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Ḥashwiyya (also ahl al-ḥashw) is a pejorative label used by Muʿtazilī kalām theologians and other rationalists to malign ḥadīth folk ( aṣḥāb al-ḥadīth), Ḥanbalīs, and other traditionalists. The most common etymon posited is the Arabic ḥashw (to stuff), one accusation against the Ḥashwiyya being that they stuffed unreliable ḥadīth reports into their argumentation (Van Ess, Der Eine, 953). The earliest Muʿtazilī heresiography, Kitāb uṣūl al-niḥal (“Book of the roots of divisions”), usually attributed to Jaʿfar b. Ḥarb (d. 236/850–1), identifies the Ḥashwiyya a…

Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm al-Wazīr al-Yamanī (775–840/1374–1436), also known as Ibn al-Wazīr, was a Yemeni theologian and legal theorist of Zaydī Shīʿī background who did not affiliate with any legal school ( madhhab). The family name al-Wazīr derives from an ancestor several generations earlier who held an administrative position as a vizier ( wazīr). Ibn al-Wazīr was born in Rajab 775/January 1374 in the northern highlands of Yemen. He was educated in Zaydī Shīʿism, especially Muʿtazilī kalām theology and legal theory, but also turned to Sunnī ḥadīth collections and Ṣūfism early in …

The Arabic word fiṭra , often translated “original disposition,” “natural constitution,” or “innate nature,” appears in the Qurʾān and ḥadīth literature and factors into Islamic legal and theological discussions about human nature and knowledge. The related verb form faṭara occurs eight times in the Qurʾān, in the sense of “create” or “constitute” (Q 6:79, 17:51, and elsewhere), and the active participle fāṭir six times, to describe God as the “creator” of the heavens and the earth (Q 6:14, 12:101, and elsewhere). The sole occurrence of the noun fiṭra in the Qurʾān links it closel…

The creed (ʿaqīda, iʿtiqād) refers both to the fundamental doctrines of Islam and to texts specifying these doctrines. These documents vary in length from short compendiums to extensive doctrinal outlines supported by rational and textual proofs. Apart from the Confession of Faith (shahāda), “There is no god but God, and Muḥammad is the messenger of God,” there is no universally accepted Islamic creed. However, political and theological conflicts over matters such as leadership of the Muslim community, the definition of a Muslim believe…

‘What is said about the issue of Jesus being the Word of God and the Qurʾan being the Word of God’ Ibn Taymiyya Date: Unknown Original Language: Arabic Description The only known source of information for this fatwa is an edition published in Egypt by an anonymous editor. There is no reason to doubt the fatwa’s authenticity as the writing is characteristically Taymiyyan. The text runs to 44 pages in the printed edition. The fatwa is in response to an inquiry about a Muslim and a Christian who are debating the Word. The Christian observes that the Qur’an calls both Jesus the Word of God ( kalimat All…

‘He was asked about Muslims who eat the food of the Christians at Nayrūz…’; ‘Forbidding participation with the People of the Book in their festivals’ Ibn Taymiyya Date: Unknown Original Language: Arabic Description This brief fatwa is printed in MF xxv, pp. 329-32, and MRM i, pp. 230-32, and bears no title in either collection. Thomas Michel ( Response, pp. 82-84) gave the work the title Taḥrīm mushārakat ahl al-kitāb fī ʿayādihim, apparently deriving it from editor Rashīd Riḍā’s very brief summary of the work found in the table of contents to MRM i. While there is no clear evidence by…

Iqtiḍāʾ al-ṣirāṭ al-mustaqīm‘The necessity of the straight path in distinction from the people of hell’ Ibn Taymiyya Date: Before 1315-16 Original Language: Arabic Description Iqtiḍāʾ al-ṣirāṭ al-mustaqīm (the title appears in slight variations, among them Iqtiḍāʾ al-ṣirāṭ al-mustaqīm fī radd ʿalā aṣḥāb al-jaḥīm, Iqtiḍāʾ al-ṣirāṭ al-mustaqīm wa-mujānabat aṣḥāb al-jaḥīm and Iqtiḍāʾ al-ṣirāṭ al-mustaqīm fī mukhālafat ahl al-jaḥīm) is a large book forbidding Muslim imitation ( tashabbuh) of unbelievers, especially Christians in their festivals. Its date is uncer…

‘Concerning the Conditions of ʿUmar…’ Ibn Taymiyya Date: Unknown Original Language: Arabic Description This short treatise of six pages printed in MF xxviii, pp. 651-56, provides a listing of the Conditions of ʿUmar applying to non-Muslims living under Muslim protection ( ahl al-dhimma) and discusses related matters. For example, Ibn Taymiyya denies that the Prophet said, ‘Whoever harms a protected person ( dhimmī) has harmed me’, and that unbelievers can never be rightly harmed. Also, he affirms that the Conditions of ʿUmar should always be enforced and, …

Dhamm khamīs al-Naṣārā‘Censure of the Christians’ Maundy Thursday’ Ibn Taymiyya Date: Unknown Original Language: Arabic Description Al-Walīd ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad Āl Farayān edited this short fatwa on the Christian festival of Maundy Thursday from three manuscripts, which he describes in the introduction to his edition in the Saudi journal Majallat al-buḥūth al-islāmiyya in 1995. He judges that two of the manuscripts come from the 16th century, while the third was copied in 1922-23. Āl Farayān does not mention where he found these manuscripts, and ne…

Shaykh al-Islām Taqī l-Dīn Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥalīm ibn ʿAbd al-Salām ibn Taymiyya l-Ḥarrānī Date of Birth: 22 January 1263 Place of Birth: Ḥarrān Date of Death: 25 September 1328 Place of Death: Damascus Biography The Ḥanbalī jurist Ibn Taymiyya was one of the most incisive and prolific religious scholars of the late medieval period. His circle of disciples was small, and his ideas were not widely accepted, even within the Ḥanbalī school of law. His atypical theological views and political misfortunes in later years also appear t…

Shams al-Dīn Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Abī Bakr ibn Ayyūb al-Zurʿī l-Dimashqī l-Ḥanbalī Date of Birth: 29 January 1292 Place of Birth: Damascus Date of Death: September 1350 Place of Death: Damascus Biography Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya was a prolific Ḥanbalī jurist, theologian and spiritual writer who is best known as the foremost student of Ibn Taymiyya. Apart from several pilgrimages to Mecca, he spent his whole life in Damascus. The agnomen ( laqab) ‘Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya’ refers to his father’s occupation and means ‘the son of the superintendent ( qayyim) of the Jawziyya madrasa’,…

‘And he was asked about the monks…’ Ibn Taymiyya Date: Unknown Original Language: Arabic Description This brief fatwa on the legal status of monks living as dhimmīs under Muslim rule takes up five pages in MF xxviii, pp. 659-63. The fatwa inquirer asks whether monks who circulate freely among the populace, engaging in business and agriculture, are subject to the jizya tax levied on dhimmīs. In response, Ibn Taymiyya turns to the instruction of the first caliph, Abū Bakr, to Yazīd ibn Abī Sufyān, who was setting out on a military expedition to Syria: he shoul…

‘A question about someone who calls Maundy Thursday a festival’ Ibn Taymiyya Date: Unknown Original Language: Arabic Description This fatwa (six pages in the printed edition) responds to an inquiry about calling the Christian celebration of Maundy Thursday a festival ( ʿīd), and about activities such as painting eggs, gambling and using incense that are linked to this day. Ibn Taymiyya responds that Muslims should not engage in any activities associated with the feasts of the unbelievers in accord with two sayings of the Prophet, ‘Whoe…

Bayān al-jawāb al-ṣaḥīḥ li-man baddala dīn al-Masīḥ‘The correct answer to those who have changed the religion of Christ’ Ibn Taymiyya Date: 1316 or shortly thereafter Original Language: Arabic Description Ibn Taymiyya’s Jawāb al-ṣaḥīḥ is a long refutation of the Christian Letter from the people of Cyprus (q.v.), which is a revised version of the Letter to a Muslim friend written by Paul of Antioch, Melkite Bishop of Sidon (q.v.), sometime in the late 1100s or early 1200s. Ibn Taymiyya received the Letter from the people of Cyprus in 1316 and probably completed his Jawāb well before 1321…

Al-madkhal‘Introduction to the sublime law of the four legal schools’ Ibn al-Ḥājj al-ʿAbdarī Date: October-November 1331 Original Language: Arabic Description Al-madkhal is a large and wide-ranging book of more than 1,200 pages across four volumes in the printing of Maktabat Dār al-Turāth in Cairo. Ibn al-Ḥajj’s primary objective is reform of society by increasing adherence to the sharīʿa, and especially purifying the intentions of actions. The first volume includes long discussions on the proper comportment of religious scholars and women, with criti…

‘The Shaykh of Islam…was asked about a group of Muslims who severely reproached someone who had eaten the meat of animals slaughtered by a Jew or Christian’ Ibn Taymiyya Date: Unknown Original Language: Arabic Description In this fatwa of 22 pages as found in MF xxxv, pp. 212-33, Ibn Taymiyya permits Muslims to eat meat from animals slaughtered by Christians and Jews. He also deems all Christian and Jewish butchers eligible to provide meat for Muslims, opposing a Shāfiʿī legal view that Christians and Jews who had converted to their respe…

‘The unsheathed sword against whoever insults the Messenger’ Ibn Taymiyya Date: 1294 Original Language: Arabic Description Al-ṣārim al-maslūl is a lengthy legal treatise arguing that anyone – Muslim or non-Muslim – who curses ( sabba) the Prophet Muḥammad must be killed without further recourse. This was Ibn Taymiyya’s first major work, and it comes to around 1,100 pages in the 1997 critical edition of al-Ḥalawānī and Shawdarī, and between 400 and 600 pages in various trade editions. Al-Ḥalawānī and Shawdarī base their edition on five manuscripts, three of which date to the 1300s. Ibn…

‘The question of the churches’ Ibn Taymiyya Date: Between 1303 and 1305 Original Language: Arabic Description Masʾalat al-kanāʾis (also known by slightly different titles, such as Kitāb fī l-kanāʾis, Maqāla fī l-kanāʾis, Masʾala fī l-kanāʾis and Suʾāl fī l-kanāʾis) is a fatwa on the status of churches under Muslim rule that comes to 15 pages in MF xxviii, pp. 632-46, and 41 pages in the critical edition of Shibl. Shibl’s version of the fatwa is based on four manuscripts and the text printed in MF. It also includes a list of the conditions in the Pact of ʿUmar ( al-shurūṭ al-ʿumariyya) (q.v.), …

Hidāyat al-ḥayārā‘Guiding the confused, on responses to the Jews and the Christians’ Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya Date: Unknown Original Language: Arabic Description This polemic against Jews and Christians comes to 650 pages in the 2008 critical edition of ʿUthmān Ḍumayriyya, a careful piece of work based on five manuscripts. The 1996 edition of Muḥammad al-Ḥājj is based on four of the same manuscripts and also makes a valuable scholarly contribution. The Hidāya cannot be dated precisely, but it falls among Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya’s earlier works. Ibn al-Qayyim indicates in his intro…

Aḥkām ahl al-milal‘Laws regarding the dhimmīs’; ‘Regulations for the People of the religions’ Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya Date: Unknown Original Language: Arabic Description This large work, which runs to 873 pages in the 1961 edition of Subḥī l-Ṣāliḥ, provides a comprehensive account of Islamic regulations pertaining to non-Muslims. The book begins by responding to an inquiry about the jizya, or poll tax, collected from non-Muslims ( ahl al-dhimma) living within Islamic territories. Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya’s response, which takes up 140 pages in al-Ṣāliḥ’s edition,…