This is, then, a tremendous honor for me and a great blessing: that I have been enabled to serve the legacy of this eminent imam, the Imam of the Sunnah—may Allah have mercy on him. I beseech You, O Allah, to gather me and him beneath the banner of the chief of the messengers, Muhammad b. ʿAbd Allah—peace and blessings be upon him. May Allah make us and you among those through whom the sunnahs are revived, innovations die out, the hearts of the people of truth are fortified, and the souls of the people of whim are subdued, by His grace and generosity.⦗1⦘

The reliance of Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah—may Allah have mercy on him—and his student Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah—may Allah have mercy on him—on this treatise when setting forth the creed of Ahl al-Sunnah in their writings is the clearest proof that the work is rightly attributed to the Imam of the Sunnah—may Allah have mercy on him. To claim otherwise would be to cast doubt on a truth firmly recorded in the books of these two distinguished imams, for it would mean they built their arguments upon a forged treatise. Rather, its attribution is sound, as sound as the recognition of its author’s leadership of Ahl al-Sunnah wa’l-Jamaʿah. Praise belongs to Allah before and after all things.

I say: Were I to trace every place where this treatise is cited, quoted, or its contents invoked as evidence, the discussion would become unduly long. I shall therefore limit myself to what has readily come to hand—and that is far from little; indeed, continued searching would reveal much more.

1- Minhāj al-Sunnah al-Nabawiyyah, Imam University edition, edited by Dr. Muhammad Rashād Sālim, may Allah have mercy on him, 2/484–486.

Shaykh al-Islam, may Allah have mercy on him, said: “It is an old objection among the objections …”