Browsing by Author "Zahameel, Dhari Othman"

Al-‘Aqeedah al-Wasitiyyah, a work of Ibn Taimiyyah who lived in the 14th century, is one of the most widely circulated and most thoroughly studied texts on Islamic theology among the Salafis. However, despite the importance of this work and its many commentaries, it is observed that many commentaries on Ibn Taimiyyah’s work, especially the earlier ones, are lacking in an analytical comparative study using the scientific method. This becomes necessary as these commentaries attribute some views to other sects which need to be closely examined to suit contemporary ideological study. This research presents a comparative analytical study of the three sample commentaries considered as the earliest and most celebrated commentaries compiled in the fourteenth century A.H, when published commentaries started to emerge. These samples are the commentaries of al-Shaikh Zaid Al-Fayyaad, Shaikh ‘Abdul ‘Azeez al -Rasheed, and Shaikh Muhammad Khaleel al-Harraas. This research is aimed at establishing the significance of the said work and the debates surrounding its themes, describing and analyzing these sample commentaries as well as elucidating the similarities and differences among them. The methodologies employed are inductive, analytical and comparative. To conclude, this study is able to come up with a number of results. The three sample commentaries are heavily laden with a tone of refutation in a manner that prevails over that of establishing and defending an ideological doctrine. This is a methodological issue because writing a commentary on theological text, especially for beginners, is supposed to be concerned more with establishing theological doctrines than refutations. They are also rich in attributing a number of views to other contrary ideological schools, such as attributing the denial of the punishment of the grave, the scales of judgement in the hereafter, and crossing the bridge of as-siraat, inter alia, to the Mu’tazilites. This claims need thorough examination because the original sources of these other school negate attributing such views to them.