Ibn Taymiyya
[22][23][24] Nevertheless, Ibn Taymiyya's numerous treatises that advocate for al-salafiyya al-iʿtiqādiyya, based on his scholarly interpretations of the Quran and prophetic way, constitute the most popular classical reference for later Salafi movements.
[28] As a cleric who viewed Shiism as a source of corruption in Muslim societies, Ibn Taymiyya was also known for his anti-Shia polemics throughout treatises such as Minhaj al-Sunna, wherein he denounced the Imami Shia creed as heretical.
[30][31][32] Major aspects of his teachings, such as upholding the pristine monotheism of the early Muslim generations and campaigns to uproot what he regarded as polytheism, had a profound influence on Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, the founder of the Wahhabism reform movement formed in the Arabian Peninsula, as well as other later Sunni scholars.
[54] One of Ibn Taymiyya's teachers was the first Hanbali Chief Justice of Syria, Shams al-Din al-Maqdisi, who held the newly created position instituted by Baibars as part of a reform of the judiciary.
[55][57][61] In November 1292, Ibn Taymiyya 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.
Michot stated five reasons as to why Ibn Taymiyya was imprisoned by the Mamluk government, 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.
"[68] Ibn Taymiyya's emergence in the public and political spheres began in 1293 when he was 30 years old, when the authorities asked him to issue a fatwa (legal verdict) on Assaf al-Nasrani, a Christian cleric who was accused of insulting Muhammad.
[66] Despite the fact that public opinion was very much on Ibn Taymiyya's side,[50] the Governor of Syria attempted to resolve the situation by asking Assaf to accept Islam in return for his life, to which he agreed.
[50] This resolution was not acceptable to Ibn Taymiyya who then, together with his followers, protested against it outside the governor's palace, demanding that Assaf be put to death,[50] on the grounds that any person—Muslim or non-Muslim—who insults Muhammad must be killed.
[19] The French orientalist Henri Laoust says that during his incarceration, Ibn Taymiyya "wrote his first great work, al-Ṣārim al-maslūl ʿalā shātim al-Rasūl (The Drawn Sword against those who insult the Messenger).
[61] A few years later in 1296, he took over the position of one of his teachers (Zayn al-Din Ibn al-Munadjdjaal), taking the post of professor of Hanbali jurisprudence at the Hanbaliyya madrasa, the oldest such institution of this tradition in Damascus.
[19][50] In 1298, Ibn Taymiyya wrote his explanation for the ayat al-mutashabihat (the unclear verses of the Qur'an) titled Al-`Aqidat al-Hamawiyat al-Kubra (The creed of the great people of Hama).
[81] As the civilians began to flee in panic; Ibn Taymiyya pronounced fatwas declaring the religious duty upon Muslims to fight the Mongol armies to death, inflict a massive defeat and expel them from Syria in its entirety.
"[90][88] Ibn Taymiyya's three unprecedented fatwas (legal verdicts) that excommunicated the Ilkhanid authorities and their supporters as apostates over their neglect to govern by Sharia (Islamic law) and preference of the traditional Mongol imperial code of Yassa; would form the theological basis of 20th century Islamist and Jihadist scholars and ideologues.
Reviving Ibn Taymiyya's fatwas during the late 20th-century, Jihadist ideologues like Sayyid Qutb, Abd al-Salam al-Faraj, Abdullah Azzam, Usama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, etc.
[95] Ibn Taymiyya was a fervent polemicist who zealously launched theological refutations against various religious sects such as the Sufis, Jahmites, Ash'arites, Shias, Falsafa, etc., labelling them as heretics responsible for the crisis of Mongol invasions across the Islamic World.
His strong opposition to what he believed to be religious innovations, caused upset among the prominent Sufis of Egypt including Ibn Ata Allah and Karim al-Din al-Amuli, and the locals who started to protest against him.
He had supporters among the powerful, but his outspokenness and his nonconformity to traditional Sunni doctrines and his denunciation of Sufi ideals and practices continued to draw the wrath of the religious and political authorities in Syria and Egypt.
[61] 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.
Ibn Taymiyya'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 reform.
"[127] It was only since the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries that the scholarly influence of Ibn Taymiyya has come to acquire an unprecedented prominence in Muslim societies, due to the efforts of Islamic revivalists like Rashid Rida.
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 Ibn Taymiyya.
Praising Ibn Taymiyya 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 Ibn Taymiyya, whose like has not been seen in mastery of both the traditional and rational sciences and in the power of argument.
[10][147] Ibn Taymiyya has been noted to have influenced Rashid Rida, Abul A`la Maududi, Sayyid Qutb, Hassan al-Banna, Abdullah Azzam, and Osama bin Laden.
[70] Ibn Taymiyya's intellectual tradition and ideas such as his emphasis on the revival of pristine ideals and practices of early generations also made an intense impact on the leading ideologue of revolutionary Islamism in South Asia, Sayyid Abul A'la Maududi (1903–1979 C.E/ 1321–1399 A.H).
Ibn Taymiyyah praised Shaykh Abdul Qadir Jilani for his adherence to the Sharia (Islamic law) and his deep spirituality, considering him a model of the correct practice of Sufism .
For instance, he was critical of certain ecstatic utterances (shath) and practices he viewed as departures from orthodox Islam, but he appreciated the works of early Sufis like Junayd al-Baghdadi and Abdul Qadir Jilani who maintained a firm grounding in Sharia.
Through his polemical treatises such as al-Radd ‘ala al-mantiqiyyın (Refutation of the Rationalists); Ibn Taymiyya zealously denounced syllogism, which provided the rational foundations for both Kalam (speculative theology) and Falsafa.
[5][6][7][8] Saudi scholar Hatem al-Awni has criticised Ibn Taymiyya over his sectarian discourse against Ash'arite and Maturidite schools as well as his creedal beliefs like three-fold classification of Tawhid (monotheism).
[184] Others such as the French scholar Henri Laoust (1905–1983) have argued that such portrayals of Ibn Taymiyya are flawed inasmuch as they are often borne of a limited reading of the theologian's substantial corpus of works,[19] many of which have not yet been translated from the original Arabic.
