, their divisions are healed and their resentments fade away. One of the greatest figures to help cleanse Islamic thought of factionalism and discord was Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah (1)—may Allah have mercy on him. In his valuable writings he refuted every attempt made by the enemies to cast doubt upon Islam, and he was also among the foremost commanders who took part in purging Muslim lands of the invading Tatars.

Among his most notable efforts to rally people around the Qur’an and the Sunnah was his authorship of this precious treatise—outstanding in its field and weighty in its subject—wherein he, may Allah have mercy on him, clarified what every Muslim must uphold: loyalty to the Muslims at large, and in particular to the scholars, who are the exemplars of the righteous predecessors and the heirs of the messengers. He affirmed—may Allah have mercy on him—that none of the imams accepted by the ummah would ever deliberately contradict the Messenger