Introduction

Taqī al-Dīn Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥalīm ibn Taymiyyah was born in Ḥarrān in 661 AH (1263 CE) and died in the Damascene citadel in 728 AH (1328 CE), having spent much of his adult life engaged in scholarly controversy, legal reform, and public preaching in a period of acute political and theological turbulence. His family had fled to Damascus to escape the Mongol advance, and it was in Damascus that he received his education and rose to prominence as a jurist, theologian, and polemicist of formidable ability. His scholarly lineage was rooted in the Ḥanbalī school, and he studied under its leading figures before developing a methodology that sought to return Islamic theology and jurisprudence to the practice of the Salaf, the first three generations of Muslims. Al-Tadmuriyyah takes its name from Tadmur, the Syrian city of Palmyra, where it is reported to have been composed, and it represents one of the clearest and most methodical statements of his theological approach.

The treatise addresses what Ibn Taymiyyah regarded as the foundational question of Islamic theology: how are the divine names and attributes mentioned in the Qurʾān and the authenticated Sunnah to be understood? He articulates two complementary principles. The first is that the attributes Allah has affirmed of Himself must be affirmed by the believer without likening them to the attributes of created beings, a principle known as ithbāt without tashbīh. The second is that these attributes must not be negated or reinterpreted away on philosophical grounds, a principle that situates him in direct opposition to the Muʿtazilī tradition and to later Ashʿarī developments that he considered to have imported too much of Greek philosophical logic into Islamic creedal discourse. He also examines the concepts of tawḥīd al-rubūbiyyah and tawḥīd al-ulūhiyyah, arguing that singling out Allah in worship is as essential a component of monotheism as affirming His lordship over creation. Throughout, his method is to cite Qurʾānic verses and ḥadīths alongside the statements of the early imams.

Al-Tadmuriyyah has become one of the most studied Atharī theological texts in the modern period, widely taught in institutions following the Ḥanbalī and Salafī methodological currents and used as an introductory text for students of Islamic creed. Its reception in the medieval period was contested: Ibn Taymiyyah's positions on divine attributes brought him into sharp conflict with jurists and theologians of his time, leading to his imprisonment on several occasions. However, later generations, particularly from the ninth century of the Islamic calendar onward, revisited his works and recognized in them a rigorous and scripturally grounded alternative to the philosophical theology that had become dominant. The Al al-Shaykh scholars of the Arabian Peninsula transmitted and taught this text extensively, and through them it reached a global audience of students in subsequent centuries.

Students approaching al-Tadmuriyyah should come with a basic understanding of the major positions in Islamic theology: the Muʿtazilī school, the Ashʿarī school, the Māturīdī school, and the Atharī methodology, so that they can situate Ibn Taymiyyah's arguments within the landscape he is addressing. The treatise is relatively compact and does not presuppose advanced philosophical training, but it rewards careful reading because many of its distinctions are subtle. Readers should pay particular attention to the criteria Ibn Taymiyyah establishes for what may legitimately be affirmed and what may not, as these criteria form the logical skeleton of the entire work. Consulting a qualified commentary alongside the text will help the reader appreciate the full weight of the scriptural evidence Ibn Taymiyyah marshals in support of his methodology.