Biography of Imām al-Nawawī
By: Zuhayr al-Shāwish

He is the erudite imām, ḥadīth scholar Abū Zakariyyā Muḥyī al-Dīn Yaḥyā ibn Sharaf al-Nawawī al-Dimashqī, the Shāfiʿī jurist.

He was one of the towering figures of Islam in his age, and he remains a model for the learned—let alone for ordinary Muslims—down to this very day. And that is no surprise, for anyone who lives as Imām al-Nawawī lived is surely fit to be taken as an exemplar.

May Allah have mercy on him: he reached the loftiest heights in knowledge, asceticism, scrupulous piety, righteous deeds, and the courage to address both commoners and notables, even sultans. He turned away from what people possessed, content with what is with Allah, and was thus granted moral authority over them all.

Imām al-Nawawī was neither the eldest scholar of his time, nor the most learned in every discipline—and the same is true when he is compared with those who came after him—yet Allah, Exalted is He, cast love for him into people’s hearts and placed benefit and acceptance in his writings. Such matters are purely divine: they lie beyond human intervention and do not conform to the scales and measures to which people are accustomed. Rather, it is the grace of Allah; He bestows it upon whomever He wills.

He was born in 631 AH in the town of Nawa, one of the villages of Ḥawrān south of Damascus. While still young he came to Damascus in 649 AH and first resided in the Rawāḥiyya School ⦗1⦘ and then in the house