• Verifying the attribution of the original abridged treatise to Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah:

Before I embark on determining whether this abridged treatise is genuinely authentic, the basic requirements of scholarly research oblige us to pose the following question: Did Shaykh al-Islam compose a work on this subject that could then have been abridged, or not? And did he himself ever mention this study or refer to it in any of his writings?

We say: By means of thorough investigation and close examination, we can state with certainty that Shaykh al-Islam did indeed produce a study on this topic. This is made clear by several considerations:

1 – Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah expressly declared that he had authored a work in this field—namely, fighting the unbelievers—and in that work he recorded the very opinion that appears in the abridged treatise. He said (1): “The disbelievers are only to be fought on condition that they take up arms, as the majority of scholars hold and as the Book (the Quran) indicates…”