over their enemy. From the hand of this eminent scholar there graduated imams among his students who carried the banner after him. Among them were Imam Ibn al-Qayyim, Imam Ibn Kathir, the hadith master al-Dhahabi, the hadith master Ibn ʿAbd al-Hadi, and others who took knowledge from him and spread it far and wide through the valuable works they authored—books that still fill Islamic libraries today. May Allah reward Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah on behalf of Islam and the Muslims with the best of rewards, and may He benefit us through his knowledge.
Because he fulfilled this great duty, his opponents were enraged, and every deviant faction hurled at him some vile epithet, seeking thereby to turn people away from his call and to smear his efforts. The deniers of the divine attributes claimed he was an anthropomorphist, for, in their view, affirming the attributes is anthropomorphism. Fanatical jurists and innovators said he had broken consensus, for to them, adopting the strongest view supported by evidence—when it differs from their own practice—and refuting innovations constitutes a breach of consensus. Extremist Sufis and grave-worshippers alleged that he hated the saints, declared Muslims unbelievers, and forbade visiting graves, because their “religion” revolves around seeking closeness to the saints and the righteous, exalting the shaykhs of Sufi orders, taking them as lords besides Allah, and exaggerating in their veneration by directing acts of worship to them.
Such is these groups’ stance toward the call of Shaykh al-Islam, and it is an attitude repeated with every reformer and renewer who summons people to the religion of Allah brought by His Messenger, peace and blessings be upon him, while casting aside whatever contradicts it of ancestral religions and pre-Islamic customs. This is nothing strange, for the Prophet himself, peace and blessings be upon him, faced far worse: they branded him a lying sorcerer, a poet, a madman, and other ugly labels meant to divert people from Allah’s religion and keep them upon the polytheism inherited from their forefathers. Shaykh al-Islam and his fellow callers to Allah thus have in their Prophet the finest example.