As for his lessons in the public gatherings, I never heard anyone teach more beautifully, nor speak with expressions sweeter than his. His explanations were crystal-clear, his precautions precise, his mind sound, his intuition keen, and his verse well-composed. He died in Ramadan 727 AH at Bilbays, was carried to Cairo, and buried beside the Dome of Imām al-Shāfiʿī—may Allah be pleased with him. (1)
- Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥalīm ibn Taymiyyah, Taqī al-Dīn, Abū al-ʿAbbās, the Ḥanbalī of Ḥarrān, Shaykh al-Islām, d. 728 AH:
Ibn Kathīr kept close company with his teacher Ibn Taymiyyah, loved him deeply, and adopted many of his views. He would issue legal opinions according to his judgment on the question of divorce, and because of that he was examined and harmed.
Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī says: “He studied under Ibn Taymiyyah, became enamoured of him, and was tried on his account.” (2)
Although Ibn Kathīr followed the Shāfiʿī school, he was wholly devoted to Ibn Taymiyyah and was profoundly influenced by him in rejecting innovations and newly introduced deviations and in supporting the Sunnah and its people. In volume sixteen of our new edition of al-Bidāyah wa’l-Nihāyah we find him tracing the celebrated stances of Shaykh Ibn Taymiyyah and his heroic struggle: he rejoices at his victory over (3) the Mongols and the people of innovation (4) and misguidance, grieves at his imprisonment, comes to the Citadel of Damascus at the time of his death, kisses his face during the washing (5), and describes his grand funeral (6) in which the people of Damascus and the surrounding villages came out to bid farewell to the reforming, striving scholar. Ibn Kathīr regards these grieving crowds as the greatest triumph of the Shaykh’s reformist call and a painful blow to his enemies and enviers.
After a copious biography that he copied from the history of his own teacher al-Barzālī, Ibn Kathīr says: “Many complete recitations of the Qur’an were performed for Shaykh Ibn Taymiyyah, remarkable righteous dreams were seen about him, and numerous poems and very long odes were composed in his elegy. Independent biographies were written for him, and a group of eminent scholars authored works on the subject. From all of this I shall extract a brief biography, mentioning his virtues, merits, courage, generosity, sincerity, asceticism, worship, his many well-polished disciplines, his major and minor qualities that embraced most sciences, and the distinctive opinions he upheld—opinions he supported with the Qur’an and the Sunnah, and for which he issued legal verdicts.” (7)
In short, he—may Allah have mercy on him—was among the great scholars, a man who could be right or wrong; but his mistakes in comparison to