(8) Abridgments of the Book

To the best of my knowledge, the work has two abridgments.

The first abridgment: the epitome prepared by the erudite Shams al-Din Muhammad ibn al-Mawsili (d. 774 AH).

It is the oldest, the most famous, the largest in size, and the most beneficial of the two. It has been printed several times, and its editions circulated both before any portion of al-Ṣawāʿiq itself appeared in print and afterwards, bringing widespread benefit.

The abridger did not set out the method he followed. He merely wrote in his introduction, “To proceed: this is a hastening of al-Ṣawāʿiq al-Mursalah ʿalā al-Jahmiyyah wa-l-Muʿaṭṭilah. I have selected it from the words of Shaykh al-Islam, the exemplar of mankind, the champion of the sunnah, Shams al-Din Abū ʿAbd Allah Muhammad Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah—may Allah have mercy on him.” He then began the text itself.

This abridgment preserves the spirit of al-Ṣawāʿiq, retaining Ibn al-Qayyim’s style and diction; only rarely does it alter his wording. The abridger simply deleted certain words and phrases, joined what remained so that the discourse would stay continuous, and likewise omitted some of the paragraphs and arguments Ibn al-Qayyim recorded, together with certain digressions embedded in those arguments.

For example, Ibn al-Qayyim refuted the first ṭāghūt (false deity)—their statement, “The texts of revelation are merely verbal proofs and therefore do not yield certainty”—in seventy-three ways, whereas the abridger was content to mention fifty-seven of them.

Ibn al-Qayyim also demolished the second ṭāghūt—their assertion that “If reason and…”