Ikhtiyarat Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiya li-Ibn Abd al-Hadi
- Author died
- 744 AH
- Editions
- Dār ʿAṭāʾāt al-ʿIlm
Ikhtiyarat Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiya (The Juristic and Scholarly Selections of Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyya) is a collection compiled by the Hanbali scholar Ibn Abd al-Hadi (d. 744 AH / 1343 CE), gathering the personal legal determinations, rulings, and preferences of his teacher Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728 AH / 1328 CE) .
Title and Attribution
The author did not assign a specific title to the treatise; the designations that appear in manuscript records and library catalogues were assigned by copyists and subsequent owners . In the catalogue of Imam Mohammad Ibn Saud Islamic University, it was entered under the erroneous title Furuʿ li-ʿAbd al-Hadi al-Maqdisi al-Hanbali, while the majamiʿ catalogue of the Zahiriyya Library recorded it as Fatawa Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Hadi al-Maqdisi . The title page of the primary manuscript designates it as a juzʾ (compendium) containing branches of law collected by Shams al-Din Muhammad ibn Abd al-Hadi representing the choices of Ibn Taymiyya . In modern critical editions, it was published under the title Ikhtiyarat Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiya upon the recommendation of Bakr Abu Zayd .
The attribution of the collection to Ibn Abd al-Hadi is confirmed by the title page inscription as well as internal citations within the manuscript, where a section opens with the phrasing of a student quoting him . Although early biographical entries do not single out this booklet by an independent title, classical biographers such as Ibn Rajab and Ibn Qadi Shuhba noted that Ibn Abd al-Hadi produced numerous summaries and selections (muntakhabat) across various Islamic disciplines .
Contents and Structure
The work brings together Ibn Taymiyya's positions and selected preferences drawn from various writings and scattered fatwas . Although legal issues form the overwhelming majority—encompassing 131 distinct rulings—the work also incorporates Ibn Taymiyya's views on Quranic exegesis (13 issues), Hadith (8 issues), and grammatical analysis embedded within the exegetical points .
Ibn Abd al-Hadi did not arrange the material according to the traditional thematic sequence of jurisprudence chapters . Modern editorial assessments suggest that the compilation represents either an unfinalized initial draft (musawwada) for an intended comprehensive thematic compendium or private study notes gathered for review and retention .
Manuscripts and Publication
The text survived in a unique manuscript preserved at the Zahiriyya Library in Damascus, consisting of 54 folios . The manuscript bears an endowment (waqf) note by the Najdi scholar Ahmad ibn Yahya ibn Atwah (d. 948 AH) dedicating it to the Abu Umar Madrasa in al-Salihiyya, indicating that it was copied before or during the early tenth century AH .
The treatise has been edited and published in modern times, notably:
- An edition edited by Sami ibn Muhammad ibn Jad Allah, under the supervision of Bakr Abu Zayd, published in 1424 AH within the project Athar Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyya wa-ma Lahiqaha min Aʿmal .
- An edition edited by Husayn ibn Ukkashah, published in Cairo (1424–1425 AH / 2004 CE) as part of a collective volume titled Min Turath Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiya .
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