Sheikh Al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah, his positions with the ruling regime, what he offered to Islam, and his wisdom, Part 1
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00:00Biography of Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah
00:05Was he suffering from the ruling political system?
00:08His qualities and morals since the emergence of the Islamic message and its spread in the
00:12world.
00:14Part 1.
00:15Ibn Taymiyyah 1263-1328 was a Muslim scholar, jurist, traditionist, ascetic, and proto- and
00:23iconoclastic theologian.
00:26He is known for his diplomatic involvement with the Ilkhanid ruler Ghazan Khan at the
00:30Battle of Marj al-Safar, which ended the Mongol invasions of the Levant.
00:35A legal jurist of the Hanbali school, Ibn Taymiyyah's condemnation of numerous folk
00:40practices associated with saint veneration and visitation of tombs made him a contentious
00:44figure with many rulers and scholars of the time, which caused him to be imprisoned several
00:49times as a result.
00:51A polarizing figure in his own times and the centuries that followed, Ibn Taymiyyah
00:56has emerged as one of the most influential medieval scholars in late modern Sunni Islam.
01:01He is also noteworthy for engaging in fierce religious polemics that attacked various schools
01:06of speculative theology, primarily Asherism and Maturitism, while defending the doctrines
01:11of Atherism.
01:14This prompted rival clerics and state authorities to accuse Ibn Taymiyyah and his disciples
01:18of anthropomorphism, which eventually led to the censoring of his works and subsequent
01:23incarceration.
01:24Nevertheless, Ibn Taymiyyah's numerous treatises that advocate for al-Salafiyya al-Ittaqadiyya
01:30– creedal Salafism, based on his scholarly interpretations of the Qur'an and prophetic
01:35way, constitute the most popular classical reference for later Salafi movements.
01:41Throughout his treatises, Ibn Taymiyyah asserted there is no contradiction between reason and
01:45revelation, and denounced the usage of philosophy as a prerequisite in seeking religious truth.
01:52As a cleric who viewed Shi'ism as a source of corruption in Muslim societies, Ibn Taymiyyah
01:57was also known for virulent anti-Shia polemics throughout treatises such as Minaj al-Sunnah,
02:02wherein he denounced the Imami Shia creed as heretical.
02:06He issued a ruling to wage jihad against the Shias of Kisrawan and personally fought in
02:11the Kisrawan campaigns himself, accusing Shias of acting as the fifth columnists of
02:15the Frank Crusaders and Mongol Ilkhanids.
02:19Within recent history, Ibn Taymiyyah has been widely regarded as a major scholarly influence
02:24in revolutionary Islamist movements, such as Salafi jihadism.
02:29Major aspects of his teachings, such as upholding the pristine monotheism of the early Muslim
02:34generations and campaigns to uproot what he regarded as polytheism, had a profound influence
02:39on Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, the founder of the Wahhabism reform movement formed in
02:44the Arabian Peninsula, as well as other later Sunni scholars.
02:49Syrian Salafi theologian Muhammad Rashid Raida, one of the major modern proponents of Ibn
02:54Taymiyyah's works, designated him as the «Mujaddid» of the seventh Islamic century.
02:59Ibn Taymiyyah's doctrinal positions, such as his excommunication of the Mongol Ilkhanids
03:05and allowing jihad against other self-professed Muslims, were referenced by later Islamist
03:10political movements, including the Muslim Brotherhood, Hizb ut-Tahrir, Al-Qaeda, and
03:15Islamic State, to justify social uprisings against the contemporary governments of the
03:20Muslim world.
03:21Ibn Taymiyyah was born on 10 Rabi al-Awwal 661 AH in Harran, Mamluk Sultanate to a family
03:29of traditional Hanbali scholars.
03:32He had Arab and Kurdish lineages by way of his Arab father and Kurdish mother.
03:37His father, Shihab al-Din Abd al-Halim ibn Taymiyyah, held the Hanbali chair in Harran
03:43and later at the Umayyad Mosque.
03:46At the time, Harran was a part of the Mamluk Sultanate, near what is today the border of
03:50Syria and Turkey, currently in the Shanlurfa province.
03:54At the beginning of the Islamic period, Harran was located in Diyar Mudr, the land of the
03:59Mudr tribe.
04:01Before its destruction by the Mongols, Harran was also well-known since the early days of
04:06Islam for its tradition of adhering to the Hanbali school, to which Ibn Taymiyyah's family
04:11belonged.
04:12I stop at this point today.
04:15Until next time, stay curious, stay informed, and keep exploring the world's incredible
04:21stories.
04:24Soon we will publish part 2.