Secondly...

Secondly, as Ibn Taymiyyah himself admits, the Prophet had described the Qur’an and the as “the Two Weighty Things” (thaqalayn). This, of course, was primarily to stress the significance of following them both! Let us remind the esteemed reader of the words of Imam Ibn al-Athir (d. 606 H), a leading classical Sunni hadith linguist, in this regard: ]إني تارك فيكم الثقلين : كتاب الله وعترت] سماهما ثقلين لأن الأخذ بهما والعمل بهما ثقيل .

ويقال لكك خطير نفيس ثقل فسماهما ثقلين إعظاما لقدرهما وتفخيما لشأنهما. [I am leaving among you the Two Weighty Things: the Book of Allah and my offspring], he named them both thaqalayn because holding fast to them both and following them are weighty (responsibilities). And every priceless weighty thing is called thaqal.

Therefore, he named them thaqalayn to highlight their significance and to extol their importance.[^3] So, it is absolutely proved from that term – thaqalayn – alone that the Messenger was forcefully commanding his entire Ummah to follow both the Qur’an and the after him. The conclusion of Shaykh Ibn Taymiyyah is, therefore, a clear misrepresentation of the true instruction of the Prophet of Islam. Thirdly, our Shaykh has defined the ‘itrah of the Prophet as being the whole of Banu Hashim.

This obviously converts the meaning of the word from “offspring” to “clan”. However, this contradicts the default, customary definition of the term. Ibn Manzur, the ace Sunni lexicographer, submits on the word “‘itrah”: والعامة تظن أنها ولد الرجل خاصة وأن عترة رسول الله، صلى الله عليه وسلم، ولد فاطمة، رضي الله عنها، هذا قول ابن سيده The common masses claim that it (i.e.

‘itrah) refers to the offspring of the man alone, and that the ‘itrah of the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, are the offspring of Fatimah, may Allah be pleased with her. This was the statement of Ibn Sayyiduh.[^4] Of course, the Messenger of Allah was certainly speaking in the language of the common masses to all of humanity! Even then, the “offspring” in Hadith al-Thaqalayn are only a few people, and not everyone who is descended from the Prophet. As ‘Allamah al-Albani (d.

1420 H) records, he identified those intended as his offspring in the ahadith as his khalifahs: إني تارك فيكم خليفتين: كتاب الله حبل ممدود ما بين السماء والأرض وعترتي أهل بيتي وإنهما لن يتفرقا حتى يردا علي الحوض I am leaving behind over you TWO KHALIFAHS: the Book of Allah - a rope stretching between the heaven and the earth – and my offspring, my .