Sheikh Salih Al Sheikh

Sheikh Salih Al al-Sheikh: the scholar, the lineage, the offices

• Full name: Salih ibn Abd al-Aziz ibn Muhammad ibn Ibrahim ibn Abd al-Latif Al al-Sheikh (صالح بن عبد العزيز آل الشيخ), of the Al al-Sheikh family, which descends from Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab.
• Birth: in 1378 AH, corresponding to 1959, in Riyadh, into a house of learning and teaching.
• Family: his father, Abd al-Aziz ibn Muhammad, was an adviser to the King. His grandfather, Muhammad ibn Ibrahim, was the first Grand Mufti of the Kingdom.
• Education: a bachelor's degree in the fundamentals of religion from Imam Muhammad ibn Saud University, Department of the Quran and its sciences. He went on to teach there.
• Teachers: Sheikh Abd al-Aziz ibn Baz, his father, Sheikh Abdullah ibn Aqil, Sheikh Abdullah al-Ghudayyan, and specialists in the Arabic language including Sheikh Ahmad al-Murabit al-Shinqiti.
• Ministry: Deputy Minister of Islamic Affairs in 1416, Minister from 1420, that is 1999, until 1439, that is 2018, with a brief interruption in 2015.
• Current office: Minister of State and member of the Council of Ministers since June 2018, reappointed when the government was formed in September 2022.
• Output: commentaries on classical texts of creed, mostly drawn from his teaching circles, and a few written treatises.

A house that has been teaching for three centuries

The biography of Sheikh Salih Al al-Sheikh cannot be understood apart from his lineage, and he makes no secret of it: the very name of his family is that of the founder of the Najdi reform movement. From father to son, since Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab in the twelfth century AH, the house has produced judges, teachers and muftis. His grandfather, Muhammad ibn Ibrahim, was the first to hold the title of Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia. His father was an adviser to the King.

Born in Riyadh in 1378, he chose an entirely religious education, at Imam Muhammad ibn Saud University, in the department devoted to the Quran. He studied under Sheikh Ibn Baz and several scholars of Riyadh, then taught in his turn at that university. It was there that he began to give the lessons that would become his books.

In 1416 he was appointed Deputy Minister of Islamic Affairs. In 1420, Minister. He would hold that portfolio for close to twenty years, with a brief interruption in 2015, supervising among other things the King Fahd Complex for the Printing of the Quran in Madinah. Since June 2018 he has been Minister of State and a member of the Council of Ministers, an office in which he was reappointed in 2022. Throughout all those years, he never stopped teaching.

The commentator who numbers everything

Here is what sets his books apart from those of other contemporary scholars, and what you need to know before opening one.

Sheikh Salih Al al-Sheikh has a method that is recognisable among all others. Faced with a text of creed, he does not paraphrase: he breaks it down. Each passage is divided into numbered questions, each question is treated on its own, with its proofs, its points of disagreement and its consequences, before moving on to the next. The title of his commentary on the Tahawiyya announces it plainly: the questions the Tahawiyya contains.

This method produces long, dense, highly structured commentaries that resemble a transcribed lecture course more than a book composed for reading. That is precisely what most of them are: recorded lessons, transcribed, reviewed and published with his consent, including on his official website. Unlike other scholars who refuse to let their lessons become books, he accepted that transition, and that is what gives his printed work its scope.

The consequence for you is clear. His commentaries are not entry points. They are for the reader who has already memorised the base text, studied it once with a shorter commentary, and now wants to cover it completely. At that stage, they render services few works render. Before that stage, they discourage.

His works

التمهيد لشرح كتاب التوحيد

His commentary on his ancestor's Kitab al-Tawhid. One of the three major contemporary commentaries on this text, and the most detailed of the three.

إتحاف السائل بما في الطحاوية من مسائل

His commentary on al-Tahawi's creed, in several volumes depending on the edition. The title states the method: the text is broken down into questions treated one by one.

شرح العقيدة الواسطية

His explanation of Ibn Taymiyya's treatise, in the same spirit. Widely studied in creed curricula after a first, shorter commentary.

شرح كشف الشبهات

His commentary on Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab's epistle on objections. A brief base text, an ample commentary.

شرح مسائل الجاهلية

His explanation of his ancestor's inventory of pre-Islamic practices, point by point.

شرح الأربعين النووية

His commentary on al-Nawawi's Forty Hadiths. One of his rare works outside the field of creed, and one of the most accessible.

هذه مفاهيمنا

A written, not transcribed, treatise in reply to a contemporary work on questions of creed. Polemical by nature, to be read as such.

To these should be added his commentaries on the Three Fundamentals, the Four Rules and other short texts by his ancestor, as well as transcribed lectures on various subjects.

Three commentaries on Kitab al-Tawhid: which to choose

This is the question that comes up most often about this author, because his commentary on Kitab al-Tawhid competes directly with two others, just as widely distributed.

Sheikh al-Fawzan's commentary, إعانة المستفيد, is the shortest and most accessible. It follows the text closely, explains without expanding, and suits a first reading or a reader whose Arabic is still fragile.

The commentary by Sheikh Muhammad ibn Salih al-Uthaymin, القول المفيد, is of medium length. It adds to the explanation a treatment of the texts cited and of the points of disagreement, and it is the one most students take for a second reading.

Sheikh Salih Al al-Sheikh's commentary, التمهيد, is the longest and most technical. It breaks each chapter into questions, discusses the positions, goes back to the sources. It is the one taken for a third reading, or kept as a reference to verify a specific point.

Our advice is to take them in that order, as your level and your need evolve. Buying al-Tamhid first, because it is the most complete, is the most common mistake with this title, and the most costly in discouragement.

Buy Sheikh Salih Al al-Sheikh's books in Arabic

Every book sold by My Maktaba is in Arabic, in its original edition, and every one is new. For each title, the listing states the publisher, year, number of volumes, format and whether the text is vocalised. For his commentaries, the number of volumes varies markedly from one edition to another: check it before ordering.

If you are discovering this author, start with his commentary on the Forty Hadiths, the shortest and most accessible of his works, before approaching his commentaries on creed. And for the latter, keep to the order: the base text first, a short commentary next, his own last. You will then draw from it everything it contains.