Introduction: The Compilation of Majmu' al-Fatawa

Majmu' al-Fatawa is one of the most expansive collections of Islamic scholarship ever assembled, comprising thirty-seven volumes of rulings, treatises, and responses by Shaykh al-Islam Ahmad ibn Abd al-Halim ibn Taymiyyah (661–728 AH / 1263–1328 CE). The work was not compiled by Ibn Taymiyyah himself but was gathered and organized posthumously by his devoted student Abd al-Rahman ibn Muhammad ibn Qasim al-Hanbali (d. 1392 AH) and his son Muhammad, who spent decades tracking down the scattered writings of their teacher across manuscripts held in Damascus, Cairo, and elsewhere.

Ibn Taymiyyah was a prolific writer whose output spanned virtually every discipline of the Islamic sciences. He composed formal fatwas in response to questions posed by rulers, judges, scholars, and ordinary Muslims; he wrote lengthy refutations of philosophical and theological opponents; he produced detailed commentaries on Quranic verses and hadith texts; and he authored independent treatises on matters ranging from logic to mysticism to jurisprudence. Many of these works were written under difficult circumstances, including during his several periods of imprisonment by the Mamluk authorities.

The thirty-seven volumes of Majmu' al-Fatawa are organized thematically. The opening volumes deal with theology and the foundations of belief, including the famous al-Aqeedah al-Wasitiyyah and al-Aqeedah al-Hamawiyyah. Subsequent volumes address Quranic sciences, tafsir, the prophetic traditions, legal theory, and the branches of fiqh covering ritual worship, commercial transactions, family law, oaths, and more. Later volumes include discussions of Sufism and asceticism, logic, philosophy, and the refutation of various sects.

The compilation has served as a primary reference for scholars seeking to understand the full breadth of Ibn Taymiyyah's thought. Because his ideas were controversial in his own time — leading to his repeated imprisonment — many of his writings circulated only in restricted manuscript form for centuries. The systematic publication of Majmu' al-Fatawa in the twentieth century, first in part and later in its complete form, made his comprehensive body of work accessible to a global audience for the first time.

For students and scholars of Islamic theology, fiqh, and intellectual history, Majmu' al-Fatawa remains an indispensable resource. Its breadth means that nearly every significant question in classical Islamic scholarship receives some treatment within its pages, and its depth ensures that the treatments are rarely superficial. Ibn Taymiyyah's method throughout is to engage seriously with opposing positions before systematically dismantling them from Quran, Sunnah, and the consensus of the early generations.