Defending Ibn Taymiyya Against the Charge of Extremism: Mission Impossible

Defending Ibn Taymiyya against the charge of extremism is exceedingly hard; exonerating him is impossible. Any apologetic undertaking of this nature is inevitably bound to fall into various categories of error: methodological, historical, analytical, and factual.

A passionate defence of Ibn Taymiyya risks making the apologetic scholar appear amateurish, the competent expert naive, and the well-informed ill-informed. It does a disservice to both Ibn Taymiyya and the defender. The main victims, however, are readers who lack access to primary sources or familiarity with the technical issues involved.

Arguing that Ibn Taymiyya was not an extremist is a project that is dead on arrival for a simple reason: extremism is structural in Ibn Taymiyya’s writings, rather than a matter of sporadic statements scattered across his works. The presence of extremism in Ibn Taymiyya’s writings is so ubiquitous that editing it out, literally or figuratively, would destroy the integrity of the text.

1. Background

Less than a month ago, I released a podcast on my YouTube channel titled “50 Death Penalty Fatwās by Ibn Taymiyya on Creed, Law & Practice.” I subsequently published the compiled fatwās as an article on my Facebook page as well.

Recently, a reader tagged me on Facebook to draw my attention to a response in which the author strongly defended Ibn Taymiyya. The piece was lengthy, detailed, and written in a scholarly style. A quick check on the author suggested that he is an expert on Islamic law and Ibn Taymiyya, as well as a committed admirer of his.

I did not need to read far to realise that the author’s uncompromising commitment to defending Ibn Taymiyya led him to misrepresent and distort much of what I had presented. This presented me with a dilemma regarding whether to issue a formal response. On the one hand, I generally refrain from engaging in social media debates with individuals. I limit this to responding to some comments on my own social media pages. The internet is saturated with misinformation presented as truth, and being misrepresented or misquoted is a reality that anyone who publishes regularly must accept.

On the other hand, discussing the damage that Ibn Taymiyya’s legacy has caused to Muslims, both individually and collectively, is a cause to which I am deeply committed. In this specific case, the critic produced a text filled with misleading claims that a general reader is unlikely to detect—not only due to the technical nature of the subject, but also because of how the critique was framed. This risk was further heightened by the author’s intriguing decision neither to name me nor to link to my original article for readers who might want to check it for themselves.

These considerations convinced me to make a compromise regarding my rule against engaging in debates with individuals: I would publish a detailed response, but I would not engage in any subsequent public back-and-forth. Any additional comments on my part would likely simply reiterate what is already covered in this response and my previously published works. Those who remain unconvinced by the evidence presented here and in my previous works are unlikely to be persuaded by further debate.

2. Structure of the Response

The author of the apologetic states that he had been compiling material for a defence of Ibn Taymiyya against the charge of extremism and takfīr for years, and my piece was the “occasion” for writing his apologetic. Indeed, his article covers issues I did not address in my articles or podcasts. Nevertheless, his response to my work is thoroughly integrated into his treatise and constitutes a substantial portion of it. In what follows, I shall focus exclusively on the critiques directed at my own research.

It appears that the author’s primary focus on defending Ibn Taymiyya left his critique without a clear or consistent methodology. His analysis contains methodological flaws, superficial treatments of specific issues, misrepresentations of my article, and red herrings. At times these faults are distinct, but often they overlap. I will do my best to isolate these separate points and categorise the various errors in the critique, making it as clear and accessible as possible for the reader to understand both his criticisms and my response. In doing so, it should become clear how the apologetic often obscures rather than clarifies the issues.

I do not believe the author intended to criticise me personally; rather, he was addressing the claims in my work. Similarly, nothing I say in this response is intended as a personal judgment of him, his other publications, or his overall scholarship. When I challenge a statement, position, or idea, I do not mean to extend that criticism to the author himself, who remains a respected brother in Islam.

3. An Apology for the Apologist

The author stated that my article “reveals insufficient familiarity with the jurisprudential and theological corpus of the Muslim schools and overlooks several terminological and methodological distinctions without which questions of takfīr and legal punishment cannot be properly examined.” He also asserts that “texts from unrelated chapters are gathered together; some are severed from their contexts; a single issue is repeated in slightly different forms to inflate the number; and fundamental distinctions are blurred.” He then elaborates further along these lines.

Rather than quoting this broad criticism word for word, I will address the specific objections he raised and discuss them directly. Since I have provided a link to his document below, readers can consult it for further detail. I will leave it to them to judge the accuracy, fairness, and educational value of my critique of Ibn Taymiyya versus the author’s response to it.

However, I would like to offer a potential defence for the author. It is possible that his criticism stems partly from a genuine misunderstanding of what my article was intended to accomplish. Presumably, he was unaware that it was the final entry in a three-part series of podcasts and articles examining Ibn Taymiyya. In the first instalment, I analysed twelve of his fatwās in detail, each of which calls for the execution of countless Muslims. I then collated the main criticisms of the Facebook article and YouTube podcast by various individuals and addressed them in a second publication.

Finally, to demonstrate the sheer scale and breadth of Ibn Taymiyya’s bloodthirsty fiqh, I followed up with the third article—the piece in question. The sole purpose of this article was to provide direct translated excerpts from Ibn Taymiyya’s writings. Most English readers do not have direct access to his original texts; they read about Ibn Taymiyya rather than reading Ibn Taymiyya himself. I view this as a major obstacle to understanding what he truly represented.

I opened that article with a brief introduction before cataloguing the fifty fatwās under distinct thematic headings. Thus, the author may have misunderstood the intentionally limited scope of the piece, which was designed primarily as a primary-source compilation. Furthermore, in the accompanying podcast, I provided commentary on several of these fatwās—a context the author appears to have missed. I omitted that commentary from the Facebook article for two reasons: first, the primary objective was simply to illustrate the sheer variety of Ibn Taymiyya’s extremism; second, the text was already pushing Facebook’s character limit, forcing me to trim it down.

Does this excuse the numerous and serious flaws in his critique? Perhaps a few—but certainly not all.

4. Unscholarly Practice

Even though the author cited my article at length and discussed it in considerable detail, he failed to provide a link, state its title or author, or give his readers any means to locate it. Without access to my original piece, readers cannot evaluate the merit of his criticism—which, unfortunately, is riddled with misrepresentations and distortions of my work. It is fundamentally unscholarly to write a detailed critique of a specific piece without enabling readers to read the source material for themselves.

If the premise was that my work was not worth addressing, the author should not have bothered responding to it at all, or he could have addressed its arguments indirectly. After all, he claims that the article does not “warrant such an extensive response.” Later, regarding the fifty rulings, he writes: “these passages have no special weight arising from the importance of the article that collected them, which is the article I mentioned in the introduction. Indeed, most readers of this study may never have seen it and need not do so.” Yet, for the author to quote and criticise the article repeatedly throughout his piece while denying readers the opportunity to verify his claims is bad practice.

I consistently make every effort to provide comprehensive source references so that readers can verify them independently. This is standard academic practice, not my own invention.

What makes the author’s decision to keep my article inaccessible particularly egregious is that I wrote it specifically to give English speakers direct access to Ibn Taymiyya’s own words. As I have repeatedly maintained, I want Ibn Taymiyya’s complete works translated into English. Those who admire Ibn Taymiyya and believe he is unfairly criticised—let alone those who think his thought is relevant and necessary today—should do everything in their power to see his corpus fully translated.

More broadly, I am entirely opposed to scholars, whether Muslim or non-Muslim and regardless of discipline, acting as mind guards and gatekeepers of knowledge. I reject the idea that scholars should position themselves as intermediaries between primary sources and the learning public. There has been far too much paternalism in Islamic scholarship, and I view it as a major source of the ills in the umma. Selective education has ensured that most Muslims remain unfamiliar with the historical development of many of their doctrines, leaving them unable to distinguish core Islamic teachings from human ijtihād. Historically, there has been widespread ignorance of Islamic traditions among Muslims, and scholars must take responsibility for that reality.

To guard against bad-faith readings, I not only provided English translations of Ibn Taymiyya’s statements alongside complete bibliographical citations, but I also included the original Arabic texts. Knowing the sensitivities surrounding critiquing Ibn Taymiyya, I wanted to preempt any accusation of mistranslation. I did not foresee, however, that my article would be critiqued while being hidden from the reader. Ironically, the author adopted my approach by providing both the English and Arabic texts of his own article in the same document. Yet, while I applied this standard of transparency to the primary text I analysed, he applied it only to his own words, leaving my article without even a hyperlink for interested readers.

In recognition of my readers’ right to verify sources—a right the author denied his own audience—I am providing a direct link to his critique below. It is the same document I was tagged in on Facebook and the exact version to which I am responding here. This exchange should serve as a clear illustration of why transparency is paramount in scholarship.

The critique can be downloaded here: https://shorturl.at/4Qh4S.

For those who would like to consult my other publications on Ibn Taymiyya, please see the listing at the end of this article.

5. Conflating Takfīr With Killing

If someone unfamiliar with my original article were to read his critique, they would assume my piece was about Ibn Taymiyya’s takfīr fatwās. For instance, he accuses my article of blurring “the distinction between categorical takfīr and applying takfīr to a particular individual, between judging a statement and judging the person who uttered it, between unbelief and temporal punishment.” Yet my article was not about takfīr fatwās at all—a fact evident from the title alone. The common thread running through all fifty of the compiled fatwās is the death penalty, not takfīr—even if some of those rulings happen to classify their respective offences as kufr. To be clear, I do consider Ibn Taymiyya a grand shaikh of takfīr, but that was not the focus of my article.

As an expert, the author knows the distinction between rulings of takfīr and capital punishment rulings. Indeed, in his broader discussion of takfīr across the various legal schools, he concludes: “This alone disproves the equation of ‘he is asked to repent and otherwise executed’ with “he is an unbeliever.” But my article never asserted such an equation to begin with!

This misdirection may perhaps be explained by the author’s own admission that he had been compiling material in defence of Ibn Taymiyya for several years. Yet even if this background factor caused him unwittingly to misrepresent my work as though it were concerned with takfīr, he was still obligated to exercise far greater rigour in separating his critique of my specific article from the broader issues he wished to address. Had he provided a direct link to my article, perhaps a reader might have alerted him—and his audience—to this fundamental misrepresentation.

6. The Traditional Justification of Takfīr

Since I am discussing this misrepresentation of my work, let me comment on the broader and more critical issue. The author makes the following assertion:

As for one who acknowledges the obligation but abandons prayer out of negligence, the majority of Mālikīs, Shāfiʿīs, and Ḥanbalīs hold that he is executed if he persists after being asked to repent. They disagree, however, over how to classify that execution. The authoritative position of the Mālikīs and Shāfiʿīs is that he is executed as a prescribed punishment, not for unbelief; he is washed, prayed over, and buried with the Muslims. The Ḥanbalī school contains two reports, the more famous of which treats him as an unbeliever. Abū Hanifah held that he is not executed merely for negligent abandonment but is confined and disciplined until he prays. Abū Hanifah did not dispute the unbelief of one who knowingly denies the obligation. The disagreement concerns the neglectful person who acknowledges it, not the denier. This alone disproves the equation of ‘he is asked to repent and otherwise executed’ with ‘he is an unbeliever.’ The jurists expressly prescribed execution in some cases while still judging the executed person to be a Muslim.

I find the juristic ijtihād summarised in this statement wholly objectionable on the basis of the Qur’an, the Sunna, and human reason. We as Muslims rightly call Islam a religion of mercy and peace based on the Qur’an and the Sunna. Where is the mercy and peace in these murderous fatwās? Islam does not mandate the killing of non-Muslims, yet scholars proudly detail how traditional jurisprudence contains provisions for sentencing the vast majority of Muslims to death. Bizarrely, some of these victims continue to be classified as believers—as if the jurists are doing them a favour by not depriving them of their Muslim identity in the same manner they deprive them of their lives! Apparently, being washed, prayed over, and buried as a Muslim should serve as meaningful solace and relief to the victim of execution and their loved ones!

Muslims must learn to recognise such laws for what they are: un-Islamic, abhorrent and absurd. Tragically, over the centuries, Muslims have been conditioned to view these rulings as normative and logical. Nothing in the core teachings of Islam or in sound reason justifies such legislation. Ibn Taymiyya, who argued there is no conflict between revelation and reason, must presumably have believed that these horrific capital laws were fully aligned with both!

Another point that exposes the crisis of takfīr in Islamic law is the author’s reassuring remark that “takfīr in the language of the Sharīʿah is a judgment, not an insult.” A reader could be forgiven for inferring that, in traditional jurisprudence, an insult is treated as worse than takfīr! The real and urgent questions raised by such standard apologetics are these: How did Muslims arrive at this normalisation of takfīr? Who is responsible for it? And what must we do to dismantle it?

Muslims accept positions like those quoted above only because they buckle under the massive weight of historical authority. Centuries-old traditions developed and entrenched by generations of scholars feel almost impossible to reject—a dynamic I analyse regularly in my work. I have offered a way forward through a framework I call “Islamic Rethink.”

The author follows his summary with this qualification: “In any event, these were judicial rulings of the state, preceded by a claim, evidence, and an opportunity to repent. They were not permissions for private individuals.” These qualifiers are a red herring. The underlying problem is not the procedural mechanism for issuing or executing these fatwās; it is the very theology and legal philosophy that underpins them.

When the legitimacy of such outrageous rulings is challenged, defenders validate their “Islamic” character by appealing to tradition and majority consensus. Yet when the logical consequences and moral implications of these rulings are exposed, the defence shifts to marshalling procedural hurdles that make the penalties appear purely hypothetical, virtually impossible to execute, and devoid of practical impact. This cyclical and obfuscating reasoning reduces Islamic jurisprudence to an exercise in absurdity. It must be unreservedly rejected and condemned; Islamic law is not a game or an exercise in hair-splitting polemics.

When will we finally summon the moral courage to confront our self-defeating intellectual history?

I should mention that critiquing such perverse ijtihād remains an ongoing theme across my podcasts and writings.

7. Everyone is an Extremist and Takfīrī!

This is one of the most frequently deployed defences of Ibn Taymiyya—and one of the weakest and most dangerous.

After surveying the views of various scholars across multiple sources, the author draws the following conclusion, referencing my compilation of fifty fatwās:

What the survey does establish is that expressions of takfīr, demands for repentance, and execution appear throughout the works of jurists, theologians, and traditionists both before and after Ibn Taymiyyah, may Allah have mercy on him, and that a number of them concern the same questions counted against him in the assembled list.

It is profoundly misleading to use this observation to exonerate Ibn Taymiyya. The author repackages this defence in various guises throughout his critique, which I will unpack and address individually throughout my response. First, however, let me highlight the hidden cost of this common defence: by arguing that “everyone did it,” the author effectively turns Ibn Taymiyya’s extremism into the baseline standard for all of historical Islamic scholarship.

If the criticism were that Ibn Taymiyya single-handedly invented takfīr or capital punishment for minor offences, such a counterargument would be valid. But no one with even a basic understanding of Islamic law makes such an absurd claim. The problem with Ibn Taymiyya, as I have argued extensively, is that extremism saturates his entire body of work—permeating his theological, creedal, and legal thought. The volume of relentless, harsh condemnation aimed at various Muslim groups and scholars throughout his writings is staggering. The sword-like sharpness of his attacks against his adversaries is both alarming and repulsive.

Reading Ibn Taymiyya can be intellectually engaging because he frequently constructs sophisticated and formidable arguments. Yet, unless one remains acutely conscious of his aggressive polemical posture, reading him can gradually desensitise the mind and harden the heart. It certainly offers no spiritual benefit. Only a deep-seated inclination toward harshness could produce his fatwā declaring the death penalty for simply insisting that uttering the intention for prayer aloud is the authentic Islamic practice.

He even resorts to falsehoods to demonise rival Muslim groups—such as his infamous, caricatured comparison of Shia to Jews at the opening of his Minhāj al-Sunna al-nabawiyya.

Furthermore, my research indicates that it was Ibn Taymiyya who first coined the misleading takfīrī polemic ʿibādat al-qubūr (grave worship) by subtly altering the accurate traditional phrase al-ʿibādat ʿinda al-qubūr (worship at graves). I have addressed this fraudulent historical shift in detail in a dedicated podcast.

He did not even hesitate to employ vulgar language that responsible Muslim scholars would avoid even today. For example, using his favourite method of hiding behind quotations from earlier figures, he repeatedly cites descriptions of the Muʿtazilīs as the makhānīth (effeminates) of the Jahmīs and philosophers. He similarly sees no issue in quoting scholars who assert that “the Ashʿarīs—the females—are the effeminates of the Muʿtazilīs” (Majmūʿ al-fatāwā, vol. 8, 227). This gender-based derogation functions here as a metaphor for “half-baked” or “compromised.”

While there are other methodological flaws in Ibn Taymiyya’s work, they fall outside the immediate scope of this article. Suffice it to say: Ibn Taymiyya was by no means a standard, typical Muslim theologian or jurist.

8. Sacrificing All for Ibn Taymiyya

The author argues that my critical, “selective presentation” of Ibn Taymiyya “breeds suspicion toward the intellectual legacy of the Muslim community as a whole while disregarding the contexts of statements, the terminology of their authors, the disputes surrounding them, and the distinction between theoretical rulings and their application to particular individuals.” Yet his defence of this single scholar rests on the claim that his extremism was simply the norm across all of Islamic scholarship!

While I do critique specific aspects of the ijtihād tradition, I do not make sweeping, blanket generalisations about all scholars or scholarship—whether positive or negative. The irony here is palpable: in his zeal to shield Ibn Taymiyya from scrutiny, it is the author who ultimately tarnishes the broader tradition by asserting that such intolerance and harshness were ubiquitous.

9. Mujtahid or Non-Mujtahid?

When I published the initial article and podcast on the twelve fatwās, some rushed to critically point out that most of those rulings were not original to Ibn Taymiyya; he was merely quoting established positions. This fact was already obvious from the quoted texts, yet that did not stop those defenders from using it as a counterargument. The author of the critique follows suit, emphasising that Ibn Taymiyya was not the original architect of these rulings.

This basic observation is routinely deployed as another variation of the argument: “Everyone engaged in the fiqh of takfīr and taqtīl (killing); why single out Ibn Taymiyya?” I have already addressed other manifestations of this line of defence, so let me focus on this specific angle.

Ibn Taymiyya was not a muqallid (unquestioning follower) bound by precedent; he was a mujtahid (an independent authority). Whether one classifies him as a mujtahid muntasib (an affiliated mujtahid who exercised ijtihād within the framework of his school) or a mujtahid muṭlaq (an absolute, fully independent mujtahid), he was demonstrably prepared to issue fatwās that broke with all four Sunni legal schools—including his own Ḥanbalī school—as evidenced by his famous rulings on divorce. When Ibn Taymiyya quotes and adopts an established ruling or creedal position, it does not mean he accepts it merely out of school loyalty. Rather, it signifies that the position aligns directly with his own theological and legal convictions.

It is sheer double-speak to elevate Ibn Taymiyya as a unique, towering polymath when extolling his achievements, only to demote him to a passive, routine Ḥanbalī jurist when he is called to account for endorsing horrific fatwās.

10. Emptying Quotations of their Meanings

One strategy the author uses to exonerate Ibn Taymiyya is illustrated in the following excerpt:

Merely citing a statement as evidence does not prove that he adopts every element of its takfīr or punishment. A scholar may cite a position to establish a principle he shares while differing over some implications or over applying it to particular individuals. These reports must be read through Ibn Taymiyyah’s controlling statements on takfīr of particular persons and excuse through ignorance and interpretation, including the preceding statement that all who dispute over the divine attributes and predestination retain the foundation of faith so long as they outwardly manifest Islam and are not hypocrites. What these passages establish is that such formulas preceded Ibn Taymiyyah by centuries, not that he originated them or declared every individual falling within their wording an unbeliever.

He applies this reasoning specifically to Ibn Taymiyya’s citation of Ibn Khuzayma’s extreme declaration regarding the execution of those who deny Allah’s spatial elevation (ʿuluww) and separation (mubāyana), as well as Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal’s fatwā on executing those who deny the beatific vision of Allah in the Hereafter.

This abstract defensive argument fails to address the central question: What exactly was Ibn Taymiyya attempting to accomplish by repeatedly citing Ibn Khuzayma’s abhorrent statement advocating the execution of vast numbers of Muslims over one theological issue of ijtihad? Ibn Taymiyya took great care to reproduce it word-for-word across his writings. He consistently refers to Ibn Khuzayma as “Imam” and “Imām al-Aʾimma” (Imam of Imams) to bestow maximum scholarly authority on the quotation.

If he disagreed with any element of this horrific verdict, why did he never say so? He was fiercely outspoken when attacking his theological opponents, yet entirely silent when it comes to qualifying a brutal text he chooses to quote verbatim time and again. Even if one were to argue that Ibn Taymiyya is being misunderstood here—a claim that has no foundation—who bears responsibility for creating such ambiguity in the first place?

Implying that the outspoken Ibn Taymiyya silently disagreed with statements he repeatedly cited is an illogical proposition.

11. Bridging Historical Extremism

Egregious as Ibn Khuzayma’s statement was, Ibn Taymiyya’s deployment of it carries far broader implications. Writing in the early 4^th century, Ibn Khuzayma targeted the Jahmīs, who were seen as a fringe, misguided group. By repeatedly quoting this fatwā in the 8^th century, however, Ibn Taymiyya effectively applied its extremist logic to the Ashʿarīs, who by then constituted the dominant theological establishment of Sunni Islam.

This single instance exposes the broader, highly damaging contribution of Ibn Taymiyya: he acted as a bridge, carrying early historical extremism into his own era and beyond.

12. Al-Ghazhālī’s Call for Tolerance

To prove that takfīrī discourse was widespread, the author cites a passage from al-Ghazālī in which he criticises sectarian intolerance among competing Muslim factions. Deploying this particular citation to exonerate Ibn Taymiyya is profoundly ironic.

The quote is drawn from Faisāl al-tafriqa bayn al-Islam wal-zandaqa (The decisive criterion for distinguishing between Islam and unbelief). Despite its modest length and limited scope, this book stands as one of al-Ghazālī’s finest works, authored during his final years around 500 AH. Tragically, this insightful treatise on theological restraint and pluralism never received the attention it deserved within Islamic scholarship.

Indeed, less than two centuries after al-Ghazālī composed this call for restraint, Ibn Taymiyya would go on to write tens of thousands of pages relentlessly attacking Muslim groups and scholars—thereby laying the firmest foundations for institutionalised intolerance in Islamic scholarship. The author appears to have missed the deep irony of quoting al-Ghazālī’s treatise on tolerance to defend a thinker whose life work was defined by its antithesis.

13. Using Al-Rāzī Too!

Ibn Taymiyya harboured a deep, special resentment toward Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī—a fact the author acknowledges before attempting to rationalise it. While I am not an Ashʿarī, nor do I endorse everything al-Rāzī wrote, I consider him, as many do, one of the intellectual giants of Islamic history. In particular, I greatly admire his exhaustive scope in surveying competing views, analytical rigour, formidable rational argumentation, and balanced temperament. It is a common tactic among defenders of Ibn Taymiyya to attempt to drag al-Rāzī down to his level. What a travesty!

The author notes that al-Rāzī scathingly referred to Ibn Khuzayma’s Kitāb al-tawḥīd as Kitāb al-shirk (The Book of Polytheism) and described its author as “confused in speech, deficient in understanding, and lacking in reason,” ultimately calling him “this poor ignorant man.”

This comparison falls apart under scrutiny for two key reasons.

First, how can a scholar’s harsh critique of a theological text and its author be equated with Ibn Taymiyya’s systemic, lifelong crusade to demonise entire sects and groups of Muslims across thousands of pages? Equating sharp academic polemics with fatwās for mass capital punishment is a false equivalence.

Second, Ibn Khuzayma is the author of the following horrific declaration, which Ibn Taymiyya was so fond of that he cited it repeatedly across his works:

Whoever does not say that Allah is above His heavens, upon His Throne, distinct from His creation, it is obligatory that he be called to repent; if he repents, it is accepted; otherwise, he is executed, then thrown onto a rubbish heap, so that neither the people of the Faith (Ahl al-Milla) nor the people of the protected non-Muslims (Ahl al-Dhimma) are harmed by the stench of his smell (Majmūʿ al-fatāwā, vol. 5, 138).

Isn’t it only fair and accurate to describe the author of these outrageous words as “confused in speech, deficient in understanding, and lacking in reason”? Al-Rāzī used those descriptions in a related context.

Again, in keeping with my commitment to promoting direct engagement with primary sources rather than paternalistic gatekeeping, I offer this proposal to anyone able to do so: read al-Rāzī’s Asās al-taqdīs, and then read an equivalent portion of Ibn Taymiyya’s voluminous Darʿ taʿāruḍ al-ʿaql wal-naql, which was written in large part to refute al-Rāzī. Readers can compare the tone, methodology, and underlying spirit of both works to draw their own conclusions regarding the author’s use of al-Rāzī to defend Ibn Taymiyya.

Attempting to weaponise al-Rāzī to normalise Ibn Taymiyya’s violent rhetoric, posture, and capital fatwās is enough to invalidate this entire line of defence. One must consider: How many violent extremist or militant groups throughout Islamic history have cited al-Rāzī or al-Ghazālī as their spiritual inspiration? Is it merely a coincidence that Ibn Taymiyya remains the preeminent authority invoked by contemporary religious extremism?

14. Obsession With Condemning Muslims

Al-Rāzī, al-Ghazālī, and the overwhelming majority of classical scholars focused their scholarship primarily on constructive ideas, systemic theology, and legal theory—not on hunting down and condemning fellow Muslims. While they certainly critiqued other scholars and schools, relentless targeted criticism was never the central theme or driver of their work. This is a major reason why their writings are free from the hostility and aggression characteristic of Ibn Taymiyya’s output.

Ibn Taymiyya was the exact opposite. His intellectual career was driven by polemics and attacks on rival groups and individuals, often deploying deeply personal language. Terms like “Jahmīs” and “Muʿtazilīs” appear thousands of times across his works as derogatory labels, and he dedicated entire multi-volume books specifically to tearing down individual scholars or refuting single texts.

15. Over-Aware of Others, Self-Unaware

Ibn Taymiyya’s writings are dominated by a culture of verbal violence and intellectual intimidation against fellow Muslims. This ethos is built on an unyielding foundation of self-righteousness. Consumed by the impulse to fault and oppose the “other,” he exhibits a profound lack of self-awareness. While there is nothing inherently wrong with viewing oneself as a social or religious reformer, those who undertake that role require far greater self-awareness than most. Ibn Taymiyya demonstrated no recognition of this responsibility.

16. The Sunna is Substance and Style

When reading al-Rāzī, al-Ghazālī, or other classical authorities, one rarely, if at all, encounters the simmering anger, agitation, and volatile emotion that almost jump off the page when reading Ibn Taymiyya’s highly charged and inflammatory prose.

Because Ibn Taymiyya’s defenders cannot deny the harshness and sharpness of his language, it is common for them to rationalise it. They invoke his zeal for the truth and defence of religious purity, as well as the formidable challenges confronting Muslims at the time. He positioned himself as a staunch defender of the Sunna. So let’s have a couple of examples from the Qur’an about the Sunna, including this direct command from Allah to the Prophet (PBUH):

Invite to the way of your Lord with wisdom and good instruction, and argue with them in the best way. Indeed, your Lord is most knowing of who has strayed from His way, and He is most knowing of who is guided (16:125).

Ibn Taymiyya’s language does not show awareness that these instructions cover not only the substance of any message, but also the way it is communicated.

Let’s also consider this divine description of the Prophet’s (PBUH) character:

It is by mercy from Allah that you have been gentle with them. Had you been rude and hard-hearted, they would have dispersed from around you. So pardon them, ask for forgiveness for them, and consult them about matters. Then when you make a firm decision, put your trust in Allah. Allah loves those who trust Him (Āl ʾImrān 3:159).

What did Ibn Taymiyya make of these defining prophetic qualities when “defending the Sunna” in the way he did in his books?

There is much that could be cited, but these foundational principles are more than sufficient to expose the flaw in justifying Ibn Taymiyya’s combative and aggressive language or equating harshness with pious zeal.

17. Misusing the “Verse of the Sword”

The author notes that “Ibn Taymiyyah refuted the claim that verses commanding debate with the People of the Book had been abrogated by the Verse of the Sword, calling the claim ‘an error.’” I completely agree with Ibn Taymiyya on this specific point. More broadly, I reject the convoluted, unhistorical doctrine of abrogation altogether, as I elaborated in my book Abrogation in the Qur’an and Islamic Law.

However, let us examine another instance where Ibn Taymiyya misuses and distorts this very verse—representing one of the most egregious cases of hermeneutical manipulation of a Qur’anic passage I have encountered. Verse 9:5 was revealed concerning a specific group of belligerent polytheists in a distinct historical context. This verse, which later jurists misnamed the “Verse of the Sword” (Āyat al-Sayf), has no conceptual connection to Muslims who neglect ritual prayer. Yet Ibn Taymiyya asserts: “As for abandoning prayer altogether, it necessitates execution without any disagreement,” before proceeding to cite the verse:

When the sacred months have passed, then kill the polytheists wherever you find them, capture them, besiege them, and sit in wait for them at every place of ambush. If they should repent, establish prayer, and give zakāt, then leave their way free. Indeed, Allah is Forgiving and Merciful (al-Tawba 9:5).

After linking this verse to the execution of Muslims who abandon prayer, he offers this extraordinary and painstaking justification:

Thus, He commanded execution unconditionally, excepting only those who repent, establish prayer, and give zakāt. Whoever fails to fulfil these conditions remains subject to the general rule. Furthermore, because letting them go is contingent upon three explicit conditions, a ruling suspended on conditions is negated in their absence. Also, a ruling tied to a specific cause indicates that the cause is its legal rationale; if the cause for granting freedom comprises these three elements, it is impermissible to release them without all three.

It cannot be argued that ‘establishing prayer’ here merely signifies a verbal commitment, such that granting release upon commitment prior to performance is obligatory. We maintain that what is intended is both commitment and physical execution, for establishing prayer and paying zakāt consist of the physical actions themselves, to which commitment is merely a prerequisite. If they verbally commit, we grant conditional release; if they fulfil their commitment, well and good; otherwise, they are apprehended and executed. We only release them initially upon verbal commitment because it is the first step toward action—much like someone who expresses an intention for ablution is permitted to proceed; if he completes the action, well and good; otherwise, he is seized.

Even if it were posited, ‘If they perform prayer, set them free, and if they do not, execute them,’ and the individual merely states, ‘I commit,’ releasing them would still not be obligatory. This is directly analogous to the verse on jizya, where fighting is extended until actual payment is rendered. When they commit to payment, that is merely the initial step; if they fulfil it, well and good; otherwise, they are killed.

Furthermore, if mere verbal commitment devoid of action were intended, there would be no distinction between prayer, zakāt, and other duties, since anyone who refuses to commit to Islam in its entirety is fought. Furthermore, commitment itself is not established by His words, ‘If they should repent,’ for one who repents from disbelief is not deemed penitent until he affirms everything brought by the Messenger and submits to it. If commitment means believing in the obligation and affirming it, nothing in the phrasing restricts the meaning to belief alone. If performance and the promise of performance are meant, this logic holds only if executing them for abandonment is obligatory. Otherwise, if executing them for abandonment were forbidden and they said, ‘We believe in the obligation but will not perform it,’ executing them would be unlawful—which directly contradicts the verse (Sharḥ ʿUmdat al-Fiqh, 60-61).

Ibn Taymiyya has elaborately twisted this verse to justify executing neglectful Muslims. Of course, nothing wrong with drawing general conclusions and lessons from verses that deal with specific subjects; this is standard practice. But this is a case of gross misuse and misinterpretation. Ibn Taymiyya’s obsession with proving that he is right and his adversaries wrong made him at times resort to highly questionable methods.

18. Which Ibn Taymiyya or Which Legacy?

Ibn Taymiyya’s use—and abuse—of verse 9:5 offers an ideal lens through which to examine his deeply conflicted intellectual persona. His defenders, including the author of the critique under discussion, routinely highlight and emphasise his moderate positions and reconciliatory statements. Those who critique him, such as myself, focus instead on his violent rulings and aggressive rhetoric. This naturally invites the question: Which is the true Ibn Taymiyya?

While this valid inquiry currently forms the central point of contention surrounding Ibn Taymiyya, it ought not to be the decisive one. The question that truly matters is this: what is his actual legacy? Put differently, irrespective of his original intent or self-understanding, what has been his tangible impact on the Muslim umma?

His admirers answer this question by framing him as a messianic figure who played a pivotal role in rescuing the Muslim umma from ideological, theological, and spiritual decay. Had it not been for his intervention, they contend, Muslims would have succumbed to innovations, corrupted creedal concepts, and deviant practices. His ultimate legacy, they insist, was eradicating shirk and championing tawḥīd. Yet this line of argument relies on circular reasoning, as it validates Ibn Taymiyya’s contributions using criteria derived entirely from his own theology.

Conversely, those on the other side of the debate answer that his primary legacy has been serving as a major engine of takfīrī violence, sectarian division, and intellectual intolerance. They argue that the hostility and divisiveness permeating his corpus far outweigh any sporadic calls for reconciliation or restraint.

Having presented the textual evidence and context here—and expanded upon it elsewhere—I leave it to the reader to weigh these competing legacies and draw their own conclusion.

19. Shooting the Messenger

The most egregious distortions of my work were reserved for the final portion of the critique, where the author set out to attack my compilation of the fifty fatwās. It is here that the strategy of “shooting the messenger” rather than addressing the message appears in its most blatant form. Rather than wading through every frivolous argument in that section, I will highlight in the next few sections representative examples that demonstrate the recurring polemical patterns employed throughout his critique. Readers have full access to my original article on the fifty fatwās, the author’s response, and this refutation, allowing them to verify each point independently.

20. Attacking the Headings

Anyone who has read or written an article or chapter understands that a heading is not a complete, nuanced proposition. A heading serves merely as a concise signpost indicating the subject matter covered in a given section or chapter. In my compilation, I used each heading simply to identify the specific offence addressed by the fatwā in that section. For instance, one heading reads “saying that the Qur’an is created,” another “delaying prayer beyond its prescribed time,” a third “marrying a milk-sibling,” and so on across all fifty fatwās.

The author, inexplicably, took issue with these headings, critiquing them as though they were intended to represent the complete analytical text of their respective entries.

The contrived nature of this objection becomes obvious when the author routinely turns around and deploys his overused defence: asserting that Ibn Taymiyya was neither the first nor the only scholar to hold that such offences warrant capital punishment. This contradiction exposes the flaw in his argument: Is the problem truly with my choice of headings, or is it his discomfort with attributing these fatwās to Ibn Taymiyya?

The author’s keenness to discredit my article meant that he felt it necessary even to identify a typographical error in the heading of Fatwā 21. The word “able” in “Denying fast-breaking for those able to fast” was inadvertently rendered as “unable.” The quoted text of Ibn Taymiyya was entirely accurate and its meaning unambiguous, so any attentive reader would have easily recognised it as a minor clerical error.

21. Does Three Equal One?

In one of those “he is called to repent; if he repents, it is accepted; otherwise, he is executed” declarations that Ibn Taymiyya issued so generously, he lumped together three distinct categories of offences. Below is the full passage, with bracketed numbers added to highlight these three categories:

Whoever (1) denies the obligation of some clear, widely known duties—such as the five prayers, fasting the month of Ramadan, and pilgrimage to the Ancient House; (2) OR denies the prohibition of some clear, widely known forbidden things—such as indecencies, injustice, alcohol, gambling, adultery, and the like; 3) OR denies the permissibility of some clear, widely known permissible things—such as bread, meat, and marriage—is a disbelieving apostate who is called to repent; if he repents, it is accepted; otherwise, he is executed. If he conceals that internally, he is a zindīq (hypocrite) who is not asked to repent, according to most scholars. Rather, he is executed without being called to repent if that becomes apparent from him (Majmūʿ al-fatāwā, vol. 11, 405).

It is clear as day that this statement identifies three distinct categories of legal offences, providing explicit examples for each, and applying the penalty of execution to every single one. Ibn Taymiyya is not stating that a Muslim must commit all three offences to face capital punishment; he is asserting that committing any single one of them constitutes a capital crime.

Accordingly, in my compilation, I catalogued this passage as three separate fatwās. The author objected to this division. Yet my objective was to demonstrate as transparently as possible the sheer scope of Ibn Taymiyya’s extremist jurisprudence. This outcome conflicts directly with the author’s defensive narrative.

Does Ibn Taymiyya’s passage outline one offence or three? I leave it to the reader to do the simple maths.

I have set aside the fourth capital offence mentioned at the end of the passage regarding the zindīq, as it contains its own distinct procedural ruling on execution without an opportunity for repentance.

22. Uttering the Intention of Prayer Aloud

Following his strategy of criticising even the headings of my article, the author declared that the entry “uttering the intention of prayer aloud” is “the most misleading heading in the list.”

I concede that this specific heading was incomplete, which rendered it imprecise. However, fixating on the heading serves merely as a distraction from the central issue. Let me explain.

Ibn Taymiyya addressed this subject on multiple occasions, sometimes at considerable length. He acknowledged that uttering the intention for prayer is considered recommended by some Ḥanafīs, Shāfiʿīs, and Ḥanbalīs, with certain later scholars even classifying it as “obligatory” (Majmūʿ al-fatāwā, vol. 22, 237). Yet he described the practice as “a deficiency in intellect and religion.” He explained that it constitutes a deficiency in religion because it is an “innovation,” while his rationale for calling it a deficiency in intellect serves as a prime example of his tendency to resort to absurdity to support his views (Majmūʿ al-fatāwā, vol. 22, 231-232).

As for uttering the intention aloud, he argues that “uttering the intention aloud and repeating it is not prescribed. Rather, whoever makes a habit of it should be disciplined with a punishment that deters him from practising acts of worship based on innovation, and from disturbing people by raising his voice” (Majmūʿ al-fatāwā, vol. 22, 232). He says it “is neither recommended nor a good innovation.” He confirms that anyone who claims otherwise “is called to repent; if he repents, it is accepted; otherwise, he is punished as he deserves” (Majmūʿ al-fatāwā, vol. 22, 233). He also states that

However, if someone insists that uttering the intention aloud is “the religion of Allah and that it is obligatory, it is mandatory to inform him of Sharīʿa and call him to repent from this view. If he persists in it, he is executed” (Majmūʿ al-fatāwā, vol. 22, 236).

The heading in my article omitted this specific qualifying condition for execution, and the author was correct to point out that omission. Yet he remained completely silent regarding the true travesty: the fatwā itself. Ibn Taymiyya’s justification for executing this individual is simply their insistence that vocalising the intention is the correct, obligatory practice.

Even assuming this person is mistaken in his conviction, there are the following serious questions:

1) Every Muslim acts according to what they sincerely believe to be correct Islamic practice. Differences among Muslims mean that what one Muslim thinks is the authentic Islamic practice, another Muslim thinks is inauthentic, and that their own practice is the correct one. Why and how does holding a particular view on vocalising intention differ from holding positions on numerous other secondary matters of worship?

2) What Qur’anic or Prophetic teaching prescribes the death penalty for such an error, assuming it is an error at all?

3) The condemned Muslim could be an observant believer who performs the daily prayers, fasts, pays zakāt, and conducts himself uprightly. What verses in the Qur’an or teachings in the Sunna grant anyone the authority to execute such a devout believer over a ritual dispute?

The brother dedicated an entire page to refuting my heading, yet he failed to devote a single line to address the moral and legal merits of the fatwā itself. He did not bother to tell his readers why Ibn Taymiyya thought Muslims needed yet another death penalty fatwā and how this innovation was going to help the Muslim umma. Issuing this fatwā alone is enough evidence of Ibn Taymiyya’s exceptional extremism.

This is another clear illustration of how uncritical devotion to Ibn Taymiyya compromises scholarly objectivity.

23. Other Objections

Another recurring objection raised by the author regarding several fatwās is that specific procedural conditions must be satisfied before the death penalty is applied. He deploys this argument, for instance, against the fatwā concerning a man who permits a thrice-divorced woman to remarry her former husband without her first marrying another man (taḥlīl).

This line of defence illustrates the profound difficulty traditional apologists face in recognising the inherent flaws in such rulings. The critical issue is not whether procedural conditions exist; the real issue is the invocation of capital punishment in the first place. A straightforward question that fails to register within this framework—because its adherents are conditioned by this medieval fiqh paradigm—is simply this: Why the death penalty at all? One may argue that bypassing the requirement for an intermediate marriage is incorrect or sinful, but where in the Qur’an or Sunna does capital punishment for such an act originate?

Similarly, regarding the fatwā on executing someone who claims that an oath of divorce can be annulled through expiation without counting as a divorce, the author asks incredulously: “Which Muslim scholar disputes this?” He remains trapped within a self-referential, scholar-constructed legal construct, unable to see that the true travesty is Ibn Taymiyya endorsing the execution of a fellow Muslim over a dispute in family law. To treat a juristic majority—or even a supposed consensus—as equivalent to the Qur’an or the Sunna to justify taking a human life is fundamentally flawed Islamically.

There are several other frivolous objections that do not warrant detailed refutation here. Readers can compare both texts to see which of the defensive patterns dissected throughout this article applies to each case.

24. Concluding Remarks

I have written this response to help readers gain a clearer, more grounded understanding of the serious and far-reaching issues surrounding the ongoing controversy over Ibn Taymiyya. If someone brings this refutation to the author’s attention and he decides to respond, my only hope is that this time he will have the transparency to provide a direct link to my text. For my part, I do not intend to engage any further in this specific exchange; there is more than enough material here and in my previous publications for any objective reader to make an informed judgment.

I may still publish additional material analysing Ibn Taymiyya in the future, but I will do so only when strictly necessary. I find reading his works to be a deeply unpleasant and spiritually draining experience. Similarly, I took no pleasure in drafting this response, but it was an obligation I felt compelled to fulfil.

Finally, I must emphasise that the “Ibn Taymiyya phenomenon” is merely a small footnote within my broader research agenda: examining the history of Islamic thought, distinguishing the human (ijtihād) from the sacred, and understanding the root causes of the historical fragmentation of the Muslim umma. As influential as he has been, Ibn Taymiyya is not the cause of our predicament—he is merely a symptom.

25. References

Author. “Was Ibn Taymiyyah Excessive in Takfīr and Tabdīʿ? A Comparative Study of the Texts, Contexts, and the Tradition,” https://shorturl.at/4Qh4S. This is the critique that is the subject of the present refutation.

Fatoohi, Louay. Abrogation in the Qur’an and Islamic law: a critical study of the concept of “Naskh” and its impact (New York: Routledge, 2013).

Ibn Taymiyya, Aḥmad bin ʿAbd al-Ḥalīm. Majmūʿ al-fatāwā, compiled and organised by ʿAbd al-Raḥmān bin Muḥammad and Muḥammad bin ʿAbd al-Raḥmān (Medina: Majmaʿ al-Malik Fahd li-Ṭibāʿat al-Muṣḥaf al-Sharīf, 2004).

Ibn Taymiyya, Aḥmad bin ʿAbd al-Ḥalīm. Sharḥ ʿumdat al-fiqh (Riyadh: Dār ʿAṭāʾāt al-ʿIlm, 2019).

26. My Publications on Ibn Taymiyya

Playlist of YouTube podcasts (https://shorturl.at/4wwsK).

Facebook listing of the fifty fatwās, “50 Fatwās on Killing Muslims by Ibn Taymiyya” (https://shorturl.at/XMDDQ).

Facebook transcript of the podcast “Sacrificing Islam for Scholars and Tradition”: (https://shorturl.at/50Lag).

Facebook listing of the twelve fatwās I discussed in my podcast “The Ibn Taymiyya Phenomenon: Islamic Scholarship at Its Worst” (https://shorturl.at/0502s).