الشيخ عز الدين بن عبد السلام

Shaykh Izz al-Din ibn Abd al-Salam, whom al-Suyuti titled "Sultan of the Scholars". He was appointed preacher of Damascus in 637 AH. By his own description he preached a sermon free of innovations, removed the gilded banners and put in their place black banners with white lettering. Only one muezzin called to prayer before him. ²

Al-Suyuti relates that when the Tatars reached Amid and Qutuz gathered the amirs, he said: if the enemy enters the land, it becomes incumbent on the scholars to fight them, and it is permitted to take from the subjects what is needed for the war, on condition that nothing remains in the treasury, and that the amirs sell their belts and equipment, each being content with his horse and weapons. Taking the wealth of the common people while the soldiers keep what is in their hands is not allowed. ²

Biographical works attribute to him the book al-Imam fi Adilat al-Ahkam. ³

Tareq al-Suwaidan dedicates two episodes to al-Izz ibn Abd al-Salam, stating that what distinguishes him is not his learning — though he counts him, by near-consensus, the renewer of his century — but his courage in practical, open denunciation of sultans and princes, a meaning he holds died out in his time and is dying more today ^{4 5 6}. He qualifies open denunciation: the norm is private and gentle correction, but it becomes a public duty in the gravest wrongs concerning the ummah — and he lists its fruits: the scholar's self-acquittal before God and the people, restoring trust between scholars and people, encouraging others to denounce, forcing the deviator to accept the truth by public pressure, and raising the ummah's level to participation in change ^{7 8 9}. He warns the youth not to dare open denunciation against ordinary people, calling it an exception ⁷. Of his life he tells: he did not devote himself to the religious sciences until the age of fifty-one, yet within years became 'sultan of the scholars' — proof, he says, that none should despair ¹⁰. The story of al-Malik al-Salih Isma'il of the Ayyubids: he allied with the Crusaders, surrendering to them the fortresses of al-Shaqif and Safad and others in Palestine to gain their help against al-Malik al-Salih Ayyub of Egypt; al-Izz mounted the pulpit of the Umayyad Mosque while the king sat in attendance and publicly denounced the alliance, closing his sermon with the prayer 'O God, ordain for this ummah a right-guided affair in which Your friend is honoured and Your enemy abased' — and gave no prayer for the king, who knew himself meant ^{11 12 13}. The king had him imprisoned; Damascus boiled until he released him and barred him from the pulpit, whereupon al-Izz left Damascus in anger for Jerusalem; and to the king's envoy who asked him to kiss the king's hand and apologise he answered: 'By God, I would not accept that al-Malik al-Salih kiss my hand, let alone that I kiss his' ^{14 15}. Imprisoned in a tent in the king's camp, he recited the Qur'an aloud; and he tells that the king boasted before the Crusader leaders that he had imprisoned the Muslims' greatest scholar for objecting to their alliance, whereupon the Frankish lords said 'by God, had this priest been ours we would have washed his feet and drunk the wash-water' — and that was the beginning of his humiliation ^{16 17 18}. Before leaving Damascus he issued a fatwa forbidding the sale of weapons to the Crusaders, since the seller knows they will be turned against Muslim breasts ^{19 20}. The Egyptian army that defeated the alliance freed him and carried him to Egypt — where the second episode's further stands occur ^{18 21}.

Al-Suwaidan continues al-Izz's life in Egypt, stating that the secret of his greatness was turning knowledge into movement and renaissance, not the memorising of texts — and that civilisation deviates when two classes deviate or weaken: the rulers and the scholars ^{22 23}. The Eid procession with Najm al-Din Ayyub: the eighty-year-old al-Izz stood on his staff and called the sultan by his bare name — 'O Ayyub' — before the crowds, asking him who had permitted the wine-houses in his realm; when the king said 'this dates from my father's time' he answered 'are you of those who say we found our fathers on a creed?' — and the king at once ordered the taverns abolished in all Egypt ^{24 25 26}. His answer to his student al-Baji, who asked whether he was not afraid: 'I summoned the majesty and awe of God and saw the sultan before me as a cat' — his aim being to break the ruler's pride, not to humiliate him ^{27 22}. The mamluk fatwa: he ruled that the mamluk commanders running the state had no right to rule while still slaves — they had to be sold first; threatened and asked to withdraw it, he mounted his mule and left Egypt, and Egypt went out with him down to the carpenters and plumbers, until the sultan was forced to placate him and pledge to enforce the fatwa ^{28 29 30}. When the sultan's deputy came with army commanders to kill him, the sword fell from the deputy's hand at the sight of the shaykh; al-Izz answered 'I shall sell you myself', sold them before the people, refusing the low bids of their own agents until he had taken the greatest prices, and returned the money to the state treasury — whence his surname 'seller of kings', for among them were Qutuz and Baybars ^{31 32 33}. In the Mongol danger: he refused the truce the mamluks contemplated, stirred the people and the scholars to jihad, went himself to Qutuz, and the army marched under the cry 'wa-islamah' to the battle of Ayn Jalut — of which he says that but for it Europe and Africa would have fallen to the Mongols (the speaker's claim) ^{34 35 23}. He cites the scholars' solidarity with him — the mufti Abd al-Azim al-Mundhiri declining to issue fatwas while al-Izz lived, and the Hanafi Jamal al-Din al-Husayri interceding for him with the amir of Damascus who had banned his teaching — as proof that working scholars were then of one hand ^{36 37}. He closes: the secret of his greatness was a clear vision with a mighty will and deep knowledge — and he began devoting himself to learning at fifty-one ^{38 39}.