Against Islamic Universalism 385
view is that chastisement in the Fire will come to an end for everyone.
However, in the passage quoted above he allows those unable to see
this truth simply to leave the matter to God’s will. With this, it cannot
be said that Ibn al-Qayyim himself withholds judgment in Mukhtaṣar
al-Ṣawāʿiq. He only counsels that position for those who are unable to
grasp arguments for the passing away of the Fire.^31
After reviewing Ḥādī al-arwāḥ and Mukhtaṣar al-Ṣawāʿiq, al-Ḥarbī
examines the treatment of the Fire found in Ibn al-Qayyim’s Shifāʾ
al-ʿalīl. Only the end of this discussion concerns him. Here, Ibn al-
Qayyim relates how he twice asked Ibn Taymiyya about the duration
of the Fire. The first time, Ibn Taymiyya gave no answer except to say
that it was a big question. The second time, during his “last session” (fī
majlisihi al-akhīr), Ibn Taymiyya wrote a treatise on the subject that
Ibn al-Qayyim calls “famous” (mashhūr).^32 Al-Ḥarbī states that this
work has not been found, but he supposes that it probably supports
the eternity of the Fire and that it might be a work mentioned by Ibn
Taymiyya’s biographer Ibn ʿAbd al-Hādī called Qāʾida fī al-radd ʿalā
man qāla bi-fanāʾ al-janna wal-nār (A Rule in Refutation of Whoever
Says that the Garden and the Fire will Pass Away).^33 As I show in my
earlier study, we now know that Ibn Taymiyya’s “famous” work is in
fact Fanāʾ al-nār and that it does not affirm the eternity of the Fire.
In the Shifāʾ al-ʿalīl passage quoted by al-Ḥarbī, Ibn al-Qayyim goes
on to explain that he withholds judgment on the question of the Fire’s
duration, leaving the matter to God’s will. He also states that there is no
support for everlasting Fire in authoritative texts. Al-Ḥarbī observes
that Ibn al-Qayyim here again withholds judgment, even after confus-
ing his readers by arguing that the Fire will pass away and betraying a
preference for that view.^34
Having come to the conclusion that Ibn al-Qayyim withholds
judgment on the duration of the Fire in Ḥādī al-arwāḥ, Mukhtaṣar
al-Ṣawāʿiq and Shifāʾ al-ʿalīl, al-Ḥarbī sees in this a sign that Ibn al-
Qayyim, as well as Ibn Taymiyya, might ultimately uphold the eter-
31 For fuller discussion, see ibid., pp. 194–196.
32 Al-Ḥarbī, Kashf al-astār, pp. 42–43; Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Shifāʾ al-ʿalīl,
pp. 564–565.
33 Al-Ḥarbī, Kashf al-astār, pp. 43–44, 48, 83; Ibn ʿAbd al-Hādī, Muḥammad b.
Aḥmad: al-ʿUqad al-durriyya min manāqib shaykh al-islām Aḥmad b. Taymiy-
ya, Beirut n. d., p. 67.
34 Al-Ḥarbī, Kashf al-astār, pp. 42–43; Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Shifāʾ al-ʿalīl,
p. 565.
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