in him as well for his summons to the creed of the Salaf and his sound grasp of the Sharia, for in Abu Ghuddah’s estimation Ibn Taymiyyah is unfit to serve as a model for people in either of those two areas. Abu Ghuddah does not dare voice this openly; hence he goes on arguing, obstinately denying, and evading.
This marks the end of our reply to what he wrote under paragraph (16).
Second: As for paragraph (17), his answer only incriminates him, for it contains an allusion to his hypocrisy in the very land where he makes his living. He did not repudiate that charge—not even with a verbal disclaimer. Instead, he chose to mock the way we introduced him to the readers—giving his name, school of law, and intellectual orientation, and noting that he is a Hanafi partisan of al-Kawtharī. All he added, thereby misleading his readers about the facts, was the remark: “They mentioned my name, my lineage, the name of my town, my madhhab, and my son’s name, but they forgot to list the rest of the family.” By doing this he misleads readers who have never seen the Introduction and therefore do not know why we cited his lineage, school, and orientation—simply to identify the author of that unjust report.
A Salafi and a Kawtharī at the same time?!
Third: In his reply to paragraph (18) he claims he is not a Kawtharī one hundred percent! As proof he notes that al-Kawtharī used to “shun” (so he says—rather than “declare disbelievers”) Ibn Taymiyyah and Ibn al-Qayyim in accordance with his personal opinion and ijtihād (so he said—may Allah requite him as he deserves). He then states, “Had I been bound to everything he says, I too would have shunned them and followed him in that stance toward them!”
But what of al-Kawtharī’s assaults on the leading hadith authorities—among them Ibn Taymiyyah and Ibn al-Qayyim—his charging them with anthropomorphism, calling them ḥashwiyyah (crude literalists), accusing them of rigidity in jurisprudence and understanding, deriding them as mere porters of tomes, and vilifying reliable transmitters, among whom are a host of hadith masters and jurist-imams