Taqi al-Din Ahmad ibn Abd al-Halim ibn Taymiyya al-Harrani al-Hanbali, titled Shaykh al-Islam, was a Hanbali jurist and theologian from Harran and Damascus 1 2 3. Born at Harran on 10 Rabi' al-Awwal 661 AH (22 January 1263 CE), he was taken from the town by his father in 667 AH before the Mongol advance, and grew up and studied in Damascus 3 2. In 698 AH he wrote al-Aqida al-Wasitiyya at the request of a judge of Wasit 1. When the Mongol threat returned in 700 AH he travelled to Cairo to urge jihad 3 4.
His creed was examined more than once: councils met in Damascus in Rajab 705 AH and the Wasitiyya was read at them, then he was sent to Cairo and held in its citadel for about a year and a half 5 6. He did not return to Damascus until 712 AH, after more than seven years away 5 7. He was imprisoned in the citadel of Damascus in 720 AH over his fatwa on divorce and again in 726 AH over his view on visiting tombs, and remained there until his death on 20 Dhu al-Qa'da 728 AH (26 September 1328 CE); he was buried in the Sufiyya cemetery 8 7.
Ibn Hajar quotes the praise of al-Dhahabi for his memory, exegesis and independent reasoning, and al-Dhahabi's remark that he did not hold him infallible and differed with him on some questions 9 10. Laoust, in the Encyclopaedia of Islam, counts him among the writers with the greatest influence on contemporary Islam, particularly in Sunni circles 11.
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