Imam al-Nawawi

The imam Abu Zakariya Yahya al-Nawawi, a Sunni jurist and hadith scholar, whom Ibn Rajab describes as the imam jurist, ascetic and model. ¹

He compiled "al-Arba'in" of comprehensive hadiths (the Forty Hadiths of al-Nawawi). He began from the twenty-six hadiths in the session of "comprehensive hadiths" of Ibn al-Salah, and added to them until they reached forty-two hadiths. It became well known, its memorising spread, and commentators took care of it. ¹

The data attribute to him the book "Sharh Sahih Muslim", which appears in the references of the book's editor. ²

• The dates of birth and death and the details of his lineage are not in the source used, and need a biographical dictionary.

Tareq al-Suwaidan presents al-Nawawi as the model of God-granted acceptance: many wrote collections of forty hadiths, yet only his Forty spread through the world, and Riyad al-Salihin is hardly absent from a Muslim home beside the Qur'an ^{3 4}. Of his life: born in Nawa in the Hawran in Muharram 631 AH, he moved to Damascus at nineteen and lived there until death; he says he attended twelve lessons daily under twelve shaykhs — two on al-Wasit, and lessons on al-Muhadhdhab, al-Luma', logic, language, morphology, legal theory, transmitters' names and theology — keeping this up seven years without interruption ^{5 6 7}. He memorised the Six Books, the Muwatta' and the musnads of al-Shafi'i and Ahmad; when challenged on a citation from al-Wasit he answered 'I have studied it four hundred times'; and asked by Ibn Jama'a about sleep he said 'when sleep overcomes me I lean on the books a moment then awaken' — he slept upon his books in a room of the Rawahiyya school beside the Umayyad Mosque ^{8 9 10}. Of his works: al-Majmu' (his commentary on al-Muhadhdhab) — Ibn Kathir said had it been completed it would have had no peer — Rawdat al-Talibin, Minhaj al-Talibin, Tahdhib al-Asma' wa-l-Lughat, the commentary on Sahih Muslim, Riyad al-Salihin, al-Adhkar, al-Tibyan fi Adab Hamalat al-Qur'an, Manaqib al-Shafi'i and the Forty ^{11 12}. And when Ibn al-Attar ordered a thousand of his notebooks washed, he washed them with regret at heart — judging them lacking precision ^{13 14}. Of his asceticism: he never combined two dishes, ate treacle, vinegar or oil with bread, meat once a month, one meal after the evening prayer and one drink at dawn; he says he stayed two years in the school without laying his side on the ground, living on its stipend ^{15 16 17}. Abu Abdallah ibn Abi al-Fath the Hanbali saw him praying by a pillar in the dark Umayyad Mosque repeating 'stop them, for they are to be questioned' until dawn ^{18 19}. His stand with al-Zahir Baybars: when the sultan asked the scholars to sign a levy of extra taxes, all signed except al-Nawawi, who said 'you may take from the people only after the treasury's funds are spent and you, your wives, mamluks and princes return your surplus to it'; the sultan ordered his salary cut and was told he had none — he lived on what his father sent ^{20 21 22}. He became head of the Ashrafiyya hadith-house in Damascus until death, outshining his century's peers — Ibn al-Salah, Ibn Khallikan, Yaqut al-Hamawi, Abu Shamah and others ^{23 24}. He notes al-Nawawi never married, commenting that balance and the Prophet ﷺ's way are better, yet one who lacks a side does not lose all sides — he had the spiritualities with the knowledge ^{25 26}.