Al-ʿAqīdah al-Wāsiṭiyyah

Written in response to a judge in Wasit, Iraq, this creed presents the Athari position on the divine names and attributes affirming them without distortion, negation, or likening and covers the companions, Day of Judgment, and matters of faith. Considered Ibn Taymiyyah's most accessible doctrinal work and the standard intermediate aqeedah text in traditional Sunni and Salafi curricula.

Ahmad ibn Abd al-Halim ibn Taymiyyah (1263-1328 CE) was born in Harran and moved to Damascus as a child when the Mongol invasion destroyed his family's homeland. A prodigious Hanbali scholar of towering intellectual range, he composed over three hundred works across theology, jurisprudence, Quranic commentary, and spirituality. His uncompromising defense of the Athari creed and his rulings challenging certain popular practices led to multiple imprisonments by the Mamluk authorities. He died in the citadel of Damascus while under confinement, reportedly still surrounded by books until his final hours.

• The Athari approach to Allah's names and attributes (asma wa sifat)
• Affirming all that Allah affirmed for Himself without tawil (reinterpretation), tatil (negation), tashbih (likening), or tamthil (equivalence)
• Quranic and hadith proofs for core divine attributes: sight, hearing, knowledge, speech, hand, face, and descent
• Refutation of the Jahmiyyah, Mutazilah, and those who negate the divine attributes
• The Companions and the Salaf as the authoritative standard of creed
• Prophethood: its conditions, characteristics, and the finality of Muhammad
• Eschatology: the questioning in the grave, resurrection, judgment, the Bridge (Sirat), the Scale
• The levels of intercession and who may intercede by Allah's permission
• The definition of Iman and the question of its increase and decrease