Sub-topic One:
The Motives for Editing the Treatise
Section One:

“An examination of the book, the method I adopted in its verification and annotation, and a description of the manuscript copies on which I relied.”

This section contains several sub-topics:

Sub-topic One:
The title of the book.

I have not come across any specific title for this treatise assigned by its author, Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah.

His pupil, the distinguished Ibn al-Qayyim, did say:

“I once asked Shaykh al-Islam—may Allah sanctify his soul—about this matter. He told me, ‘This is a momentous and weighty issue,’ and gave no further answer. After some time had passed, he authored his well-known work on it—may Allah have mercy on him (1).”

Yet this, as you can see, is not an established technical title, which explains the variety of headings under which the treatise appears.

The edition published by al-Maktab al-Islami opens with the following statement:

“Shaykh al-Islam Abū al-‘Abbās Aḥmad ibn Taymiyyah—may Allah have mercy on him—said in his epistle entitled
‘al-Radd ʿalā man qāla bi-fanāʾ al-janna wa-l-nār’ (Refutation of Those Who Claim that Paradise and Hell Will Perish) …” (2).

This heading agrees with what Imām Ibn ʿAbd al-Hādī recorded among the Shaykh’s writings: “Qāʿidah fī al-radd ʿalā man qāla bi-fanāʾ al-janna wa-l-nār” (A Principle Concerning the Refutation of Those Who Claim that Paradise and Hell Will Perish) (3).

As for the manuscript kept at the Egyptian National Library (4), the words written above its opening lines on the right-hand side read: