Problematic Credal Positions

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ

Imam Shams ad-Din Abu ‘Abdullah Muhammad ibn Ahmad adz-Dzahabi (r.a.) wrote, in Bayan Zaghl al-‘Ilm wa ath-Thalab, about his teacher, Shaykh Taqi’ ad-Din Ahmad ibn ‘Abd al-Halim ibn Taymiyyah (r.a.), “If you were to excel in the uswul and its affiliates – logic, ethics, philosophy, the sayings of the ancients and the conundrums – all the while protecting yourself with the Book and the sunnah as well as the doctrines of the Salaf, then joining between reason and transmission, still, I do not think you would reach the level of ibn Taymiyyah.  No, by Allah, you would not even come near it.  Yet, I saw what happened to him – how much opposition he faced, desertion, rightful and wrongful declarations of heresy, apostasy, and mendacity!  Before he entered into this science, he was shining with light and enlightening others, bearing the signs of the Salaf on his face.  Then he became lightless, dark and sombre to countless droves of people, a wicked Anti-Christ and disbeliever according to his enemies, while great numbers of the wise and the elite considered him an eminent, brilliant, and scholarly innovator, while the commonality of his uneducated friends, one and all, deemed him the standard-bearer of Islam, the defender of the religion, and the reviver of the sunnah.” 

In another of his books, al-‘Ibar fi Khabar man Ghabar, Imam adz-Dzahabi (r.a.), after praising his teacher, stated, “He also had some strange opinions on account of which he was attacked.” 

Another student of Shaykh ibn Taymiyyah (r.a.), Shaykh Shams ad-Din Abu ‘Abdullah Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn al-Hadi, (r.a.), as recorded in al-‘Uqud ad-Durriyyah min Manaqib Shaykh al-Islam Ahmad ibn Taymiyyah of Imam Muwaffaq ad-Din Abu Muhammad ‘Abdullah ibn Ahmad ibn Qudamah al-Maqdisi (r.a.), “He gave vent to certain expressions whom early and late scholars never dared use while he boldly indulged them.”  This is a roundabout way of admitting that his teacher was accused and found guilty of bid’ah adh-dhalalah in his fiqh and his ‘aqidah.