The Edict of Sultan Muhammad Ibn Qalawun
Al-Malik an-Nasir Nasir ad-Din Muhammad ibn Qalawun
(d. 741AH/1341CE)
Regarding Ibn Taymiyyah(d.728AH)
This is a translation of the Edict of the honorable Sultan
Nasir al-Dunya wa Deen, Muhammad Ibn Qalawun.
It was read over the minbar of Masjid Jami’ Dimashq
on Friday, in the year 705H:
Bismillah al-Rahman Al-Raheem. Alhamdulillah, Who is
clear of having a thing or one similar or equal to Him. Allah said:
Laysa kamithlihi shay, wa huwa Sami’ al-Baseer.
Nothing resembles Him; yet He is the one who hears and
sees everything.
I thank Him for inspiring us to act in accords with the
Sunnah and the Book, and for lifting in our days reasons for doubt and
suspicion. I declare that there is no God except Allah, alone without any
partner, a shahada of someone who hopes by his sincerity a good ending, and
declares that his Creator is clear of occupying a place in accordance with the
saying of Allah:
Wa huwa ma’akum ayna ma kuntum, wallah bima ta’maluna
Basir
He is with you (with His knowledge) wherever you are, and
Allah sees what you do.
I testify that Muhammad is his slave and Messenger who
clarified the route of safety for whoever followed the path of pleasing Him,
and who ordered contemplating about the blessings of Allah and forbade thinking
about the Self of Allah. May Allah send prayers and peace upon Prophet Muhammad
and may Allah have mercy upon his Companions by whom the banner of Iman rose,
and through whom Allah codified the rules of Deen, and by whom Allah
extinguished the word of whoever deviated from the Haqq and leaned towards
innovations.
The Islamic creed, the regarded rules of al-Islam, the
Usul al-Din, and the acceptable Madhhabs of this religion are the bases upon
which things are built, and the reference to which everyone resorts, and the
route that whoever follows will succeed greatly and whoever deviates from is
deserving of a painful torture. Therefore, they must be carried out, their
permanence considered with harmony, the agitations of innovations extinguished
and what gathered of their groups dispersed.
In our time, Ibn Taymiyyah spread
his pen, and by his ignorance he extended
the reins of his words. He talked about issues of the Self and attributes of
Allah, and talked in his invalid words about rejected matters.
Additionally, he spoke in regards what the sahabah
and tabi’un kept silent about, and about what the righteous salaf wrote against
and what the a’immah of al-Islam renounced and what deviated from what the Ijma
of the a’immah and rulers had determined.
He spread in the regions his fatwa which fooled
the minds of the lay people and disagreed with the fuqaha of his time, and the
ulama of Levant and Egypt.
He sent his letters to every place and gave his
fatawa names which have no evidence from what Allah revealed to his Prophet.
When this reached us and what his followers followed
of these corrupt routes and showed these conditions and spread them, and we
knew that he exploited the ignorance of his people and they obeyed him until it
was said that he attributed to Allah, letter, sound,
similarity to others, and a body, then we, for the sake of Allah stood up
cautious of this news and renounced this bid’ah. It pained us to have
this infamy spread in our kingdom. We hated what the false people uttered and
recited the saying of Allah, the Exalted:
SubhanAllah amma yusifun.
Glorty to Allah; He is clear of what they describe.
He, subhana wa ta’ala is clear of a match or equal as He
says:
La tudrikuhul absaru wa huwa yadrikul absara wa huwa
Latiful khabir
He is not known by His creation, yet he knows about them.
He is the one who knows the apparent and hidden matters
of His creation.
Our edict summoned Ibn
Taymiyyah to our high doors when his false fatwa spread in our Levant
and Egypt and in them he declared words which when read by any person with a
sound mind, he would recite the ayah:
Laqad ji’ta shay’an nukra
You have brought an enormity.
When he arrived to us,
we approached the people in charge and those of authentication and reporting.
The judges of al-Islam, the rulers of the people, the scholars of the religion,
and the fuqaha of the Muslims came. An Islamic court was conducted for him in
the presence of people and a group of a’immah, and those who have knowledge in
hearing and refuting.
Everything attributed to Ibn
Taymiyyah by the saying of whoever is reliable and by his own
handwriting which indicates his belief was shown to them. The assembling people
departed renouncing his wicked belief, taking him by what his pen testified,
reciting the ayah:
Satuktabu shahadatuhum wa yusalun
Their testimony will be written down and they will be
asked.
It was reported to us that he had been ordered to
repent many times. However, he returned (to his deviant beliefs) after
he had been prohibited.
In the court of al-Hakim al-Aziz al-Maliki, the
ruling of the honorable Shari’ah was passed to have Ibn
Taymiyyah put in prison and to be prevented from disposing of such matters
to the public. Our edict writes that no one is to follow what the
aforementioned person followed and it forbids imitating believing the like or
saying it, or listening to his words imitating him in tashbih (likening Allah
to His creation), or to utter what he uttered about the direction of spatial
highness or to speak about letter or sound, or to speak at leisure about the
Self or attribute or utter any tajsim or utter anything about that which is not
correct, or to dissent from the opinions of the a’immah, or to be alone of an
opinion away from the scholars of the Ummah, or to attribute to Allah a
direction or to allude to Him a place and manner. This belief will receive
nothing but the sword.
Let everyone stop at his limit! Everything before
and after this is by the will of Allah.
Let the Hanabilah leave his belief and
leave the serious, deviant, suspected matters and abide by what Allah ta’ala
ordered of holding to the praised madhhabs of the people of Iman.
Whoever
dissents from the order of Allah has lost the way and does not deserve except
torture, and his residence should be the long imprisonment; how bad a residence
it is.
We decreed that it should be called out in the protected
Damascus, the Levant countries and other close and far areas with a
serious forbiddance and threat to whoever follows Ibn
Taymiyyah in this matter which we have clarified.
Whoever follows him will be put in a similar place and
will be regarded by the Ummah as he was. Those who insist to refuse our order
and insist on defending him will be ordered to be dropped from their schools
and offices and be put down from their offices and humiliated. They will have
no place judging, ruling, in governance, teaching, testimony, imamah, rank or
even residence in our countries.
We have removed the call of this man from the
countries and we have refuted the belief by which he led or almost led astray
many people. How many people did he lead astray, who then corrupted others?
Let the Islamic reports be affirmed to the Hanabilah to leave that out and let
the reports after its affirmation to be carried out by the Maliki judges. Since
we heave warned, we have left no excuse we have been fair.
Let our edict be
read on the minbars to be the best admonisher and restrainer, and the most just
forbidder, by the Will of Allah. Praise be to Allah alone, and His prayers and
peace be upon His Prophet, and the sahabah of the Prophet.
The certified reference is upon the above mentioned honorable
writing. It was written on the eighteenth of Ramadan in the year 705H.
---
Shaykh
al-Islam Taqi al-Din al-Subki (d.756AH) on ibn Taymiyya and his Followers being from the Deviant Hashwiyya Sect, and that they were a Minority Fringe Group who would Teach their
Beliefs in Secret
“As for the Hashwiyya, they are a despicable and ignorant lot who claim to
belong to the school of (Imam) Ahmad (ibn Hanbal)… They have corrupted the
creed of a few isolated Shafi’is, especially some of the Hadith scholars among
them who are lacking in reason… They were held in utmost contempt, and then
towards the end of the seventh century (AH) a man appeared who was diligent,
intelligent and well-read and did not find a Shaykh to guide him, and he is of
their creed and is brazen and dedicated to teaching his ideas… He said that
non-eternal attributes can subsist in Allah, and that Allah is ever-acting, and
that an infinite chain of events is not impossible either in the past or the
future. He split the ranks and cast doubts on the creed of the Muslims and
incited dissension amongst them. He did not confine himself to creedal matters
of theology, but transgressed the bounds and said that travelling to visit the
tomb of the Prophet (sallallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam) is a sin… The scholars
agreed to imprison him for a long time, and the Sultan imprisoned him… and he
died in prison. Then some of his followers started to promulgate his ideas
and teach them to people in secret while keeping quiet in public, and great
harm came from this.”
[al-Zabidi, Ithaf al-Sada al-Muttaqin, 2:11.
al-Zabidi is quoting from al-Subki's al-Sayf al-Saqil fi al-Radd 'ala ibn
Zafil, see al-Rasa-il al-Subkiyya, 84-85]
---
Hidden for 400 Years! Here
Abu Khadeejah of
Salafi Publications recalls Muhammad b. Hadi
Al-Madkhali as saying that the Da'wah of Ibn
Taymiyyah Remained Hidden Until Ibn Abdal Wahhab Revived it:
The Holy Prophet( صلى الله عليه و آله وسلم) said: "From every succeeding
generation its upright folk shall carry this knowledge in turn. They shall
repeal from it the distortions of the extremists (tahrif al-ghalin), the (mis)interpretations
of the ignorant (ta'wil al-jahilin), and the pretenses of the liars (intihal
al-mubtilin)."
--
Sayyiduna Abu-Hurayrah (RA) narrates that Sayyiduna Rasulullah صلى الله عليه و آله وسلم said:
ان الله تعالى يبعث لهذه الامة على رأس كلّ مائة سنة من يجدد لها دينها
Verily Allah will send at the beginning of every century such a person for this
Ummah who will rejuvenate and restore their religion (Deen).
--
Abu Hurairah(ra) narrated
that the Holy
Prophet ( صلى الله عليه و آله وسلم) said, “Allah shall raise for
this Ummah at the head of every century a man who shall renew (or revive) for it its religion.” [Sunan Abu Dawood, Book 37:
Kitab al-Malahim [Battles], Hadith Number 4278.]
Note! Not Hidden for 400 years!
(Edited by ADHM)
