Against Islamic Universalism 379
There is, however, a minority of specifically Muslim scholars who set
forth several brief passages of apparently contrary evidence in an effort
to align Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya with the classical
Sunni doctrine. The fullest attempt to make this case that I have found
is a short book by ʿAlī al-Ḥarbī called Kashf al-astār li-ibṭāl iddiʿāʾ fanāʾ
al-nār. Al-mansūb li-shaykh al-islām Ibn Taymiyya wa-tilmīdhihi Ibn
Qayyim al-Jawziyya (Lifting the Veils to Invalidate the Contention
that the Fire will Pass Away, which is Attributed to shaykh al-islām
Ibn Taymiyya and his Disciple Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya) published
in Saudi Arabia in 1990.^9 The present study examines al-Ḥarbī’s argu-
ments to see what we might learn from his efforts. It will become
clear that al-Ḥarbī’s account of Ibn Taymiyya is untenable. However,
al-Ḥarbī’s findings do prevent us from concluding that Ibn Qayyim
al-Jawziyya ultimately denies the eternity of the Fire, and they push us
to reconsider the trajectory of his later thought on this issue.
ogy, in: Der Islam 79 (2002), pp. 87–102. Muslim scholars often add a doctrinal
judgment to their reports. Relying on a wider range of evidence than the preced-
ing scholars, al-Ḥumayd, ʿAbd al-Karīm b. Ṣāliḥ: al-Inkār ʿalā man lam yaʿtaqid
khuld wa taʾbīd al-kuffār fī al-nār, Burayda 1422/2001, observes that both Ibn
Taymiyya and Ibn al-Qayyim say that the Fire will pass away, and he affirms
it as correct Islamic doctrine. The following denounce the passing of the Fire
as erroneous Islamic doctrine, and, in some cases, attribute it to Ibn Taymiyya
and/or Ibn al-Qayyim: al-Subkī, Abū Ḥasan ʿAlī Taqī al-Dīn (d. 756/1355):
al-Iʿtibār bi-baqāʾ al-janna wal-nār, ed. by Ṭāhā al-Dasūqī Ḥubayshī, Cairo
1987; al-Dimashqī al-Ḥiṣnī, Taqī al-Dīn Abū Bakr (d. 829/1425–6): Dafʿ shubah
man shabbaha wa-tamarrada wa-nasaba dhālik ilā al-Sayyid al-Jalīl al-Imām
Aḥmad, Cairo 1350/1931–32; al-Ṣanʿānī, Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl (d. 1182/1768):
Rafʿ al-astār li-ibṭāl adillat al-qāʾilīn bi-fanāʾ al-nār, ed. by Muḥammad Nāṣir
al-Dīn al-Albānī, Beirut 1405/1984; al-Ashqar, ʿUmar Sulaymān ʿAbd Allāh:
al-Janna wal-nār, Cairo 1426/2005 [date of al-Ashqar’s introduction and, pre-
sumably, the date of original publication: 1406/1986], pp. 39–46, in English as
al-Ashqar, ʿUmar S.: Paradise and Hell in the Light of the Qur’an and Sunnah,
transl. by Nasiruddin al-Khattab, Riyadh 2002, pp. 57–65; al-Hararī al-Ḥabashī,
ʿAbd Allāh: al-Maqālāt al-sunniyya fī kashf ḍalālāt Aḥmad b. Taymiyya, Beirut
1425/2004, pp. 170–73.
9 Al-Ḥarbī, ʿAlī b. ʿAlī Jābir: Kashf al-astār li-ibṭāl iddiʿāʾ fanāʾ al-nār. Al-mansūb
li-shaykh al-islām Ibn Taymiyya wa-tilmīdhihi Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Mecca
1410/1990. See also the internet fatwa arguing that Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn al-
Qayyim uphold the eternity of the Fire; Markaz al-fatwā: Fanāʾ al-nār ʿind Ibn
Taymiyya wa-Ibn al-Qayyim. Fatwa No. 64739, 16 July 2005, online: http://
http://www.islamweb.net/fatwa/index.php?page=showfatwa&lang=A&Id=64739&
Option=FatwaId, accessed December 18, 2012.
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