The One Who Polarised the Scholars

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ

Shaykh Taqi’ ad-Din Ahmad ibn ‘Abd al-Halim ibn Taymiyyah (r.a.) had an ambivalent status amongst the scholars.  Some loved him, and others heaped vitriol upon him.  For example, the Shafi’i muhaddits, Imam Jamal ad-Din Abu al-Hajjaj Yusuf ibn az-Zaki ʻAbd ar-Rahman al-Mizzi (r.a.) did not call anyone else “Shaykh al-Islam” in his time besides Shaykh ibn Taymiyyah (r.a.), Imam Shams ad-Din ibn Abu ‘Umar al-Hanbali (r.a.), and Imam Taqi’ ad-Din Abu al-Hasan ‘Ali ibn ‘Abd al-Kafi’ as-Subki (r.a.), yet the Hanafi scholar, Shaykh ‘Ala ad-Din Abu ‘Abdullah Muhammad ibn ‘Abd ar-Rahman al-Bukhari (r.a.) issued a fatwa that if anyone called Shaykh ibn Taymiyyah (r.a.) “Shaykh al-Islam”, they would be committing disbelief.  He also authored, against Shaykh ibn Taymiyyah (r.a.), a book entitled al-Muljimah li al-Mujassimah, “Curbing the Anthropomorphists”. 

Imam Muhammad ibn Naswir ad-Din ad-Dimashqi (r.a.) countered this fatwa; he wrote ar-Radd al-Wafir, where he listed all the authorities who had ever praised Shaykh ibn Taymiyyah (r.a.) or called him “Shaykh al-Islam”.  Shaykh ‘Abd al-Fattah ibn Abu Ghuddah (r.a.) named him “Shaykh al-Islam” and “the Standard-Bearer of all Standard-Bearers” in his book al-‘Ulama’ al-‘Uzzab, which he wrote after he took up residence in Najd.  Amongst the entirety of the scholars of Sunni Islam, no one was more polarising than this man.