Nazm Ikhtiyarat Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyya
- Author died
- 1349 AH
- Editions
- Nazm Ikhtiyarat Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyya
Nazm Ikhtiyarat Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyya (نظم اختيارات شيخ الإسلام ابن تيمية) is a didactic poem by the Hanbali scholar Sulayman bin Sahman (c. 1266/1269–1349 AH / 1850–1930 CE) versifying selected legal preferences (ikhtiyarat) of Ibn Taymiyya (661–728 AH / 1263–1328 CE).
Scope and Structure
The versification organizes Ibn Taymiyya's distinctive legal rulings along the standard sequence of Islamic jurisprudence, extending from the opening chapter on ritual purity (Kitab al-Tahara) up to the section on marriage dower (Bab al-Sadaq). Across these sections, the poem addresses issues including:
- Purification and cleanliness: the etiquette of relieving oneself, nullifiers of ritual ablution (such as desiring contact), rulings on dry ablution (tayammum) and whether it acts as an absolute purifier, and the purification of impurities over time.
- Prayer and its regulations: recitation length in daily prayers, sounds and unintentional utterances that do not invalidate prayer, supplication in the Witr prayer (qunut), prostration of recitation during quiet prayers, praying during times of prohibition (such as performing the mosque-greeting prayer, tahiyyat al-masjid), and travel prayer rules.
- Mosque practices: ruling against innovating reservations of prayer spaces by laying prayer carpets or placing canes ahead of worshippers in rows.
- Fasting, inheritance, and marriage: the non-obligation of fasting on an overcast day when the moon is obscured, the inheritance status of the grandfather being akin to the father, the invalidity of forcing a virgin daughter into marriage without consent, and the permissibility of assigning Quranic instruction as a marriage dowry.
Method and Related Works
In each topic, Ibn Sahman frames Ibn Taymiyya's positions (often citing him under his honorific kunya Abu al-'Abbas) around evidence from Prophetic traditions and the practices of the early generations, cautioning against uncritical partisan following (taqlid) when authentic texts establish a differing ruling.
In addition to this sequential versification, Ibn Sahman composed a separate poem dedicated to nineteen specific legal issues in which Ibn Taymiyya departed from the consensus of the four Sunni schools of law (Nazm ma infarada bihi Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyya 'an al-A'imma al-Arba'a). Both poems were incorporated into Ibn Sahman's collected poetry collection (Diwan) and later anthologized in works examining Ibn Taymiyya's legal legacy.
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