the Muslims.

Among the most notable manifestations of this were:

First: His jihad by the sword and his stirring of the Muslims to fight, both in word and in deed. He would stride across the fields of battle with his sword in hand beside the greatest and bravest horsemen, and those who watched him during the liberation of Acre were astonished at his courage and the devastation he inflicted upon the enemy.¹

Second: His jihad with pen and tongue. May Allah have mercy on him—he stood before the enemies of Islam from every creed, sect, and deviant school like an immovable mountain: sometimes engaging them in debate, at other times rebutting them in writing, until, by Allah’s grace, he dismantled their doubts and thwarted much of their scheming. He confronted the philosophers and the Bāṭiniyyah—among them certain Sufis, Ismāʿīlīs, Nusayrīs, and others; he likewise faced the Rāfiḍah and the atheists; he exposed the fallacies of those innovators who promote practices around shrines, graves, and the like; and he refuted the Jahmiyyah and Muʿtazilah, debating the scholastic theologians and the Ashʿarites as well.

Whoever studies this dimension of the Shaykh’s life will be convinced that he left himself no idle moment. He was fought, pursued, harmed, and imprisoned time after time for the sake of Allah, and he finally passed away while incarcerated in the Citadel Prison of Damascus.

By Allah’s favour, the Shaykh’s refutations remain a powerful weapon against the enemies of truth and the champions of falsehood, for they are grounded in the Book of Allah, the Sunnah of His Messenger—peace and blessings be upon him and his family—and the guidance of the righteous predecessors. Added to that are his keen powers of deduction, his mastery of textual and rational evidence, and the vast learning that Allah had granted him.

Most of the destructive ideologies that circulate among Muslims today are no more than extensions of the very sects and doctrines that the Shaykh—and other members of our pious forebears—confronted. For that reason, reform-minded callers must not neglect this aspect, so that they may benefit from the groundwork laid by our righteous predecessors.

¹ The original text places a reference mark here to a source detailing these events.