Investigation of the Doubts Found in Minhaj al-Sunna Regarding Imam Ali’s Fights

Ibn Taymiya’s unprecedented views in the seventh century have shown a prejudiced figure and stereotypical reading of Islam, causing a surge of oppositions from both Sunnite and Shiite scholars, especially the scholars of the four denominations of Sunnism. This was to the extent that by consensus, he was renounced and sentenced to a long imprisonment. One of his views was an objection to Imam Ali’s battles of Jamal and Seffin. He maintains that those battles were illegitimate and instances of rebellion, and that the opponents – i.e. people of Jamal and Mu’awiya along with his companions – were not rebellious people. The subject of this study is the extent to which these claims conform to religious sources and the dominant view among the Sunnites. The important finding of this study, conducted as a descriptive-analytical one using the Sunnite authentic sources, was the nonconformity of his view with important religious sources and the Sunnite dominant view. It concludes that his view was completely wrong and in opposition to the thoughts of other Sunnites.