Fourth: The attribution of this book is explicitly affirmed by someone whose expertise regarding the Shaykh, unwavering loyalty to him, and firm Salafi creed are beyond dispute—namely the eminent Ibn al-Qayyim. He stated that his teacher, Ibn Taymiyyah, authored a well-known treatise on the question of the annihilation of the Fire (1), and his testimony is conclusive. Indeed, what he records in his work Hādī al-Arwāḥ (“The Guide of the Souls”) on this issue relies on the very epistle of his teacher Ibn Taymiyyah that is now being verified: at times he quotes it verbatim, while at other times he paraphrases it, as I have noted in the footnotes during the verification.
Fifth: This epistle is also ascribed to Shaykh al-Islam by one of his contemporaneous critics, Shaykh ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd al-Kāfī al-Subkī, who composed a tract entitled al-Iʿtibār bi-Baqāʾ al-Jannah waʾl-Nār (“The Proof for the Perpetuity of Paradise and Hell”). In it he writes, “We have begun with the Fire because we came across a treatise by one of the scholars of our time concerning its annihilation” (2). He then adds, “I examined the aforementioned treatise and found that it mentions three opinions regarding the extinction of Paradise and Hell” (3):
- That both of them perish—a view he says none of the early scholars upheld;
- That neither of them perishes;
- That Paradise endures while the Fire comes to an end (4).
All the textual proofs al-Subkī cites in his treatise appear in Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah’s epistle that is currently under verification. In any case, whoever studies this epistle will discern a prominent hallmark of the Shaykh’s methodology