Al-Dhahabī's Counsel to Ibn Taymīyah

The Golden Counsel (al-Naṣīḥah al-Dhahabīyah) to Ibn Taymīyah

By al-Ḥāfiẓ al-Dhahabī

From an exemplar copied out of the manuscript of al-Burhān ibn Jamāʻah, which he wrote from the manuscript of al-Ḥāfiẓ al-Ṣalāḥ al-ʻAlāʼī, taken from al-Dhahabī's own hand

When Ibn Taymīyah set about pressing on in his singular deviations and the learned rose up against him, al-Dhahabī was among those who worked to quiet the two sides: at one time reproaching his opponents for their severity towards him, out of regard for the breadth of his learning; at another sending this letter to the man himself, to slacken his extravagance and to warn him of the consequences of the course he was upon — the assailing of the great men of learning and the breaking away from them.

And in the perusal of it there are benefits for those who examine and a reminder for those who remember

Al-Sakhāwī had this letter in mind where he said in al-Iʻlān bi-al-tawbīkh, in the course of his defence of al-Dhahabī in answer to those who charge him with excessive partisanship: “And I have seen a letter of his that he wrote to Ibn Taymīyah, which is of use in repelling the charge against him of extreme partisanship.”

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In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate

Praise belongs to God. For my abasement — O Lord, have mercy upon me and raise me from my stumbling, and keep my faith safe for me. O my grief at how little my grief is! O my sorrow for the Sunnah and the passing away of its people! O my longing for believing brothers who would help me to weep! O my grief at the loss of men who were the lamps of learning, the people of godfearing, the treasuries of good things! Ah, for the finding of one lawful dirham and one companionable brother.

Blessed is he whose own fault keeps him too busy for the faults of men, and damned is he whom the faults of men keep too busy for his own fault. How long will you see the speck in your brother's eye and forget the beam in your own! How long will you praise yourself and your own grandiloquence and your own formulations, and disparage the learned and hunt out people's shameful parts, knowing as you do the prohibition of the Messenger, God bless him and grant him peace: “Do not speak of your dead save in good, for they have passed on to what they sent ahead.” Yes, I know that you will say to me, to vindicate yourself: the attack falls only upon those men who never so much as smelled the scent of Islam and never knew what Muḥammad, God bless him and grant him peace, brought; and it is holy war. Yes, by God, they knew much good, of the sort that if a servant acts upon it he has won, and they were ignorant of a great deal that does not concern them — and part of the excellence of a man's Islam is his leaving alone what does not concern him. O man, for God's sake, leave off from us! For you are a wrangler with a learned tongue; you neither settle nor sleep. Beware, all of you, of the contrived posers in religion! Your Prophet, God bless him and grant him peace, disliked such questions and found fault with them, and forbade much asking, and said “The thing I most fear for my community is every hypocrite with a learned tongue.” And much talk without proof hardens the heart when it is about the lawful and the forbidden — so what when it is about the formulations of the Yūnusīyah and the philosophers, and those blasphemies that blind hearts! By God, we have become a laughing-stock in the world. So how long will you go on digging up the fine points of philosophical blasphemies for us to refute with our intellects? O man, you have swallowed the poisons of the philosophers and their writings time after time, and with much use of poisons the body grows habituated to them, and they lie hidden, by God, within the frame. O my longing for gatherings in which there is recitation with reflection, and awe with remembrance, and silence with thought! And ah, for a gathering in which the pious are remembered — for at the remembrance of the righteous mercy comes down, not where the righteous are remembered and they are mentioned with contempt and cursing. The sword of al-Ḥajjāj and the tongue of Ibn Ḥazm were two brothers, and you have made yourself brother to them both. For God's sake, spare us the talk of the innovation of Thursday and the eating of grains, and set to work in earnest on the mention of innovations we used to reckon a very head of error, which have now become the pure Sunnah itself and the foundation of the profession of God's oneness — and whoever does not know them is an unbeliever or an ass, and whoever does not anathematise is more of an unbeliever than Pharaoh, and the Christians are reckoned the like of us. By God, there are doubts in hearts. If your faith is kept safe for you by the two testimonies, then you are fortunate. O the frustration of whoever follows you! For he is laid open to heresy (zandaqah) and dissolution, especially if he is slight in learning and religion, a wastrel (bāṭūlī) given to appetite; yet he is useful to you and does battle for you with his hand and his tongue, while inwardly he is your enemy in his state and his heart. For is the bulk of your following anything but a tethered shut-in, feeble of mind; or a lying commoner, dull of wit; or a sullen stranger, strong in cunning; or a dry pious sort with no understanding? If you do not believe me, examine them and weigh them with justice. O Muslim, you push the donkey of your appetite forward to the praising of yourself! How long will you keep friends with it and treat the best of men as enemies! How long will you believe it and scorn the pious! How long will you magnify it and make little of the worshippers of God! How long will you keep it as your intimate and detest the ascetics! How long will you praise your own words in a manner in which, by God, you do not praise the traditions of the two Ṣaḥīḥs! Would that the traditions of the two Ṣaḥīḥs were safe from you — but at every turn you raid them, either by calling them weak and setting them aside or by interpreting them away and denying them. Is it not time for you to draw back! Is it not time for you to repent and turn back! Are you not in the decade of seventy, with the departure drawn near? Yes, by God, I do not recall that you ever mention death; rather you scorn whoever mentions death. So I do not think you will take to my words, nor lend an ear to my admonition; rather you have a great appetite for pulling down this one sheet of paper with volumes, and for cutting off the tails of talk at me, and you will go on winning until I say to you: absolutely — I am silent. And if this is your standing with me, and I am the tender one, the loving, the affectionate, then what will your standing be with your enemies? And your enemies, by God, have among them righteous men and men of sense and men of excellence, just as your friends have among them reprobates and liars and ignoramuses and idlers and blocks of wood and cattle. I am content that you should revile me openly and profit by my words in secret: “God have mercy upon a man who makes me a gift of my own faults” — for I am a man of many faults and abundant sins. Woe to me if I do not repent! And O my disgrace before the Knower of all hidden things! And my medicine is God's pardon and His indulgence and His enabling grace and His guidance. And praise belongs to God, Lord of the worlds, and God bless our master Muḥammad, the seal of the prophets, and all his family and Companions.