Against Islamic Universalism
ʿAlī al-Ḥarbī’s 1990 Attempt to Prove
That Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya
Affirm the Eternity of Hell-Fire
Jon Hoover
Introduction
This is companion piece to my earlier study “Islamic Universalism. Ibn
Qayyim al-Jawziyya’s Salafī Deliberations on the Duration of Hell-
Fire.”^1 There, I analyze three major considerations of the duration of
the Fire in the works of Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya and examine their
debt to Ibn Taymiyya’s Fanāʾ al-nār (The Passing Away of the Fire).^2
Fanāʾ al-nār is the last treatise that Ibn Taymiyya wrote before his death
in 728/1328, and it makes a strong case for eventual salvation of even
unbelievers from the Fire in the hereafter. Ibn Taymiyya sets aside the
classical Sunni consensus that unbelievers and associators (mushrikūn)
will suffer eternal chastisement in the Fire by citing lack of agree-
ment on this matter among the early Muslims, the salaf. Moreover,
he argues, God will eventually bring chastisement and the Fire to an
end in accord with His mercy and wise purpose. Some years later, Ibn
al-Qayyim devoted a chapter to this question in Ḥādī al-arwāḥ (Spur-
ring the Souls), a major work on eschatology.^3 This discussion follows
the structure of Ibn Taymiyya’s Fanāʾ al-nār, quotes it extensively, and
greatly elaborates its arguments for the limited duration of Hell-Fire.
1 Hoover, Jon: Islamic Universalism. Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya’s Salafī Delibera-
tions on the Duration of Hell-Fire, in: The Muslim World 99 (2009), pp. 181–201.
2 Fanāʾ al-nār is short for Ibn Taymiyya: al-Radd ʿalā man qāla bi-fanāʾ al-janna
wal-nār (Refutation of Whoever Says that the Garden and the Fire Will Pass
Away), ed. by Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Samharī, Riyadh 1415/1995.
3 Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad: Ḥādī al-arwāḥ ilā bilād
al-afrāḥ, ed. by Ṭāhā ʿAbd al-Raʾūf Saʿd, Cairo n. d., pp. 307–341 (in chapter 67).
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