Against Islamic Universalism 383
refute Ibn al-Qayyim point by point as to illustrate how his writing
can lead to confusion and to clarify his final position in this text. First,
as al-Ḥarbī observes, Ibn al-Qayyim in Ḥādī al-arwāḥ reports from
Ibn Taymiyya that two different views on the duration of Fire have
been known since the very early generations of Islam, that is, from
the time of the salaf. Ibn al-Qayyim himself identifies seven different
views in the wider tradition, the seventh being that the Fire will pass
away. Ibn al-Qayyim adds that, according to Ibn Taymiyya, this latter
view was transmitted from several early Muslims, including the Com-
panions of the Prophet ʿUmar, Ibn Masʿūd, Abū Hurayra and Abū
Saʿīd al-Khuḍrī.^22
Ibn al-Qayyim then cites texts supporting the passing of the Fire.
Al-Ḥarbī highlights two of these. The first is a tradition from ʿUmar
that reads, “Even if the People of the Fire stayed in the Fire like the
amount of sand of ʿĀlij,^23 they would have, despite that, a day in which
they would come out.” This tradition would seem to be saying that
every last person in the Fire will eventually come out of it, even if
after a very long time. However, al-Ḥarbī protests that this tradition
speaks of people coming out of the Fire, not of the Fire’s passing away,
and more to the point it applies only to disobedient monotheists who
deserve eventual reward for their belief. It certainly does not apply to
unbelievers. Moreover, he says, this tradition has a weak chain of trans-
mitters and is in fact forged.^24 The second text that Ibn al-Qayyim cites
in favor of the passing of the Fire is a Koranic verse that makes dura-
tion of punishment in the Fire contingent on God’s will: “As for those
who are wretched, they will be in the Fire, moaning and sighing, abid-
ing in it, as long as the Heavens and the Earth endure, except as your
Lord wills. Surely, your Lord does whatever He wills.”^25 Al-Ḥarbī
does not here counter Ibn al-Qayyim’s interpretation of this text, but
he later asserts that the texts of the Koran and the Sunna supporting the
opposite position of the eternity of the Fire are peremptory (qaṭʿī).^26
22 Ibid., pp. 35–36; Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Ḥādī al-arwāḥ, pp. 311–313.
23 ʿĀlij is the name of a large expanse of sand on the route to Mecca. See al-Ḥamawī,
Yāqūt b. ʿAbd Allāh: Kitāb Muʿjam al-buldān, Cairo 1324/1906, part 6, p. 99.
24 Al-Ḥarbī, Kashf al-astār, pp. 36, 53, see 84. Al-Ḥarbī earlier quotes and then
reinterprets or rejects other traditions supporting the passing away of the Fire;
ibid., pp. 20, 31–32.
25 Koran (11:106–107); al-Ḥarbī, Kashf al-astār, pp. 36–37; Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziy-
ya, Ḥādī al-arwāḥ, pp. 313–318.
26 Al-Ḥarbī, Kashf al-astār, p. 43.
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