Ibn Taymiyya's View towards the Followers of the Four Schools of Jurisprudence

Absolute subservience to the juridical views of the four schools of jurisprudence is not consistent with the teachings of Islam. Nonetheless, majority of Sunni Muslims follow one of the leaders or imams of the four schools binding their practice with the jurisprudential rulings of the four schools. Ibn Taymiyyah has opposed the Sunni method considering taqlid (following) of the four imams as invalid and incorrect. He has gone to extremes in opposing Ahl-e Sunnah since he, sometimes, considers the followers of the four leaders as heretics who must repent for such acts. Sometimes, he calls them apostates and other times he describes them as the people of innovation (ahl-e bid'ah). That is when labeling a Muslim as a disbeliever and apostate has been forbidden in multiple traditions, so much that it has been narrated that if someone ascribes infidelity and apostasy to someone, he is more entitled to be called a disbeliever and an apostate. Labeling Muslims as innovators is also inappropriate because every act that did not use to be practiced in the time of the predecessors does not mean that it is unlawful or evil. Perhaps, there might be something that may have come into being after the Salaf period but no one has claimed that it is bid'ah. This research uses analytical – descriptive method to study Ibn Taymiyyah's opinion about the followers of the four schools of jurisprudence, and it has proved that embarking on excommunicating others while encountering Muslim is not appropriate.