Refutation of Accusations Against Ibn Taymiyyah Part 7

Refutation of Accusations Against Ibn Taymiyyah 7





He states that the
ahaadeeth that Allaah descends to the lowest heaven have been reported by twenty
companions and then....


"775) Fudail bin Ayaad (Taabi`ee)
said, ‘when you hear the Jahmi say, "I disbelieve in a Lord Who descends"- say -
"I believe in a Lord Who does what He wills"’


776) Yahya bin Ma`een said,
‘when you hear the Jahmi say, "I disbelieve in a Lord Who descends", then say,
‘I believe in a Lord Who does what He desires."’


777) Imaam Ahmad said, ‘He
descends as He wills, according to His Knowledge and Power and Greatness. He
encompasses everything with His Knowledge.’


Similar narrations occur in
Khalq Af`aal al-Ebaad of Imaam al-Bukhaaree and ‘Ghunya at-Taalibeen’ of Abdul
Qaadir Jeelaanee.


Imaam Abdullaah bin Ahmad
narrates in his work ‘as-Sunnah’,


"508) After mentioning the
hadeeth of Descent the people said to Shareek, ‘verily there are a people who
reject these ahaadeeth.’ He said, ‘what do they say?’


They said, ‘they abuse
these ahaadeeth.’


He replied, ‘Those who
brought (i.e. Companions) these ahaadeeth, are those who brought the Qur`aan,
and that the prayers are five, and the Hajj to the House, and the fast of
Ramadaan. And we do not know Allaah except by these ahaadeeth.’


509) Abaad bin al-Awaam
said, Shareek bin Abdullaah came to us about fifty years ago. He said (Abaad),
‘I said, "O Abu Abdullaah, verily there is a people with us from the Mu`tazila
who reject these ahaadeeth."’


He said, ‘so he narrated to
me about ten ahaadeeth to do with this (i.e. the Descent of Allaah) and said,
"as for us we take our religion from the taabi`een from the companions of the
Messenger (SAW), from where do they take theirs?"’"


Abul Hasan al-Ash`aree
(d.294) said, "and we believe in all the narrations that the People of
Transmission have established about the Descent to the lowest heaven and that
the Lord says, ‘is there one who is asking? Is there one who is seeking
forgiveness?’ And in the generality of what they transmit and establish, at odds
to what the people of deviancy and misguidance say." [‘al-Ibaanah’ (pg. 60) of
Abu Hasan al-Ash’aree]


He also said, "and we
believe in the ahaadeeth that have come from the Messenger (SAW) that Allaah
descends to the lowest Heaven and says, ‘is there one who is seeking
forgiveness?’" [‘al-Maqaalaat’ (pg. 224) of Abu Hasan al-Ash’aree]


So we say yet again, if by
ibn Taymiyyah’s affirmation of this Attribute, that Allaah indeed Descends to
the lowest heaven as befits His Majesty, is misguidance then so are all of the
above scholars, and in fact Ahlus Sunnah itself misguided! And so is the very
Imaam that the accusers claim to follow misguided, Abu Hasan al-Ash`aree!


Ibn Taymiyyah says, while
discussing the use of the word ‘harakah’,


"…like Harb al-Kirmaanee,
and Uthmaan bin Sa`eed ad-Daarimee and others. Indeed these clearly used the
word harakah and they made clear that this was the madhab of the
Imaams of Ahlus Sunnah and Hadeeth from the early and the later.


Harb al-Kirmaanee mentioned
that this was the saying of the Imaams of Ahlus Sunnah that he had met, like
Ahmad bin Hanbal, and Ishaaq bin Raahawiyyah, and Abdullaah bin Zubair al-Humaidee
and Sa`eed bin Mansur.


Sa`eed bin Mansoor and
others said: indeed harakah (movement) is from the necessary qualities of
life and every living thing moves. They made out that denying this was from the
saying of the Jahmiyyah upon whom Ahlus Sunnah are agreed with respect to their
misguidance and innovation.


Another group from the
Salaf, like Nu`aym bin Hammad al-Khazaa`ee, and Bukhaaree the author of the ‘Saheeh’,
and Abu Bakr ibn Khuzaymah, and others like Abu Umar bin Abd al-Barr, affirmed
the meaning of what they (the first group) affirmed but they named it Actions
(of Allaah). From these were those that forbade the use of the word harakah
due to its not being narrated." [‘Dar at-Ta`aarud’ (7/2)]


He said, "the word
harakah was affirmed by a group from Ahlus Sunnah and Hadeeth and this is
what was mentioned by Harb bin Ismaa`eel al-Kirmaanee in his ‘Sunnah’ which he
relates from a group of Imaams that he met like al-Humaidee and Ahmad bin Hanbal….


Some groups of Ahlus Sunnah
negated the usage of the word harakah like Abu al-Hasan at-Taymee and Abu
Sulaymaan al-Khattaabee….


What is narrated from Imaam
Ahmad is the rejection of the one that negates movement but neither is the usage
of the word harakah established from him, even though he may have
affirmed some types (of Attributes and Actions) that the affirmer (of the word
harakah) would have placed within the ranks of the word harakah.
For when he heard someone narrating the hadeeth of Descent and saying, ‘He
Descends without movement and transmission, and without change.’ So Imaam Ahmad
rejected this and said, ‘say as the Messenger (SAW) said, for he was more shy of
His Lord than you.’" [‘al-Istiqaamah’ (1/70)]


So from this we learn that:





- From the salaf were those
who negated the usage of the word harakah because it did not occur in the
Qur`aan and Sunnah when describing Allaah, but they affirmed the Attributes of
Descent, Coming etc.


- From the salaf were those
who affirmed the word harakah meaning that Allaah Comes, and Descends
etc. and it is not like the movement of the Creation but rather as it befits His
Majesty.


- Shaykh al-Islaam quotes
the two sayings stating that in meaning that they are the same and that there is
no resembling Allaah to His creation in this. He himself only affirms the
Attributes of Allaah without adding anything further.


Finally ibn Taymiyyah
belonged to the first group above. So with all of this, the fourth accusation is
cleared and all praise is due to Allaah.


5) The Accusation that ibn
Taymiyyah held the Hellfire to come to an end:


Another accusation by which
the opponents declared ibn Taymiyyah to be misguided due to his contradicting
the ‘consensus’ on this issue. Yet nowhere in the works of ibn Taymiyyah does he
say this, in fact what we find from him is the exact opposite, and we challenge
anybody who accuses ibn Taymiyyah of this to bring his proof.


Ibn Taymiyyah says,


"The Salaf of this nation,
its Imaams, and the whole Ahlus Sunnah wal Jamaa`ah are agreed that there are
some things from the creation that will not come to an end in their entirety
like
Paradise,
Hellfire, the Throne, and others. No one believed that all of the creation would
come to an end except for a group from the People of innovated speech (Ahl
al-Kalaam) and those who agreed with them from amongst the Mu`tazila and
their likes. This is an invalid opinion which contradicts the Book of Allaah,
the Sunnah of His Messenger and the consensus of the nation and its Imaams." [‘Bayaan
Talbees al-Jahmiyyah’ (1/851)]


This is from one
perspective, as for the other than it is over the issue of the Punishment of the
Hellfire coming to an end. This is an issue over which there is a difference of
opinion emanating from the Salaf themselves as the reader of the Tafseers of at-Tabari,
as-Suyuti and others can see under the verse 11:107 and 6:128. It is possible to
explain these narrations in two ways: the first being that the saying of some of
the Companions and Taabi`een that, ‘their will come a time when there will be
no-one in Hellfire’ is to be taken literally. The second is that it is to be
taken to refer only to the Muslims in the Hellfire.