3 – The date of the book’s composition and the reason that prompted it:
The author – may Allah have mercy on him – never specified when he wrote the book, nor have I found anyone who explicitly stated its date of composition.
However, after reflecting on the contents of the work, linking it to the purpose for which it was written and to the ordeal the author later endured, it has become clear to me that he composed it during the year 746 AH, or very shortly thereafter at the latest.
The evidence for this is as follows:
1 – What the ḥāfiẓ ʿImād al-Dīn Ibn Kathīr (d. 774 AH) recorded in his work al-Bidāyah wa’l-Nihāyah (1).
He said: “Then came the year seven hundred and forty-six… and discussion and debate arose over the requirement of a muḥallil (third participant) in competitions. The cause was that Shaykh Shams al-Dīn Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah had previously authored a treatise on the matter (2) and in it he championed the view adopted by Shaykh Taqī al-Dīn Ibn Taymiyyah. Later, a group of Turks began issuing legal verdicts on that basis without attributing it to Shaykh Taqī al-Dīn Ibn Taymiyyah, so some people assumed it to be Ibn al-Qayyim’s own view—one that diverged from the four Imams—and objections were therefore raised against him in…"