Establishing Its Attribution to the Author
The book’s attribution to Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymiyya can be established on several grounds:
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A number of his students attributed it to him, including Ibn Abd al-Hādī in his biography of his teacher (1) and in An Abridgment of the Generations of Hadith Scholars; Ibn Rushayyiq in The Names of the Shaykh’s Works; al-Dhahabī in a short work devoted to his biography; Ibn Fadl Allāh in The Paths of Vision (2); Ibn al-Wardī in Continuation of the Abridgment (3); and others.
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The identification of Shaykh al-Islām as its author is attested in every manuscript we have examined.
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The base manuscript on which we relied, copied in 780 AH, was transcribed from a copy whose exemplar had itself been copied from Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymiyya’s own handwriting, as stated in the copyist’s colophon (fol. 78).
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The author’s characteristic style, evident throughout his writings and recognizable to anyone familiar with his works, is clearly apparent in this treatise.
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Many of the issues and positions adopted in this book correspond to those found in the Shaykh’s other works, as we have noted at many of the relevant passages.
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The author also wrote a treatise that he sent to Emir Sunqurjāh al-Mansūrī (d. 707 AH)