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Ibn Taymiyyah on Why He Expended Efforts to Refute the Innovators and Deviants
Posted by Abu.Iyaad on Friday, April, 25 2014 and filed under Rectification

Al-Haafidh al-Bazzaar (d. 749H), a student of Ibn Taymiyyah, stated (refer to al-Qawl al-Jali Fee Tarjamat Shaykh al-Islam Taqi al-Din Ibn Taymiyyah al-Hanbali, Dar al-Kutub al-Ilmiyyah, pp.582-583):

He wrote a great deal in the (field of) usool [meaning matters of creed], let alone in other sciences, so I asked him for the reason behind that and I requested from him to author a text in fiqh in which he compiles together his preferred views and the stronger opinions so that it could be relied upon in giving fatwa, so he said to me with what means: "The affair of the furoo' (branches, rulings) is an easy one, when a Muslim follows one of the blind-following scholars (of one of the madhhabs), it is permissible for him to act upon his saying, so long as he has not become certain of the error of his saying. But as for the usool (foundations), then I have seen the people of innovation and misguidance and desires such as the Mutafalsifah ("Islamic" philosophers), the Baatiniyyah, the Malaahidah, those speaking with the Unity of Existence, the Dahriyyah (Materialists, Atheists), the Qadariyyah, the Nusayriyyah, the Jahmiyyah, the Hulooliyyah, the Mu'attilah, the Mujassimah, the Mushabbihah, the Raawandiyyah (a Sufi sect), the Kullaabiyyah, and the Salimiyyah and other than them from the people of innovation, they deeply engrossed themselves in them (the innovations), with misguidance reaching critical levels, and it became clear to me that many of them intended to invalidate the sanctified Muhammadan Shari'ah, that is superior and lofty over every deen, and that all of them as as whole threw the people into doubt about the usool of their deen. And for this reason, rarely did I hear or see one who turned away from the Book or the Sunnah, turning towards their sayings except that he became a heretic or he became uncertain in his religion and belief. So when I saw the affair was like this, it became clear to me that it is obligatory upon everyone who is able to repel their doubts and their falsehood and to cut off their proofs and their misguidances, that he should expend his efforts to expose their evils, their counterfeit evidences, in order to defend the upright religion, and the authentic, lofty Sunnah."

Muslims should recognize the dishonest attempts of people like Yasir Qadhi who engage in acts of historical revisionism and distortion (see here), whereby they try to present the efforts and activities of Scholars (such as Ibn Taymiyyah) in ways that are flatly contradicted by the words and actions of that same Scholar. Then through this distortion, they try to justify their own friendship, allegiance, love and preference for the modern-day descendants of the very innovators whom Ibn Taymiyyah expended great efforts to refute, seeing their great danger upon the Ummah (such as the Jahmiyyah going by the label of "Ash'aris"). Yasir Qadhi then pretends that such issues are "intricate and complex" which only academic elites such as himself like should be discussing "in appropriate settings." This is not the way of the Scholars of Islam, Sunnah and Salafiyyah, past or present.