All praise is due to Allah alone. May Allah send blessings, peace, and grace upon the one after whom there is no prophet. To proceed:
Every fair-minded Muslim scholar, whether a contemporary of Ibn Taymiyyah or someone who came after him, knows the worth and standing of the learning of Taqi al-Din Ahmad ibn ʿAbd al-Halim ibn ʿAbd al-Salam, known as Ibn Taymiyyah, first of Harran and then of Damascus.
Those who have assailed his honor, past and present, by declaring him an unbeliever or an innovator merely reveal their own ignorance or fanaticism!
Like other scholars, Shaykh al-Islam is not infallible. Anyone’s words and positions may be accepted or rejected. Nevertheless, he remains Shaykh al-Islam and one of the eminent imams.
The unjust campaign being mounted against him today is driven and fanned by unbelievers by origin, with the aim of bringing down his standing among all branches of the contemporary Islamic movement. They employ embittered fanatics who do not attain the stature of the earlier imams who disagreed with him yet respected him. They also employ ignorant media figures for hire.
The chief aim is to sow confusion about, and distort, the truth that he carried and conveyed!
This campaign follows earlier campaigns against al-Shafiʿi, al-Bukhari, and others before Ibn Taymiyyah. May Allah have mercy on all our imams!
The purposes of these campaigns, and the parties supporting and funding them inside and outside Muslim countries, are no secret to anyone informed about them.
One’s astonishment never ends at some who claim affiliation with learning: in the past, a person among them would show respect and reverence for Shaykh al-Islam, then suddenly reverse course today because the wind has changed!
In doing so, he reveals the malice of his intentions and demonstrates his inward corruption: knowledge, for him, is a net with which to catch worldly gain and draw near to those who possess it. If they are pleased, he is pleased; if they are angry, he is angry!
Some of these people have sought to embellish their position and conceal their disgrace. Knowing themselves too insignificant to reach Shaykh al-Islam’s stature through a specious objection, or to injure him through a slander, they claim that Ibn Taymiyyah and his writings are in one world, and his contemporary followers in another!
They do so not in pursuit of reform or correction, but as a means of invalidating the positions and methods of those among Ahl al-Sunnah today who follow Shaykh al-Islam and benefit from his knowledge, and who strive for reform in scholarship, religious calling, society, and politics!
Once again: neither Ibn Taymiyyah nor his followers are infallible.
The claim that contemporary Salafism has nothing in common with historical Salafism, and that the former is praiseworthy while the latter is blameworthy, is merely a plot and a cunning device to turn people away from this method today and discredit its adherents!
Does contemporary Salafism, or anything else such as contemporary Sufism and contemporary Ashʿarism, draw upon anyone other than its historical predecessors? Does it trace its affiliation to anyone else?!
This is despite the well-established, wide disparity between the weak resolve and limited learning of later adherents and those of their predecessors in every group!
Finally, those who benefit from Ibn Taymiyyah’s legacy do not share a single name, a single school, or a single movement!
They comprise the whole community that came after him. You will find no scholar, university professor, student of knowledge, supporter, or opponent who has not read some of his words and benefited from them, from his own age to this very day. Who, then, will succeed in excluding or marginalizing him?!
One of the most astonishing things is that while a group of the shaykh’s opponents today occupy themselves with attacking him and raise their voices to disparage him, a Western movement of non-Muslim researchers recognizes Ibn Taymiyyah’s preeminence in the critique of the rational and philosophical sciences, marvels at his methodological positions, and holds academic conferences and seminars on these matters!
The One who decreed widespread acceptance for Ibn Taymiyyah’s method centuries after his death is the One who decrees its endurance today and tomorrow. This is only because it continues the method of Ahl al-Sunnah wa-l-Jamaʿah, from the Companions and those who followed them with excellence until the Day of Judgment. It is a method grounded in transmitted revelation, reason, and innate human disposition, and Allah has guaranteed its survival and the continued victory of its adherents.
The mistakes of those who affiliate themselves with this method are counted against them, not against it; they diminish their standing, not its standing.
Perhaps this campaign will lead his followers to study him more deeply, and to clarify the circumstances surrounding what he wrote and the rulings he issued, by understanding the reality of his time and place and discussing the objections raised by his opponents in every scholarly and practical field.
Whatever the case, the imams—from the Companions, the Followers, their followers, and the four imams, to the later imams who followed their path, such as Ibn Jarir, Ibn Khuzaymah, al-Tahawi, Ibn Hazm, Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, al-ʿIzz ibn ʿAbd al-Salam, al-Nawawi, Ibn Taymiyyah, Ibn al-Qayyim, Ibn Kathir, Ibn Rajab, Ibn Hajar, and others—will remain objects of respect and esteem, without being regarded as infallible or sacred.
We ask Allah Most High to unite Muslims upon a common commitment: holding fast to their Lord’s Book, their Prophet’s Sunnah, and the guidance of their righteous predecessors. He is the guarantor of every beautiful thing; He is sufficient for us and the best trustee. Our final supplication is that all praise is due to Allah, Lord of all worlds.