(2) The Book’s Title

The title appears with only slight variation in the manuscripts and bibliographical sources. It is recorded in three principal forms:

First: al-Ṣawāʿiq al-Mursala ʿalā al-Jahmiyya wa-l-Muʿaṭṭila (The Unleashed Thunderbolts against the Jahmites and the Negators).

This is the wording used by Imām Ibn al-Qayyim himself in Madārij al-Sālikīn 4/306; by Muḥammad ibn al-Mawṣilī at the beginning of his Mukhtaṣar 1/3; and by Ibn Ḥajar in al-Durar al-Kāmina 3/403, Ibn al-ʿImād in Shadharāt al-Dhahab 8/290, Ḥājjī Khalīfa in Kashf al-Ẓunūn 2/1083, al-Shawkānī in al-Badr al-Ṭāliʿ 2/144, Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khān in al-Tāj al-Mukallal p. 411, al-Ālūsī in Jalāʾ al-ʿAynayn pp. 49–51, al-Ziriklī in al-Aʿlām 6/56, and many others.

In Hadiyyat al-ʿĀrifīn 2/159 it is recorded as al-Ṣawāʿiq al-Mursala ʿalā al-Jahmiyya al-Muʿaṭṭila, omitting the conjunction “and.”

Second: al-Ṣawāʿiq al-Mursala ʿalā al-Muʿaṭṭila (The Unleashed Thunderbolts against the Negators).

This version is cited by Shihāb al-Dīn Ibn Rajab in his Muʿjam Shuyūkhih, as found in the selection al-Muntaqā minhu p. 101.

Third: al-Ṣawāʿiq al-Munzala ʿalā al-Jahmiyya wa-l-Muʿaṭṭila (The Sent-Down Thunderbolts against the Jahmites and the Negators).

This is the form adopted by Zayn al-Dīn Ibn Rajab in Dhayl Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila 5/175, and by al-ʿUlaymī in al-Durr al-Munḍad 2/522 and al-Manhaj al-Aḥmad 5/94.