Epistle On Worship

About The Book

Ibn Taymiyya remains one of the most controversial Islamic thinkers today because of his supposed influence on many fundamentalist movements. The common understanding of his ideas have been filtered through the bits and pieces of his statements that have been misappropriated by alleged supporters and avowed critics alike.

However, most people still have limited access to his beliefs and opinions as expressed in his own writings. Epistle on Worship: Risalat al-‘Ubudiyya, aims to begin filling this gap by presenting an annotated translation of one of Ibn Taymiyya’s most important epistles on the theology behind the concept of worship. The introduction gives the reader an overview of his biography and situates Ibn Taymiyya in the broader world of Islamic intellectual history by explaining his methodological arguments and theological opinions.

The annotated translation captures the immediacy of his ideas as they impacted his world as well as the relevance they have for our times.

About The Author

Shaykh al-Islam Taqi ud-Din Abul-Abbas Ahmad Ibn al-Halim ibn Abd al-Salam Ibn Taymiyah al-Hanbali was born in , 661 AH (1263 AC) in Haran, which is now in Eastern Turkey, near the border of northern Iraq. His family had long been renowned for its learning , among his teachers, was Shams ud-Din Al-Maqdisi, first Hanbali Chief Justice of Syria following the reform of the judiciary by Baibars. The number of Ibn Taimiyah's teachers exceeds two hundred.

Ibn Taimiyah was barely seventeen, when Qadi Al-Maqdisi authorized him to issue Fatwa (legal verdict). Qadi remembered with pride that it was he who had first permitted an intelligent and learned man like Ibn Taimiyah to give Fatwa. At the same age, he started delivering lectures. When he was thirty, he was offered the office of Chief Justice, but refused, as he could not persuade himself to follow the limitations imposed by the authorities.

Imam Ibn Taimiyah's education was essentially that of a Hanbali theologian and jurisconsult. But to his knowledge of early and classical Hanbalism, he added not only that of the other schools of jurisprudence but also that of other literature.

He had an extensive knowledge of Quran, Sunnah, Greek philosophy, Islamic history, and religious books of others, as is evident from the variety of the books he wrote.