Say: he is from the signs of Allah. And have no doubt about it.
I received the following e-book “The Lofty Virtues of Ibn Taymiyyah” (complete translation, 34 pages) the other day for public consumption and I wish to share it with you all, so click and download the Pdf file at the bottom. It’s a wonderful taster of exactly who Ibn Taymiyyah actually was, written by one of his illustrious students, the Faqih and Muhaddith, Hāfidh ‘Umar b. ‘Ali b. Mūsa al-Bazzār (d. 749h). It is a translation by brother Abu Sabaaya and it’s a great read.
As for his classes, I never missed a single one during my stay in Damascus. He would not prepare anything specifically to present. Rather, he would sit after praying two rak’at, would praise Allah, invoke blessings and peace upon His Messenger (peace be upon him) in a manner so sweet and pleasant that I never heard from anyone else, and would then proceed to speak. Allah would open up on him such knowledge, gems, hidden benefits, details, narrations, extraction of evidences from verses and ahadith, statements of the scholars and comparison between them, as well as an ability to supplement what he was saying with old Arabic poetry (and he would sometimes even mention the name of the poem’s composer). In all of this, his speech was as smooth as a flowing river, and he would move as the ocean moves. From the beginning of his speech to the end of it, he would appear to be in another world, his eyes closed. This was all done unintentionally, and he didn’t try to speak in a certain way to give off this effect. Rather, it was something divine that was evident to everyone who was watching or listening, and he would remain in such a state until he was finished speaking. I saw him at such times, and he looked like one in the presence of someone preoccupying him from anything else. When he did this, he would have such an amazing presence that it would shake our hearts and grab our attention.
But anyway, that’s enough about me. Now on to the Legend himself…
