[al-Taḥawiyyah Pt 35] ‘Ilmul Kalām

Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem. My Salams to Shaykh Haytham.

In my opinion this article reveals the orientation of this website.

I had a feeling this website leaned to a certain approach. To undiscerning readers: There is a group that thinks that the Muslim Ummah deviated completely after the Salaf in Aqeedah, disparaging the majoritarian Ash’ari, Maturidi and traditional Hanbali point of view.

Their thought is based on Ibn Taymiyyah and Ibnul Qayyim and is traced back to an obscure figure known as Uthman bin Said al Darimi. He was an anthropomorphist who ascribed limits to Allah. Ibn Taymiyyah defends the Karramiyyah. They follow the Salaf as much as the heretical Mu’tazila follow the Salaf: Wasil Ibn Ata was a Taba-at-Tabiun. They follow the heretics of old, and disparage the likes of Imam Shafi’i who said Kalam is fard al-Kifayah, and Ibn Kullab of his Madhab who they call a heretic.

I ask Dr Haitham: Why do you do Tawil when it comes to the Hadith of Allah is ad-Dahr? Why do you do tawil of the Hadith of the Dua in Sahih Muslim and Jami’at-Tirmidhi that there is nothing above him and nothing below him? But you take the hadith of the child pointing up literally?

The scholars of the time rejected Ibn Taymiyyah. May Allah have mercy on him for the grievous mistakes he made. The later Hanbalis did not follow him: Read al-Balbani’s creed, read Imam as-Saffarini’s creed – read the commentaries made by that sect which try and say, “Imam Saffarini did not mean this” etc.

Nor do they follow the Aqeedah of the earlier Hanbalis, certainly not of Ahmad Ibn Hanbal Rahimullah himself: I hav read that Ibn Jawzi in his Daf` shubah al-tashbih (p.135) reports `Ali ibn Muhammad ibn `Umar al-Dabbas related to us that Rizq Allah ibn `Abd al-Wahhab al-Tamimi said: “Ahmad ibn Hanbal did not attribute a direction to the Creator.” Nor did they follow the creed of al-Isfahani, Ibn al-Bannah, Ibn Qudamah and Ibn Hamdan, the true Hanbali authorities who transmitted Imam Ahlus Sunnah’s legacy.

He is exalted over the throne and place and is not in any requirement of them. This is also found in Ibn Hamdan al-Hanbali’s creed, and he wrote his works of creed before Ibn Taymiyyah. Ibn Qudamah al-Hanbali is perhaps the first to talk of Tafweed al-Ma’na.

As for the Shaykh’s criticism of Kalam, this is a valid view of some Hanabila, but clarify to your audience what Kalam is: It is not “speculative theology” – it is using reason to confirm Islamic beliefs e.g. the existance of God etc. There is a valid criticism in Ilm-ul-Kalam in two aspects: The first is that it makes you arrogant upon the truth when you realise your beliefs are in conformity to reason. The second is that heretics can attempt similar discourse in the guise of Kalam and employ philosophical thinking arriving at heresies. In reality Kalam can still be used to refute such views and logic can be used to show contradictions of the heretics (e.g. Ibn Taymiyyah’s view that there are creators besides Allah).

How could you quote the neo-platonist and philosopher Ibn Rushd??

Al-Ghazali abandoned Falsafa, not Kalam. Once you have used Kalam you do not need to use it again except to answer objections and heresies – this is why al-Ghazali does not use it in the end of his life. But he strictly holds on to the beliefs he arrived at through Mantiq and Kalam e.g. Occasionalism (in his Ihya). I am not negating that al-Ghazali studied hadith, but you should tell you audience that his Ihya contains weak and fabricated hadith. So your claim of, “he left Kalam and studied the hadith” is even less true. Ibn Jawzi and Ibn Qudamah made versions of his work without weak/fabricated hadith for this very reason.

My fear for people like Haytham al-Haddad is that they have realised the harsh hearted fanaticism of their own sect and so have gone to the other extreme in accepting liberal ideas such as democracy. We see this with Yasir Qadhi etc. You were taught heresy and continue to teach it.

I advice any thinking reader to go read a translation of Aqeedah Tahawiyyah without any commentary. Realise one of the lines says, “He is beyond having limits placed on Him, or being restricted, or having parts or limbs. Nor is He contained by the six directions as all created things are.”

We affirm Allah’s divine attribute of Yad and Wajh that he has attributed himself with. The linguistic translation of Yad is “Hand”. Yet we do not view this as a protrusion from his essence or a physical limb – exalted is he above that. Any Muslim who has read Surah Ikhlas knows this is heresy!

Yes there are pseudo-Ash’aris and extreme Sufis who go to the other extreme and make Ta’til saying, “His Yad is not his attribute” or they say, “His Yad we interpret as power” We distance ourselves from such Azhar graduated who have been influenced by Muhammad Abduh and his lot.

We, the Ash’aris (of the later school) and the Maturidis make tawil of the verses not the attributes! We make Tawil Ijmali not Tawil Tafsili! Read Ibn Kathir Rahimullah’s commentary on Surah Maidah verse 64 – that is the Tawil of the two Sunni groups – i.e. to interpet, “The jews say his hands are chained” as “They do not mean that Allah’s Yad is literally tied up. Rather, they mean that He is a miser and does not spend from what He has. Allah is far holier than what they attribute to Him” And this is attributed to Ibn Abbas Radiyallahu An – do you say the Salaf commited bid’ah?

Our Hanbali bretherin do not accept such Tawil, preferring to recite such verses with interpretting (saying “we do not know” – do you make tabdi of the layperson who says he doesn’t know?). But they make the same type of Tafwid as we do, the so-called “Tafwid al-Ma’na”. After all, it was a Hanbali who coined this phrase!

As for Ibn al-Izz – the one the Imam quotes from – I have read that Sayyid Ibrahim al-Ya`qubi, father of Muhammad al-Yaqoubi, suspected that “Ibn Abi al-`Izz” of being a pseudonym for Ibn al-Qayyim!

Do you take your religion from two scholars who claim their Aqeedah is of Imam Ahmad when it is demonstrably not? Do you take your religion from two as opposed to the historical Jama’ah?

Shaykh Haytham please accept the possibility that when someone goes and seeks sacred knowledge such as yourself, it is possible (or in our era, highly likely), that you will be taught the wrong Aqeedah! Late Hanafi muhaddith Imam Muhammad Zahid al-Kawthari of the Ottoman Empire criticised Ibn Taymiyyah and the movement that sprung from him.

You have perhaps arrived at the position that Ibn Abdul Wahhab’s dawah was wrong – why do you not examine Ibn Taymiyyah’s Dawah as well? I have heard that Imam ad-Dhahabi said of Ibn Taymiyyah that he was upon the way of the Salaf and that then he deviated. Yet I hear from a particular group of scholars that he was upon batil and then came to the way of the Salaf.

And may I remind laypeople, do not do taqleed in Aqeedah: Do your own research and read the evidences from the Quran and Sunnah and the statements of those who came before. For Allah said that the Jews and Christians took their scholars and monks as lords besides Allah and thus they were led astray.

May Alllah bless my brother in Islam, Shaykh Haytham and guide him and myself unto the truth, and let him remind us both to not be arrogant in being confident that we have achieved the path of the Salaf as-Saliheen.

And P.S. Voting is not shirk, with the correct intention (unless the intent is to legislate in which case it is shirk), but it should be avoided to avoid falling into shirk. But the ulama I follow allow it, I simply avoid it myself. My position on Istigatha is exactly the same.