this!! As he put it: “This is what is understood from the words of the esteemed commentator! It is an immediate implication of his words”!!
I say: Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah did not explicitly affirm this, contrary to the writer’s claim. The cited passage forms part of a lengthy quotation that Shaykh al-Islam reproduced from Manāqib Ahmad ibn Hanbal, by Abū Ismāʿīl ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muhammad al-Ansārī, who bore the title Shaykh al-Islam.
Thus, the writer’s statement, “Rather, he explicitly affirmed this …”, and so forth, is a blatant lie about Shaykh al-Islam. Indeed, just a few pages after this passage in the same work, Shaykh al-Islam quoted Abū al-Nasr al-Sijzī as saying:
“Many scholars did not permit applying the term ‘silence’ to Him. Some adherents of transmitted reports permitted applying it to Him because it occurs in the hadith. They explained that it means His refraining today from rebuking people, requiring them to acknowledge their deeds, and calling them to account. A day will come when He will require them to acknowledge their deeds, call them to account, and rebuke them. This refraining is what is meant by silence.” He said: “The foundational principle that must be understood is that sharing all the same designations does not entail that those so designated are alike”1.
- The writer said in the footnote on p. 52: “… The commentary on al-Tahāwī’s Creed is a summary of ‘Minhāj al-Sunnah’ and ‘Muwāfaqat Sarīh al-Maʿqūl’ by Shaykh al-Harrānī!! That is why they focus on it and are so keen to disseminate it.”