In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.

All praise belongs to Allah, Lord of the worlds. May blessings and peace be upon the noblest of Messengers, our Master Muhammad, and upon his family, his Companions, and all who follow them with excellence until the Day of Judgment.

To proceed: Imām Shams al-Dīn Ibn al-Qayyim (d. 751 AH)—may Allah have mercy on him—is counted among those authors whose writings have spread benefit far and wide, East and West, to Arabs and non-Arabs alike. His works rank among the most valuable sources from which Muslims have drawn guidance in creed, jurisprudence, the Prophetic biography, asceticism, heart-softening counsel, devotional litanies, hadith, hadith criticism, legal theory, sects, and schools of thought.

His book al-Sawāʿiq al-Mursala ʿalā al-Jahmiyya wa-l-Muʿaṭṭila (The Thunderbolts Unleashed against the Jahmiyya and the Muʿaṭṭila) is one of the finest refutations of the Jahmiyya and the Muʿaṭṭila. It is a work of great stature and flawless structure: therein Ibn al-Qayyim dismantled their fortresses from the ground up, marshaling both transmitted and rational proofs to overturn their doctrines, leaving them no argument—neither an authentic report nor a clear intellectual proof—to which they could cling.

It is among the largest compositions written in rebuttal of the Jahmiyya and the Muʿaṭṭila and in support of the Salafī creed. The book contains numerous digressions, which Ibn al-Qayyim filled with benefits in theology, Qurʾānic exegesis, jurisprudence, hadith, language, and other fields, after consulting a vast array of sources.

Sadly, only about half of the work has come down to us; the remainder has yet to be located. We ask Allah, by His grace and generosity, to make its recovery possible.

This book truly deserves multiple editions so that its benefit may spread, for it is among the very best works in its field and among the strongest in argument.