insisted on it, so he ordered him to refrain from the fatwa, which Ibn Taymiyyah did not abide by, so he ordered that he be imprisoned in the year 720 AH and remained for another year behind bars in the castle prison in Damascus.
This castle prison is the prison that witnessed the end of Ibn Taymiyyah within its walls;
As his opponents have been discussing a matter that limits his moral influence among the people and its great impact on the public, it was that they moved the princes again in a fatwa that he had issued in 709 AH (that is, 17 years before the date of that pitting), and he was imprisoned in 726 AH and prevented from writing And reading until God died in the year 728 AH.
Some of the books of Imam Ibn Taymiyyah (Al-Jazeera)
Books and Achievements
Ibn Taymiyyah's works exceed 300 titles, including brief letters, concentrated texts, and books with huge volumes.
One of his first influential books was: "The Strict One Who Cursed the Messenger," written in Damascus in the year 693 AH, after an incident that occurred by one of the influential people who authorized in writing the insulting of the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace.
He also wrote in this period the "Kubra Hama'i Risalat" on the issue of Attributes, as well as the "Wasitiya Creed", and he also wrote "Egyptian Fatwas", and he had classified it during the period he spent in Egypt after 705 AH, and "The Explanation on the Isfahani Creed", and "The Redd". On the Logicians", and "The Legitimate Policy in Reforming the Shepherd and the Subject".
Among his most important and largest books are “The Right Answer to Those Who Changed the Religion of Christ” in 7 huge volumes, “Minhaj al-Sunnah” in 9 volumes, and “Parenting the Conflict of Reason and Transfer” in 11 large volumes.
Ibn Taymiyyah’s works are characterized by clarity and frequent citations of the Qur’an, the Prophet’s traces, and what was transmitted from the Companions and the Followers, and there is a wide digression in it when he talks about beliefs and jurisprudence. The case is the subject of research.
Other books written by Ibn Taymiyyah include:
integrity.
Requiring the straight path to violate the owners of Hell.
Statement of dressing Jahemia.
psoriasis;
The Sunnah of the Prophet in reversing the words of the Qadarite Shiites.
prophecies.
Death
Ibn Taymiyyah died on Shawwal 20 728 AH / 1328 AD in the Citadel prison in Damascus, after an illness that did not allow him more than twenty-five days, and he had been imprisoned for about 5 months, which he spent banned from his books and notebooks.