Islam's Reformers .pdf

were to be solved through ijtihâd. But their mistakes were themistakes in ijtihâd. For this reason, even the mistakes of thosegreat people and also of the Ahl as-Sunna scholars in thosematters understandable through ijtihâd will be rewarded(thawâb) in the next world, since all of them were mujtahids. Asfor Ibn Taimiyya’s mistake in the teachings pertaining to belief, ittook him away from the right path and aggravated thepunishment he deserved. By presuming himself to be amujtahid, he became above himself and led himself to disaster.He went further and mercilessly attacked the great men oftasawwuf such as Sadr ad-dîn al-Qonawî, Muhyiddîn ibn al-’Arabî and ’Umar ibn al-Fârid. He said that al-Ghazâlî’s bookswere full of mawdû’ hadîths, and he did not neglect to criticizeour scholars of Kalâm. He could not understand that themadhhabs arose out of the differences of ijtihâd and supposedthat they were the results of philosophical thoughts. Heconsidered it as a guilt that the Ahl as-Sunna scholars had saidthat the old churches in Muslim countries should not betouched, and for this reason, he vituperated the great men ofIslam.Mawdûdî, like Ibn Taimiyya, misrepresents Imâm al-Ghazâlîas defective. Great scholar Ibn Hajar al-Makkî, in commentingon the causes of disbelief, wrote that any person who assertedthat there were errors in Imâm al-Ghazâlî’s writings eitherenvied him or was an atheist [1] . Hanafî scholar Ibn ’Âbidîn wroteat the end of his Al-’uqûd ad-durriyya, “A person who saysthat Imâm al-Ghazâlî was not an ’âlim is the most ignorantamong the ignorant and the worst of fâsiqs. He was Hujjat al-Islâm and the most superior of the scholars of his time. Hewrote very valuable books on fiqh.”Some Muslim scholars declared that Ibn Taimiyya haddeparted from Islam and become a renegade. Profoundlylearned scholars such as Ibn Battûta, Ibn Hajar al-Makkî, Taqîad-dîn as-Subkî and his son, ’Abd al-Wahhâb, ’Izz ad-dîn IbnJamâ’a and Abû Hayyân az-Zâhirî al-Andulûsî, whose wordshave been regarded as documentary evidence, considered him[1] Al-a’lâm bi kawati’ al-Islâm, p. 137, with references to Ibn as-Subkîand other scholars. This book of Ibn Hajar’s was printed on thepage margins of Zawâjr, another book written by him. It is in Arabicand available in Istanbul.- 136 -