Question:
Assalaam Alaikum. Please Sir I read in on of your Fatawas that Talbees iblis had a lot of fabrications, can you please assist me with some others and their page number. There is a Wahabi close by…who loves to quote the book in attack of Sufi.. and I’m currently compiling evidences in support, but he is strong headed and needs references for every statement.
Answer:
`Alaykum Salam,
Ibn al-Jawzi also defended Sufis in other books, as Talbis Iblis is only
one of hundreds of books he wrote. So whatever you do not like in it,
you can find him defending it in another book of his.
As for Talbis Iblis, to defend the status of that book as reliable shows
basic ignorance since the Hafiz Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani himself authored
an abridgment of that book from which he removed all forgeries. This is
enough proof for even a child that Talbis Iblis is unreliable in the
Religion.
See also the judgment of some of the authorities on Ibn al-Jawzi’s
unreliability here:
http://www.sunnah.org/history/Scholars/ibn_aljawzi.htm
Hajj Gibril Haddad
