In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful

Introduction to the Critical Edition

All praise is due to Allah. We praise Him, seek His help, and ask His forgiveness. We seek refuge in Allah from the evils of our own souls and from the consequences of our deeds. Whomever Allah guides, none can mislead; and whomever He leaves astray, none can guide. I bear witness that there is no deity worthy of worship but Allah alone, without partner, and I bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and messenger.

To proceed: This is a new volume and a priceless work, published here for the very first time, by the Qur’anic authority, the God-fearing mujāhid, the steadfast murābiṭ1, the scholar of Islam and the Muslims, Shaykh al-Islām Abū al-ʿAbbās Aḥmad ibn Taymiyyah (may Allah have mercy on him). We dedicate it to the patient, persevering mujāhidīn who stand guard on every frontier of Islam—especially in Bayt al-Maqdis (Jerusalem), which is now enduring a grave ordeal. All the forces of evil have joined ranks to aid those most hostile to the believers—the Jews—in their plots to tighten their control over the city, to demolish al-Aqṣā, and to erect the so-called Temple in its place. This is the true meaning behind their well-known maxim, repeatedly voiced by their leading figures in our own time2: “Israel is worthless without Jerusalem, and Jerusalem is worthless without the Temple!”