Who Preceded You In That Speech? — Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymiyyah & al-Imām Rabī‘ al-Madkhalī
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Beware of speaking about an affair in which you have no Imām (that preceded you in speaking about the said affair).
Al-Imām ibn Taymiyyah — may Allah have mercy upon him — said:
“The eighth perspective is that the one answering - and all praise is due to Allāh - did not ever speak in a matter except with a speech that the scholars have preceded him in, so if it occurs to him and appears sound to him he should not say it nor support it except if he knows that some of the scholars have said it, just as al-Imām Aḥmad said:
“Beware of speaking in a matter in which you have no Imām (that preceded you).”¹
Al-‘Allāmah Rabī’ bin Hādī - may Allah have mercy upon him - said before quoting the speech of Ibn Taymiyyah that has preceded:
And this is an advice to myself and to the brother Salmān likewise to every Muslim, I ask Allah to benefit us all by way of it, and we have heard it from some of our scholars, it is what al-Imām Aḥmad said and Ibn Taymiyyah took - may Allāh have mercy upon them both - and other than them both from the scholars of al-Islām.”²
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¹ - Ar-Radd ʿalá al-Ikhnā’ī p. 458
² - Ahl al-Hadith Hum aṭ-Ṭā’ifah al-Manṣūrah p. 34
From the Official X (Formaly Known As Twitter) Account of Shaykh ʿAbd al-Ilah b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ar-Rifā’ī — may Allāh preserve him —.
Translation: MiU Editorial
