- The writer says on p. 18: “And Ibn Taymiyyah’s imam and exemplar in these enormities is Abū Ya‘lā al-Hanbalī, who used to say: ‘Require me to affirm whatever you wish, except a beard and private parts’—meaning among the attributes of Allah Most High!! Ibn al-‘Arabī al-Mālikī related this in his book al-‘Awāsim (2/283). This is the affirmation of Allah’s oneness in His names and attributes that they want and seek to establish.”
I say: Allah will call you to account for what you say! Concerning the very allegation with which you have slandered and accused him, Shaykh al-Islām—may Allah have mercy on him—says the following:
“Judge Abū Ya‘lā wrote his book refuting figurative interpretation in response to Ibn Fūrak’s book. Although he supplied the chains of transmission for the hadiths he cited and named those who narrated them, they include several fabricated reports, such as the report of seeing Allah with one’s own eyes on the night of the Ascension and others like it. They also include statements from some of the early generations that some people attributed to the Prophet, such as the report about the Messenger—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—sitting on the Throne. Some people transmitted this through numerous chains as a report from the Prophet, but all these versions are fabricated. What is established is only that it is reported from Mujāhid and others of the early generations. The early generations and the imams transmitted it without objection and accepted it.
“It may be said that such a statement can only be made on the basis of revelation. Nevertheless, a distinction must be made between words reliably established as those of the Messenger and those established as the words of someone else, whether accepted or rejected.
“For this and other reasons, Rizq Allāh al-Tamīmī and other followers of Ahmad sharply criticized Judge Abū Ya‘lā for writing this book. His enemies also vilified him over things of which he was innocent, as he himself mentions at the end of the book.
“What Abū Bakr ibn al-‘Arabī relates about him in al-‘Awāsim is a lie against him, transmitted from an unidentified person whom Abū Bakr did not name. It is one of the lies told against him. Nevertheless, although these people falsely attributed things to him, his own words contain material that is to be rejected, both in what he transmits and in how he explains it. His words also contain