394 Jon Hoover
He – said, “That God may distinguish the foul (khabīth) from the fair
(ṭayyib) and stack the foul one upon another, pile them up all together
and put them in Hell. Those are the losers” (Koran 8:37).] God – Most
High is He – gathers the foul one to another and piles them up as some-
thing composed is piled one part upon another. Then, He puts them in
Hell with their people. There is no one in it but the foul. As people are
of three levels – [1] fair, unmarred by something foul, [2] foul, in whom
there is nothing fair, and [3] others in whom is both something foul and
something fair – their abodes are three: [1] the abode of pure fairness, [2]
the abode of pure foulness – these two abodes will not pass away (hātān
al-dārān lā tafnayān) – and [3] an abode for those accompanied by some-
thing foul and something fair, which is the abode that passes away. This is
the abode of the disobedient. None of the disobedient among those who
confess [God’s] unity will remain in Hell. When they have been chastised
according to the measure of their recompense, they will be brought out
of the Fire and brought into the Garden. Only the abode of pure fairness
and the abode of pure foulness will remain.^61In this text, Ibn al-Qayyim sets out classical Sunni eschatology in
terms of the fair and the foul, and he asserts plainly in his own voice
that the Fire, “the abode of pure foulness”, will not pass away. This is
exactly what al-Ḥarbī is looking for, and he writes triumphantly: “This
is what befits imām Ibn al-Qayyim and his like because it agrees with
the two revelations [of the Koran and the Sunna], the doctrine of the
salaf and their followers.”^62
Al-Ḥarbī then raises the obvious question. Does Ibn al-Qayyim first
trot out arguments for limited duration of the Fire in Ḥādī al-arwāḥ,
Shifāʾ al-ʿalīl and Mukhtaṣar al-Ṣawāʿiq al-mursala and then later
affirm the Fire’s eternity in al-Wābil al-ṣayyib and Ṭarīq al-hijratayn?
Or is it the other way around with Ibn al-Qayyim first affirming the
Fire’s eternity and then producing arguments to the contrary later on?
Al-Ḥarbī first observes that Ibn al-Qayyim’s books contain no dates.
The only thing scholars have been able to determine about the order
of these texts is that Ḥādī al-arwāḥ precedes al-Ṣawāʿiq al-mursala.
Al-Ḥarbī adds that Shifāʾ al-ʿalīl is probably later than these two texts
because it enumerates fewer arguments for the passing away of the Fire
and thus reveals Ibn al-Qayyim’s weakening inclination toward this
61 Al-Ḥarbī, Kashf al-astār, pp. 51–52 (al-Ḥarbī’s quotation of this text includes
the Koranic verse given here in brackets); Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, al-Wābil
al-ṣayyib, p. 20.
62 Al-Ḥarbī, Kashf al-astār, p. 53.
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