The First Heresy of a Mujtahid

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ

Shaykh Taqi’ ad-Din Ahmad ibn ‘Abd al-Halim ibn Taymiyyah (r.a.) first came to notoriety and clashed with the scholars in 698 AH in Damascus.  He was barred from teaching after he issued his heretical Fatwa al-Hamawiyyah in which he unambiguously attributed literal upward direction to Allah (s.w.t.).  In our time. Muhammad Naswir ad-Din al-Albani revived the claim that Allah (s.w.t.) is in a place above the Throne which he called “al-makan al-‘adami”, “the non-existential place”, in his introduction to Imam Shams ad-Din Abu ‘Abdullah Muhammad ibn Ahmad adz-Dzahabi’s (r.a.) Mukhtaswar al-‘Uluw.  He was refuted by Shaykh Hasan ‘Ali as-Saqqaf in his Talqih al-Fuhum al-‘Aliyah, “The Inculcation of Lofty Discernment”. 

Shaykh ibn Taymiyyah (r.a.) was refuted by his contemporary, Qadhi Shihab ad-Din Ahmad ibn Muhyi ad-Din ibn Jahbal al-Kilabi (r.a.), in a lengthy reply.  Imam Taqi’ ad-Din Abu al-Hasan ‘Ali ibn ‘Abd al-Kafi’ as-Subki (r.a.) reproduced it in full in his Thabaqat ash-Shafi’iyyah al-Kubra’.  Qadhi ibn Jahbal (r.a.) wrote, “How can you say that Allah is literally in Heaven, and literally above Heaven, and literally on the Throne, and literally above the Throne?” 

Imam Yusuf ibn Isma’il an-Nabhani (q.s.) also refuted Fatwa al-Hamawiyyah in his Raf’ al-Ishtibah fi Istihalat al-Jiha ‘ala Allah, “The Removal of Uncertainty Concerning the Impossibility of Direction for Allah”, which was cited in full in his Shawahid al-Haqq.