Introduction

Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Abī Bakr ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyyah was born in 691 AH (1292 CE) in Damascus. His father was the superintendent of the Jawziyya school, which is the origin of the epithet by which he is universally known. He began his scholarly formation in Damascus and came under the influence of Ibn Taymiyyah around 712 AH, when he was approximately twenty years old. This encounter proved decisive. Ibn al-Qayyim became Ibn Taymiyyah's most devoted student and closest companion, accompanying him through his imprisonments, transmitting his fatwās during periods of captivity, and carrying forward his theological and legal legacy after his death in 728 AH. Ibn al-Qayyim himself was imprisoned in the Citadel of Damascus alongside his teacher for a time. After Ibn Taymiyyah's death, he continued to teach and write in Damascus until his own death in 751 AH (1350 CE) at approximately sixty years of age.

The scholarly output of Ibn al-Qayyim is extraordinary in both volume and range. Among his most celebrated works are Madārij al-Sālikīn, a three-volume commentary on the Manāzil al-Sāʾirīn of al-Harawī that remains the most important Sunni treatise on the stations of the spiritual path; Zād al-Maʿād, a comprehensive work on prophetic guidance covering worship, medicine, and daily life; al-Ṭibb al-Nabawī; Iʿlām al-Muwaqqiʿīn, on the principles and practice of legal reasoning; Shifāʾ al-ʿAlīl, on divine decree; al-Jawāb al-Kāfī, on turning to Allah in distress; Miftāḥ Dār al-Saʿāda, on the pursuit of true happiness; and al-Dāʾ wa-l-Dawāʾ on spiritual diseases. Biographies of him must survey this corpus with some care, because his significance cannot be understood apart from what he wrote. Classical sources for his life include al-Dhahabī's notice, Ibn Kathīr's entry in al-Bidāya, and Ibn Rajab al-Ḥanbalī's al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila.

Ibn al-Qayyim's importance in the Islamic tradition is increasingly recognized beyond the Ḥanbalī school. His works on the spiritual life are read across the Sunni world for their psychological acuity, their synthesis of textual evidence and inner experience, and their consistent grounding in Qurʾān and Sunnah. His legal writings contributed to a methodology that holds the objectives of Islamic law in view alongside its detailed rulings. His writings on theology reinforce, extend, and in some cases clarify the positions of his teacher. He is perhaps most remarkable for his ability to integrate what might seem like disparate domains, the inward life of the heart and the outward obligations of fiqh, into a coherent account of what it means to be a Muslim. For this reason, scholars who disagree with Ibn Taymiyyah on specific theological questions often find Ibn al-Qayyim's works deeply nourishing on other grounds.

A biography of Ibn al-Qayyim should be read with his own works close at hand, because his life is most fully intelligible through his writing. Readers who have already encountered Zād al-Maʿād or Madārij al-Sālikīn will find this biography illuminates those texts considerably, supplying the circumstances of composition, the intellectual debts, and the personal formation behind them. Those who have not yet read his works may find this biography serves as an invitation. It is recommended to approach his life with a specific question in mind, whether about the spiritual path, about legal methodology, or about the relationship between the heart and outward practice, and to allow the biography to point toward the texts where that question is addressed most fully.