Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyyah (691-751 A.H.)

"Through patience and poverty one attains leadership in religion.The
seeker of Truth needs the will that will inspire him and push him
upward and (religious) knowledge that will lead him andguide him."
These words of our hero sum up the personality of this great
man,Muhammad bin Abi Bakr, who is better known as Ibn Qayyim
Al-Jawziyyah or Ibn Al-Qayyim . He was born in 691 AH.
He began his long journey onthe road of learning early in his life,
moving from one teacher to another to quench his thirst for knowledge.
At the age of 21 (in 712 AH), Ibn Al-Qayyim met his teacher Ibn
Taymiyyah another great hero of Islam and arevivalist of the faith.
Their companionship lasted to the end of the teacher's life. Ibn
Al-Qayyim kept close company to Ibn Taymiyyah with whom he suffered
the pains of imprisonment and flogging manytimes. Apparently, it was
from Ibn Taymiyyah that Ibn Al-Qayyim learnt many special qualities
such as frankness and courage in defiance of the falsehood of others,
including those in authority. For both, the truth hadto be said
regardless of the consequences. However, unlike his teacher, Ibn
Al-Qayyim was less fierce in his attacks -- in words or actions.
The 8th century AH witnessed a state of ignorance and feuds in the
Muslim community. Muslims were fighting each other, and each trying to
impose his authority in everything, including religious opinion and
scholarship,which suffered from stagnation. The majority of religious
scholars were acting more like 'recorders' of knowledge rather than
true scholars and teachers. To them, their teachers were the main, if
not the sole, source of knowledge, and the schools of thought they
blindly imitated were the only acceptable ways.
Like his teacher Ibn Taymiyyah, Ibn Al-Qayyim spent his life
attempting to correct the wrong course the community was following. He
fought the exaggerated reverence for the tombs of the pious despite
the strong resistance he met from the masses. He tried to show the
errors committed by the misled sects and their blind followers. He
considered that the disputes and fights among the Muslims of his time
were caused by their sectarian attitude and chauvinistic practices,
each one considering himself and his sect or school of thought the
only right one, and claiming that everyone else was on the wrong path.
Ibn Al-Qayyim spent most of his time and great efforts trying to unite
the people, pointing out to them the dangers of blind imitation of the
predecessors. He explained that a Muslim should be open-minded; that
is, he should accept what is right and good regardless of the teacher,
as long as what he or she acceptsis consistent with the Quran and the
Sunnah, the consensus of the scholars, and the general spirit ofthe
faith. To him imitation was wrong in the following cases:
If it entails violation of Divine teachings,
If it represents an act of blind following of people we are not sure
of their knowledge,
If it is in defiance of truth after finding it.
It was blind imitation that caused stagnation in scholarship and
differences among people. Some so-called scholars, he pointed out,
were not really scholars of Islam but rather simple propagators of
others' opinions. To those people the words and views of their
teachers or leaders were the onlycorrect way of understanding
thefaith, to the extent that they subjected even the interpretationof
the Quran and the prophetic teachings to the views of their teachers,
which they wrongly took for the ultimate criteria.
Ibn Al-Qayyim considered that the sources of religious knowledge were
to be taken in the following order:
1) ) The Quran, (2) The Sunnah (the teachings of Prophet Muhammad, )
and (3) The teachings of the companions of the Prophet . To these, one
could add the consensus of Muslim scholars and analogy. Bigotry and
prejudice were to him the enemies of learning. To propagate his views,
he wrote scores of books besides teaching directly to the people.
In his private life, Ibn Al-Qayyim was a very pious and devout
worshipper who spent most of his time in prayers and recitation of the
Quran. He was, in fact, an ascetic who rejected the unorthodox
practices of some Sufis (mystics) who claimed that religious teachings
had external and internal sides, implying that religious obligations
(such as prayers, fasting during Ramadhaan etc.) did not apply to
them.
As pointed out earlier, our hero was a man of courage and frankness to
whom truth was theultimate goal. His open-minded and flexible attitude
is reflected in his views on the correct understanding of religious
laws ( Sharee'ah ), and that these should be interpreted in the
lightof the circumstances of time and place, because Islam is intended
and practicable for mankind at alltimes. He wrote many books to
explain this invaluable principle. Many of his views find their
application in the legal system of modern nations, more than six
centuries after his death in 751 AH.