among them the ḥadith scholar Abu al-Qasim Ibn ʿAsakir, for he relied on this work and regarded it as one of al-Ashʿari’s greatest distinctions in his Tabyīn Kadhib al-Muftari.

His statement (p. 337) concerning al-Diyaʾ al-Maqdisi’s al-Ahadith al-Mukhtara: “It is more authentic than al-Hakim’s al-Sahih.”

When he quoted from al-Humaydi a passage by Abu Muhammad Ibn Hazm on the causes for the jurists’ differences, he remarked (p. 270): “It is among his finest words.”

His comment (p. 507) on Ptolemy’s al-Majisṭī (Almagest): “It contains many propositions for which no sound proof exists, propositions in which others dispute him, propositions based on observations taken from others that are open to error and falsehood, and it contains valid demonstrative propositions.”

– The book clearly displays Imam Ibn al-Qayyim’s love of knowledge and his zeal to attain it, so much so that he says (p. 642): “If we knew that anywhere on earth there was a person who affirmed this and acted upon it, and camel livers had to be spent to reach him, we would undertake the journey to him just as Moses traveled to al-Khidr and as Jabir ibn ʿAbd Allah traveled to ʿAbd Allah ibn Unays to hear a single ḥadith. Yet the people who show least esteem for a scholar are his own folk.”

– In preparing this book Ibn al-Qayyim benefited from Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah, from his writings in general and especially from his Darʾ Taʿarud al-ʿAql wa-l-Naql.

The book also demonstrates that Imam Ibn al-Qayyim—may Allah have mercy on him—“excelled in the sciences of Islam: he was unrivaled in Qurʾanic exegesis; in the fundamentals of creed he was the ultimate authority; in ḥadith, its meanings, its jurisprudence, and the subtleties of deriving rulings from it, no one equaled him; in fiqh, its uṣūl, and in Arabic he held the upper hand; he studied kalām, grammar, and other disciplines; and he was learned in the science of spiritual wayfaring and in the discourse of the Sufis, their allusions and subtleties, possessing…"