Ibn Taymiyya

Taqi al-Din Ahmad ibn 'Abd al-Halim, known as Ibn Taymiyya, was a Sunni scholar of the Hanbali school of law (one of the four classical Sunni madhhabs, or legal schools). He was born in 661 AH / 1263 CE in Harran, a town in the upper Mesopotamian borderland (now in southeastern Turkey). When he was about six, his family fled the advancing Mongols and settled in Damascus, where his father directed a teaching college (madrasa) and where Ibn Taymiyya trained in Qur'an, hadith (reports of the Prophet's words and deeds), and law. He took over his father's teaching post after his death in 1284 and became a prominent, often confrontational public scholar.

Ibn Taymiyya argued that Islam should be measured against the Qur'an, the Prophet's sunna, and the practice of the earliest Muslims (the salaf), and he attacked what he saw as later innovations. These positions, and his teaching on God's attributes, drew repeated accusations from other scholars; reports differ on whether he was an anthropomorphist, a charge he denied. He was tried and imprisoned several times in Cairo and Damascus and was held under house arrest in Alexandria. He also urged and joined the Mamluk defence of Syria against Mongol invasions.

He died in 1328 CE / 728 AH while imprisoned in the Damascus citadel. His legacy is fiercely disputed: later movements invoke him as an authority, while many Sunni, Sufi, and Shia scholars reject key views — a debate that belongs to those schools, not to a single settled verdict.