A Scholar’s Second Period of Heresy

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ

In 705 CE, Shaykh Taqi’ ad-Din Ahmad ibn ‘Abd al-Halim ibn Taymiyyah (r.a.) was summoned by the authorities again in to answer for his heretical ‘Aqidah al-Wasithiyyah.  He spent the next several years in and out of jail or defending himself from various “abhorrent charges”, according to Imam Shihab ad-Din Abu al-Fadhl Ahmad ibn ‘Ali ibn Hajr al-‘Asqalani (r.a.).  Because he officially repented, his life was spared, although at one point, it was officially announced in Damascus that, “Whoever follows the beliefs of ibn Taymiyyah, his life and property are licit for seizure.”

 These events instigated great dissension among the scholars in Damascus and Cairo and were detailed in Imam Taqi’ ad-Din Abu Bakr ibn Muhammad al-Hiswni’s (r.a.) Daf’ Shubah man Shabbaha wa Tamarrad wa Nasaba Dzalika ila as-Sayyid al-Jalil al-Imam Ahmad, “Repelling the Sophistries of the Rebel Who Likens Allah to Creation, Then Attributes This Doctrine to Imam Ahmad”.  To clarify, “Imam Ahmad” here refers to Imam Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Hanbal (r.a.).  This makes it explicit that the credal positions of Shaykh ibn Taymiyyah (r.a.) in his second period of heresy cannot be said to be the creed of Imam Ahmad (r.a.) and the wider Hanbali madzhab, or the Atsari creed.


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