Aqeeda At-Tahawi - Commentary by Sh Salih Al-Fawzaan

Creed is the basis of religion. It is the substance of the first pillar of Islam, the testimony that there is no God but Allah and Muhammad (S) is the Messenger of Allah. Therefore much focus has to be given to it. It has to be learned, and so does that which infringes it. so that man becomes discerning and upon the correct belief. Because if someone's faith is based on a correct foundation, it is valued and accepted by Allah; but if it is based on shaky and precarious beliefs, or on incorrect beliefs, then it is not correct and has no foundation. This is why the scholars gave such precedence to creed and why they never slackened in teaching it during their lessons and on special occasions. And the later generations related it from the earlier ones. 

As time passed, the sects and disagreements appeared, and Islam was accepted by those in whose hearts the creed was not firmly grounded, or by those who entered into the religion whilst having deviant ideas, and some new Muslims did not refer to the Qur'an and Sunnah for matters of creed, instead referring to theories and methodologies that the people of error founded on their own accord. The rise of these occurrences created the need for the Muslim imams to teach and revise the correct creed as well as write it and narrate it from the learned ones of the ihntnah. Therefore, they wrote literature on creed and were very much concerned with it. This literature became a reference point for the Muslims who would come later, right until the coming of the Flour. 

Among these imams who wrote about the creed of the Salaf was al-Imam Abu Ja'far Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Tahawi, who was a scholar from the third century in Egypt. He wrote this creed according to the views of Ahl al-Sunnah in general, which includes al-Imam Abu Hanifah al-Nu'man ibn Thabit - who was the earliest of the four imams and met the Tabiun and related from them - as well as his two disciples: Abu Yusuf and Muhammad al-Shaybani and the Imams of the Hanafi school of jurisprudence. [Adapted from the commentator's introduction.]  
 

​About The Author 

Imam Abu Ja'far Ahmad bin Muhammad bin Salamah bin Salmah bin 'Abd al Malik bin Salmah bin Sulaim bin Sulaiman bin Jawab Azdi, popularly known as Imam Tahawi, after his birth-place in Egypt, is among the most outstanding authorities of the Islamic world on Hadith and fiqh (jurisprudence). He lived 239-321 A.H., an epoch when both the direct and indirect disciples of the four Imams - Imam Abu Hanifah, Imam Malik, Imam Shafi'i and Imam Ahmad bin Hanbal - were teaching and practicing. This period was the zenith of Hadith and fiqh studies, and Imam Tahawi studied with all the living authorities of the day. He began as a student of his maternal uncle, Isma'il bin Yahya Muzni, a leading disciple of Imam Shafi'i. Instinctively, however, Imam Tahawi felt drawn to the corpus of Imam Abu Hanifah's works. Indeed, he had seen his uncle and teacher turning to the works of Hanafi scholars to resolve thorny issues of Fiqh, drawing heavily on the writings of Imam Muhammad Ibn al-Hasan al-Shaybani and Imam Abu Yusuf, who had codified Hanafi fiqh. This led Imam Tahawi to devote his whole attention to studying the Hanafi works and he eventually joined the Hanafi school.

Imam Tahawi stands out not only as a prominent follower of the Hanafi school but, in view of his vast erudition and remarkable powers of assimilation, as one of its leading scholars. His monumental scholarly works, such as Sharh Ma'ani al-Athar and Mushkil al-Athar, are encyclopaedic in scope and have long been regarded as indispensable for training students of fiqh.

About The Commentator

Shaykh Dr. Salih Ibn Fawzan Ibn Abdullah from the family of Fawzan from the people/tribe of ash-Shamaasiyyah. After his graduation from the Faculty of Sharee'ah, he was appointed a teacher within the educational institute in Riyadh, then transferred to teaching in the Faculty of Sharee'ah. Later, he transferred to teaching at the Department for Higher Studies within the Faculty of the Principles of the Religion (usool ad-deen). Then he transferred to teaching at the Supreme Court of Justice, where he was appointed the head. He then returned to teaching there after his period of headship came to an end. He was then made a member of the Permanent Committee for Islamic Research and Fataawa, where he continues to this day.

Member of the Council of Senior Scholars, and member of the Fiqh Committee in Makkah (part of ar-Raabitah), and member of the Committee for Supervision of the Callers (Du'aat) in Hajj, whilst also presiding over (his main role) membership of the Permanent Committee for Islamic Research and Fataawa. He is also the Imaam, khateeb, and teacher at the Prince Mut'ib Ibn 'Abdul-'Azeez Masjid in al-Malzar.
He also studied at the hands of a number of scholars from al-Azhar University (Egypt) who specialized in hadeeth, Tafseer and Arabic language.