Introduction

Lum'at al-I'tiqad al-Hadi ila Sabil al-Rashad is a concise creed primer by the Hanbali imam Muwaffaq al-Din Abu Muhammad 'Abdallah ibn Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Qudamah al-Maqdisi (541–620 AH / 1147–1223 CE). Ibn Qudamah was born in Jamma'il, a village near Nablus in Palestine, and emigrated with his family to Damascus as a youth. He studied hadith and fiqh under the leading scholars of his age in Damascus and Baghdad, including 'Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani, and became the foremost Hanbali jurist of his generation. He authored al-Mughni, one of the most encyclopedic works in Islamic jurisprudence, alongside al-Rawdah, al-Kafi, and al-Muqni' — a body of work that defined Hanbali legal teaching for centuries.

Lum'at al-I'tiqad was written as a brief, accessible statement of Athari creed, intended for students who needed a reliable introduction to the doctrines of Ahl us-Sunnah wal-Jama'ah on the fundamental questions of theology: the divine names and attributes, the Quran as the speech of Allah, prophethood, the Companions, predestination, and the matters of the unseen. The text is short enough to memorize yet precise enough to serve as a teaching text, and it has been used in traditional educational settings across the Arab world from Ibn Qudamah's era to the present day.

The text's significance lies in its clarity and its firm grounding in the transmitted approach of the early Muslim community. Ibn Qudamah states the positions of Ahl us-Sunnah without philosophical elaboration, affirming the divine attributes as they appear in the Quran and Sunnah while declaring transcendence (tanzih) and rejecting both anthropomorphism (tashbih) and figurative reinterpretation (ta'wil). This methodology — sometimes called the way of the Salaf — is presented here with the restraint and precision characteristic of Ibn Qudamah's scholarly style.

The work is also notable for what it includes beyond the divine attributes: sections on the Quran, on the Prophet's intercession, on the Companions and the proper attitude toward them, and on predestination and human action. These topics were all contested in the theological disputes of the classical period, and Ibn Qudamah's treatment reflects the positions that became normative in the Hanbali school and in Athari theology more broadly.

Readers approaching Lum'at al-I'tiqad will benefit from reading it alongside one of its classical or modern commentaries, as Ibn Qudamah's brevity can leave individual statements requiring elaboration. The text has attracted explanatory works by scholars including Ibn 'Uthaymin, whose commentary is widely taught today. As a primary text, Lum'at al-I'tiqad serves as an entry point into the creedal literature of the Hanbali tradition and a clear expression of the Athari theological method.