and forbids opposing it. He said in Majmūʿ al-Fatāwā (20/10): “Praise be to Allah. The meaning of consensus (ijmāʿ) is that the Muslim scholars agree upon a given ruling. Once the ummah’s consensus regarding a ruling is established, no one has the right to depart from it, for the ummah does not unite upon error.” End of quote.
6 – They further allege that he believes the Divine Essence is composite, that its parts are dependent upon one another, that Allah possesses a body and occupies directions, and that He moves from place to place. This is a blatant calumny against Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymiyyah. In every one of his writings he affirms the creed of the righteous predecessors—the Companions, the Followers, and those who followed them with excellence—regarding Allah’s names and attributes: to affirm them as they have come, without distortion or denial, and without asking how or likening them to created things, in keeping with His words: “There is nothing like unto Him, and He is the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing.” (42:11)
At the beginning of al-Risālah al-Ḥamawiyyah al-Kubrā, when asked, “What do the leading scholars, the imams of the religion, say concerning the verses and hadiths of the attributes?” he replied: “Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds. Our stance on them is what Allah and His Messenger—Allah bless him and grant him peace—have stated, and what the foremost pioneers from the Emigrants and the Helpers said, and those who followed them with excellence, and what the imams of guidance—whose guidance and knowledge the Muslims unanimously acknowledge—said after them. This is obligatory upon all people in this and every other matter.” End of quote from Majmūʿ al-Fatāwā (5/5–6).
He also said, on the issue of motion and relocation, in the same work (5/578–579): “What must be decisively affirmed is that there is nothing like unto Allah in any of the attributes by which He describes Himself. Whoever likens Him to the attributes of created beings in any respect is certainly mistaken—such as the one who says that He descends and therefore moves and relocates just as…”