Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah and his student Ibn al-Qayyim themselves reported these views (1). Consequently, the cited passages lie outside the actual point of contention, and they cannot be used to deny the attribution of that treatise to Shaykh al-Islam, as will be explained below.

Second: Dr. al-Harbī states that, had the treatise affirming the annihilation of the Fire truly been ascribed to Ibn Taymiyyah with a sound chain, his adversaries would have raised an uproar, seizing from it every line that might serve their case against the Shaykh. They would have shouted without pause, confronting him with its contents—especially since opponents have been numerous, past and present (2).

The answer is that what Dr. al-Harbī denies is exactly what happened. The Shaykh’s critics did set the world ablaze, both during his lifetime and after. Among them was al-Subkī, a contemporary of the Shaykh, who attributed that treatise to him, pursued him—as will be shown—and scrutinized its contents, then levelled against him accusations from which he is completely free. Al-Subkī’s own work is entitled “Al-Iʿtibār bi-Baqāʾ al-Jannah wa-l-Nār” (Reflection on the Everlastingness of Paradise and Hellfire). Later antagonists of the Shaykh followed al-Subkī’s lead, and Dr. al-Harbī himself cites examples of this in his book (3).

Third: Dr. al-Harbī’s position wavers. At one point he claims that what Ibn al-Qayyim recorded in his “Hādī al-Arwāḥ” concerning his teacher was either a misunderstanding on Ibn al-Qayyim’s part or something from which he later recanted (4).

Elsewhere he says regarding Shaykh al-Islam that “in the beginning he inclined toward