• The Shāfiʿīs accused Ibn ʿAbd alWahhāb of parroting and reviving Ibn Taymiyya’s ideas, while the Ḥanbalīs accused him of misunderstanding and misusing them. To a large degree, the early debate over Wahhābism was a debate over the legitimacy and proper interpretation of Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn al-Qayyim.

• The views of al-Qabbānī, in Basra, are illustrative of the Shāfiʿī perspective. In all three of his refutations, he attributes Wahhābism to the terrible influence of the earlier Ḥanbalī scholar, accusing Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb of adopting the views of Ibn Taymiyya, “your leader and your example” (imāmuka wamuqtadāka), regarding the practices associated with the cult of saints, particularly asking the dead for help (istighātha) and using them as a means to God (tawassul).

• The scholars are agreed, he asserts, that Ibn Taymiyya’s views on these issues are “among his unmentionable faults . . . for which they accused him of unbelief [qālū bikufrihi].” (Ibid., ff. 108b–9a; cf. al-Qabbānī, Faṣl al-khiṭāb, f. 52b)

• No one, he argues, should be appealing to such fringe and unacceptable ideas. As he puts it in Faṣl al-khiṭāb, speaking of Ibn Taymiyya: “Before this man, did any of the scholars of Islam who are followed in matters of religion declare to be unbelievers those who use the dead as a means to God and who ask the dead for help [al-mutawassil waʾl-mustaghīth]? (al-Qabbānī, Faṣl al-khiṭāb, f. 53a)

In his letters to ʿUthmān ibn Muʿammar, he writes that Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb has falsely attributed things to the scholars of Islam (iftarā ʿalā ahl al-ʿilm), including Ibn al-Qayyim,9 and he argues that Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb has read Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn al-Qayyim selectively, picking and choosing from their views as he sees fit: What brought this man into this terrible abyss is that he looks at the books of Ibn al-Qayyim and takes from them what suits his fancy, disregarding what contradicts it; he takes from the beginning of a chapter and disregards the end of it. We will relate for you the entirety of Ibn al-Qayyim’s words and those of his teacher, Ibn Taymiyya, so that you know that Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb has gone astray and led people astray.