Ibn Taymiyyah .. A character which is disputed by Islamic groups

By Mostafa Hamza

Ahmed Ibn Abdel HaliIbn Abdel Salam El-Nemeiry known as Ibn   Taymiyyah is considered as a character which is disputed by all the Islamic groups and streams as each faction claims allegiance and affiliation to Ibn Taymiyyah, and calls him “Shaykh al-Islam”; a expiatories  took evidence of his fatwas in the killing of innocent people and the exploitation of their blood and money, while the Salafis respond to them with his fatwa, which forbids attacks on money and shows the sanctity of infallible blood.

They wanted him a jihadist who kills civilians without sin, and promoted his fatwas, which they interpreted wrongly with their understanding; although he did not prove the killing of a civilian in his life, and he only participated in the wars of liberation and resistance against  those who came out of the nation’s consensus and supported its enemies or those who targeted the nation’s sanctities in his life such as Mongols and the Crusaders and Tatars, which were considered as the teams stray at that time.

Sufis considered Ibn Taymiyyah a ribald who hates the prophet (peace be upon him) and his companions and family because he rejected some of the Sufism practices in dealing with the righteous guardians of Allah and they wrote books about him such as ‘Ibn Taymiyyah’s fatwas in the scales’ for Mohamed Ibn Ahmed Maska Ibn El-Ateeq El-Yaqooby and “Ibn Taymiyyah is not Salafi” for professor Eweis Mohamed Mohamed Eweis the former Azhar envoy to the Libyan Republic, although Ibn Taymiyyah wrote a book “Furqan between the parents the Rahman’s guardians and devil’ guardians” in which he owes faith to the guardians’ blessings, and has praise for Sufism in some of his books; even some people attributed him to Sufism.

Meanwhile, terrorists considered him as a killer and violent with his violators, while Salafis considered him as a victim and they named him “Sheikh El-Islam” and they took his fatwas as evidence without distinguishing between them and the rulings; because fatwa can be changed according to place and time, and people circumstances while rulings are fixed but Salafis didn’t distinguish between them and didn’t put in their consideration that Ibn Taymiyyah is a human who may commit wrong as well as doing good.

Fighting the abstaining community:

And because the words of the scholars can be understood with many ways, each team will carry it in the way it wants, so those who call for Jihad –  who came out of the idea of rulers and governments expiation  and fighting them as being out of religion because of their rule without what God has revealed, they quoted the fatwas attributed to Ibn Taymiyyah in ruling.

And they did not just do so; they disbelieved the aides to the governor of the army, police and government officials, and considered them the apostate community, and then they disbelieved the citizens who live in this governor’s country without facing him considering them as an abstinent community, claiming that “Ibn Taymiyyah” legalise fighting them when he was about the Tatars attacking the “people of Mardin” in the Levant, they show Islam and do not abide by many of his laws; they dropped this fatwa on Muslims and this is what Mohamed Abdel Salam Farag, one of the Egyptian Jihad organisation founders in the research “The absent duty”.

In reviewing the practical application of Ibn Taymiyyah’s fatwas, we find that despite the fact of the necessity to fight the sect that refrains from applying the laws of God, at the same time he affirms in his fatwas that whoever performs this duty is the ruler, not one of the individuals.But what happened was that, these groups have pointed themselves as rulers, who have the power to apply Sharia.

One of the most famous fatwas of Ibn Taymiyah is the fatwa of the “Mardin people”, which was occupied by the Tatars and whose people were Muslims,

While Tatars were considered by Ibn Taymiyah between infidelity and abomination and aggression, in this fatwa Ibn Taymiyyah permitted to “whoever leaves the law of Islam he should be treated with what he deserves”, but the extremists have replaced the word “treated” by “fighting”; to justify killing the innocents,

The Egyptian Fatwa House has acquitted Ibn Taymiyyah and explained this fatwa through the official website of the House.

What confirms this understanding by Ibn Taymiyyah, is what he did to participate in fighting the Tatars and their struggle within the army of Egypt under the rule of the Sultan, after his sheikh convinced him to go and fight them and the two armies were met in

the courtyard of “Shaqhib” on the second of Ramadan in 702 AH, and many were of Tatars were killed, taking into account that the Tatars were aggressors, seeking to occupy the country, which is different from what the terrorist organizations do when they kill innocent Muslim citizens.

Amputation of context:

As for the fatwas of atonement which are uttered and kept by extremists,

These fatwas already found in the books of Ibn Taymiyyah, but they are amputated from their context, they take from these fatwas sections that support their crimes and expiation without other sections which  blow up their beliefs and ideas;

They apply fatwas that speak anout infidel acts against people who are not infidels.

What reveals their lies is the existence of other fatwas of Ibn Taymiyyah, in which he said that it is not permissible to expiate Muslims, and warned against it strongly, as he says in the group of fatwas (3/282): “It is not permissible to expiate a Muslim by his sin, or his mistake such as the issues in which the people of the qiblah struggle”.

He mentioned a number of things which can be defined as infidelity and disbelieving those who commit them in some conditions such as when a man appoint mediators between him and god, and those who leave the pillars of Islam completely, to not apply God’s law, or to insult god and prophets, and the prophets’ wives.

He stressed the necessity the existence for a number of conditions and the absence of a number of obstacles before disbelieving someone.

Daesh organisation distort one of Ibn Taymiyyah’s fatwas to justify the crime of the execution of the Jordanian pilot Moaz Kasakp who they burned in January 2015.

The fanatical intolerance:

Ibn Taymiyyah was referring to this fatwa the permission for Muslims to represent with the dead bodies of infidels during the war as the infidels  represented by the dead bodies of the Muslims,  in accordance with the words of Allah in Surat Al-Nahl, verse 126: “If you punish, punish like you were punished,” as homeopathy requires doing the same thing, and yet decides in the next paragraph that patience is better, because God says at the end of the previous verse: “If you are patient, it is good for those who suffer.”

It was not known for him that he had to expiate or disobey a Muslim ruler, and despite the power of arguing of “Ibn Taymiyah” towards the violators which

reach to compose private books to respond to them, and to refute their statements; however, he did not go for an armed confrontation with any of his opponents.

Contrary to what the various Islamist groups do today of fanatical intolerance of their views, and the rejection of the views of those who violate them, Ibn Taymiyah refused to take the side of one Imam’s doctrine and reject being intolerant to one opinion, saying: “whoever is taking the side of one of the imams without the rest; it is a kind of taking the side to one of the companions without the rest, these are the ways of the people of desires that have been proven in the Qur’aan and Sunnah and the consensus that they are outraged by the Shariah and the curriculum that Allah sent to his prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him).

The imprisonment of Ibn Taymiyyah was not because of his infidelity to the rulers, as promoted by his opponents, or extremism in the fatwas of jihad; but was imprisoned because of his faith in the names and attributes that resulted in his two books “Tahawiya, Al-Wasatiyya”, Ibn Taymiyyah forbade the revolution against the Muslim ruler in his book “The Shariah Policy in the Conditions of the Shepherd and the Parish”. It is not permissible to revolt against the rulers after the pledge, It is based on the hadeeth of Saheeh al-Bukhaari, in which the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: “Hear and obey, even if Abd al-Habashi used to use his head as a zubaybah, and the hadeeth: “Whoever obeys the Emir has obeyed me and whoever disobeys the Emir has disobeyed me.”

And he confirmed thisTm meaning in the second part of the total fatwas, saying: «Islam is the religion of unity and the religion of the group, if the Prophet (peace be upon him) permitted fighting the ruler the earth would be spoilt, and all above it, and every man would appoint himself in his clan, but he asked us to hear and obey»’

Ibn Tayimyyah, also known as Taqy El-Den El-Harany, was bor in Haran in Levant, he lived in the period between (661 AH – 728 AH / 1263 AD – 1328 AD), and received his knowledge from the Hanbali doctrine (relative to Ahmad ibn Hanbal) from his father and grandfather; but he refused to adhere to the doctrine, and strive to advise others in matters that violated the Book and Sunnah, and was arrested several times; because of the issues of the doctrine of names and attributes of Sufism, and drew the pilgrim to the graves of righteous guardians.