Ibn Taymiyyah R.A
Seek (beneficial) knowledge because seeking it for the sake of Allah is worship. And knowing it makes you more God-fearing; searching for it is jihad, teaching it to those who do not know is a charity, and reviewing and learning it more is like tasbeeh. Through knowledge, Allah will be known and worshiped.”
Family Background Of Ibn Taymiyyah:
Once there was a lady named Taymiyyah, and she was a scholar. In her family, there were many scholars, but Ibn Taymiyyah was the most prominent among them. He, therefore, got the title Ibn Taymiyyah due to his contributions to Islam. Various contributions came from his grannie Taymiyyah. The family had a remarkable history of contribution to Islam.
During the tartar invasion of Iraq, everyone feared a massive attack from the tartars, resulting in a mass migration. At that time, Ibn Taymiyyah was a small child, but his family and parents were already among the Nobel scholars of Islam. So they decided to migrate and piled up their entire collection of books in a cart and decided to move. Since they knew the worth of the knowledge and books, they pulled the heavy cart with their own hands.
Early Life of Ibn Taymiyyah
Ibn Taymiyyah was got up, cared for, and nurtured by his father. He obtained knowledge from him and the other shaykh of his era. He did not bind himself to the knowledge of those around him but also led his attention to the works of the scholars before his time through perusal and memorization.
The following statements can be drawn from his early life:
- The power of his memory and the speed of his comprehension.
- His strict adherence to time from an early age later led the rest of his life to be filled with actions such as jihad, teaching, commanding the good, forbidding evil, writing books and letters, and denying opponents.
- The scope and strength of his effect and arguments. A Jew accepted Islam at his hands while he was still very young.
- He started issuing legal verdicts at nineteen and teaching in Dar al-Hadith as-Sukriyyah when he was approximately 22 years of age.
Books of Ibn Taymiyyah:
These books were the inheritance that Ibn Taymiyyah received. Through him, we’ve been able to get a superb collection of our knowledge to the current day. Those books that got saved within the cart made Ibn Taymiyyah a scholar, Who then went on to jot down 591 books in his life of sixty-seven years! Thus, the Muslim world got 3 of the foremost outstanding and friendly scholars from his followers. They were Ibn Kathir, Ibn Qayyim Jauzi, and Dhahabi. That was the inheritance that ibn Taymiyyah left behind: knowledge and scholars.
Ibn Taymiyyah got knowledge of Islam from his family from a very young age. Once his father took some children to a garden, but Ibn Taymiyyah refused to go with his father. When his father returned, Ibn Taymiyyah told him that he had memorized a whole book during this period.
His initial sources of knowledge centered around various sciences like Tafsir;
- Sciences of the Qur’an;
- the Sunnah;
- the Six books;
- Musnad Imam Ahmad;
- Sunan ad-Darimi;
- Mu’jam at-Tabarani;
- Sciences of Hadith and narrators;
- Fiqh and it’s Usul;
- Usul ad-Din and sects;
- language;
- writing;
- mathematics; history
- Other subjects like astronomy, medicine, and engineering.
This is quite evident from examining the works he later authored; any topic he tackled and wrote about leaves the reader thinking that Ibn Taymiyyah was a specialist in that field.
Hard Times:
During his life, he went to jail three times. It was due to complaints from so-called Muslims. The first time he was arrested at his house, where he was allowed to meet the people. He did counseling and gave fatwas, and spent his time preaching Islam. They put him in jail for about a year during his second imprisonment.
He noticed incorrect concepts were getting rooted in the minds of people. So in his book titled Al Aqeedatul Wasitiyah, he wrote about tauheed. This book was a masterpiece. He started writing books after Asar’s prayer, and by Maghrib, he was done writing this book. He not only wrote about truth but also focused on falsehood by speaking and writing against it.
A source of Inspiration:
When he died, there were 300,000 people gathered to pray for him. Ibn Rajab told me that he got the news that Gayabana salatul Janazah of Ibn Taymiyyah was also offered in Yemen and china too.
He took his imprisonment positively and completed teaching Qur’an around eighty times in jail. May Allah shower His mercy upon Him.
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