existence. Thus, it is imagined about him that he is alluding to union (ittiḥād), to the point that a group of the proponents of union claimed him and venerated him for that, while a group of the people of the Sunna disparaged him and criticized him for it. Yet, Allah has exonerated him from union, and our Sheikh Abū ʿAbd Allāh Ibn al-Qayyim defended him in his book in which he explained al-Manāzil [meaning: Madārij al-Sālikīn], and clarified that interpreting his words according to the principles of union is falsehood and invalid." End quote.

Al-Harawī was also criticized for his statements on compulsion (jabr), as in Majmūʿ al-Fatāwā (8/339) by Ibn Taymiyya, and Allah knows best.

• (1) He is ʿAbd al-Raḥmān bin Abī ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad bin Isḥāq bin Muḥammad bin Yaḥyā bin Ibrāhīm bin Mandah al-ʿAbdī, al-Aṣbahānī, who died in the year 470 AH, may Allah have mercy on him.

He was from a household of knowledge and virtue. His student al-Daqqāq said: "He has many works, and numerous refutations against the innovators and deviants regarding the Attributes and other matters." End quote.

I say: His father was the hadith master and author of works, such as the book al-Tawḥīd and al-Īmān. See: Dhayl Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila (1/28).

• (2) Al-Taymī al-Aṣbahānī, known as (Qawām al-Sunna), who died in the year 535 AH, may Allah have mercy on him.

The author of the book: al-Ḥujja fī Bayān al-Maḥajja wa-Sharḥ ʿAqīdat Ahl al-Sunna.

• (3) He is Muḥammad bin al-Ḥusayn bin Muḥammad bin al-Farrāʾ al-Baghdādī, who died in the year 458 AH. He was among the senior Hanbalis of his time. He was influenced by the theologians from the Kullābiyya, the Ash'arites, and others, and he authored his book Mukhtaṣar al-Muʿtamad fī Uṣūl al-Dīn upon their methodology.

Ibn Taymiyya, may Allah have mercy on him, said in Darʾ al-Taʿāruḍ (7/34-35) while speaking about those who were influenced by the leading deniers among the Jahmiyya and the Mu'tazilites: "(A third category: they heard the hadiths and narrations, and venerated the school of law of the Predecessors (Salaf), yet they shared with the Jahmī theologians in some of their remaining principles. They did not possess the expertise in the Qurʾān, hadith, and narrations that the Imams of the Sunna and hadith possessed, neither in terms of