Ibn Taymiyyah, Divine Sovereignty and Ruling by God's Law

The truth is that the problem is in how people understand. Ibn Taymiyya was a learned scholar.

Those scholars who were present with him bore witness to his knowledge, despite their different schools of thought.

Yes. No one

speaks about him as being ignorant or as being unable to practice independent reasoning.

But

as is well known, every human being has what may be accepted from his words and what may be rejected.

Ibn Taymiyya did offer interpretations, rulings, or independent judgments in which he disagreed with the consensus

of the ummah and in which he went against most of the opinions of moderate Muslims.

When these people came, they found these points in the books of Ibn Taymiyya, may God have mercy on him, and they took them and then added

to them, distorted them, deviated with them, and made him a proof between themselves

and God. But… Ibn Taymiyya, like any scholar of the ummah,

it is impossible that his knowledge would be a cause of the ummah’s misguidance.

However,

the large number of those who are not mature in knowledge,

who rely on the books of Ibn Taymiyya and attribute to themselves or grant themselves

the right to exercise independent reasoning without knowledge, without understanding, and without being qualified for

that rank, led them to these mistaken judgments.

Yes. And it is not Ibn Taymiyya’s thought alone that is responsible for what has happened, but there are also Islamic organizations

Islamic currents that emerged after Ibn Taymiyyah exerted effort based on Ibn Taymiyyah’s view and exerted effort based on the Qur’an itself.

They took concepts, generalized them, and applied them incorrectly, and from this application they ended up

with what we see

today throughout the whole world. For example,

the issue of… “hakimiyyah” (divine governance). Ibn Taymiyyah mentioned that it is necessary…

“Judgment belongs to none but God.” This

is stated in the Qur’an. And all Muslims know that the true ruler who lays down rulings

and legislates them is God. Yes. No one denies this.

But the ruler, by extension, is the Messenger, peace and blessings be upon him, who rules by extension.

God says, “So judge between them.” So this means that the scholars judge.

But all of this is judgment by extension. Yet Islam did not say that everyone who rules in a case

among the cases is a disbeliever because he claimed for himself the right of hakimiyyah, or the right of divinity, or

the right of legislation for himself and so legislated for the people. The matter is not like that.

And whoever

“does not judge by what God has revealed…” Yes. Yes, the Qur’an mentioned this.

But even the Companions, some of them mentioned that this disbelief mentioned in these verses is disbelief less than disbelief.

And this goes back to what we spoke about at the beginning, that

whoever does not rule by what God has revealed

out of objection and denial of what God has revealed and lack of acceptance of what God has revealed, then in this case he is one of the disbelievers.

And whoever does not rule by what God has revealed, then they are the disbelievers. Correct.

So he will come and say, “Well, you people, let us take a society of yours where there are people who drink

alcohol and the punishment that God has revealed is not carried out on them.

You have those who commit adultery and the punishment that God has revealed is not carried out on them.

Therefore, the ruler here is a disbeliever.”