Islam's Reformers .pdf

(rahmatullâhi ’alaih), one of the leading ’ulamâ’ of Islam and aspecialist in ’ilm at-tasawwuf, exposed Ibn Taimiyya’s thisdeplorable state in his Tabaqât al-kubrâ, in the preface ofwhich he wrote: “Only Walîs can recognise a Walî. If a personwho is not a Walî or does not know anything about wilâya doesnot believe in wilâya, this indicates his obstinacy and ignorance.Anexample of this is Ibn Taimiyya’s denial of tasawwuf and hisbelittling ’ârifs. One should not read such people’s books,keeping away from them as if running away from wild beasts.Abu ’l-Hasan ash-Shâdhilî, one of the superiors in tasawwuf,reported in detail the state of those who denied Awliyâ’.”Therefore, Ibn Taimiyya’s followers bear hostility against Hadrat’Abd al-Wahhâb ash-Sha’rânî and have aimed their arrows ofslander at this great scholar of Islam.Ibn Taimiyya said that the early Muslims had adaptedthemselves to the Qur’ân and Hadîth, ant that the madhhableaders who had appeared later had inserted their ownopinions, and he censured the Ahl as-Sunna. On the contrary,as written in the seventeenth article above, the Ahl as-Sunnascholars, in regard to religious knowledge, never departed fromthe way of narration (naql). They did not follow their own pointsof view. It is accepted unanimously by Muslim scholars thatespecially al-Imâm al-a’zam Abû Hanîfa (rahmatullâhi ’alaih)followed the narration in every respect and held his own point ofview inferior to it [1] . While slandering the Ahl as-Sunna scholarsin this respect, Ibn Taimiyya himself interpreted the Qur’ânaccording to his own point of view. Thus, he himself differedfrom the early Muslims. This shows that he was not sincere inhis word. He said that the Ahl as-Sunna scholars hadmisunderstood the Qur’ân and Hadîth and that even theSahâbat al-kirâm had gone wrong on many points, that hehimself corrected Allâhu ta’âlâ’s religion and that only heunderstood the true meaning of the Qur’ân. He disliked thegreat mujtahids of the first and second centuries of the Hegira,who had been praised in the Hadîth, and the Muslim scholarswho have spread the mujtahids’ madhhabs all over the world.For this reason, he began to fall into disesteem in the view ofmen of knowledge. The authorities of religion co-operated and[1]For documented explanation, see the 27th chapter of EndlessBliss, I.- 133 -