About Riyad as-Salihin
Riyad as-Salihin is a selection of hadith compiled by Imam Yahya ibn Sharaf an-Nawawi. It is one of the most widely known and read books of hadith all over the world, containing approximately 1,900 carefully chosen hadith on ethics, manners, worship, knowledge, and other topics compiled from the Six Books of hadith. It is practical and accessible to Muslims of all levels.
Author Bio:
Abū Zakariyyā Yaḥyā ibn Sharaf al-Nawawī, popularly known as al-Nawawī or Imam Nawawī (631–676 A.H./1234–1277), was a Sunni Shafi'ite jurist and hadith scholar. He authored numerous and lengthy works ranging from hadith, to theology, biography, and jurisprudence. Al-Nawawi never married.
His Teachers:
During his stay at Damascus, he studied from more than twenty teachers who were regarded as masters and authority of their subject field and disciplines they taught. An-Nawawi studied Hadith, Islamic Jurisprudence, its principles, syntax and Etymology. His teachers included Abu Ibrahim Ishaq bin Ahmad AI-Maghribi, Abu Muhammad Abdur-Rahman bin Ibrahim Al-Fazari, Radiyuddin Abu Ishaq Ibrahim bin Abu Hafs Umar bin Mudar Al-Mudari, Abu Ishaq Ibrahim bin Isa Al-Muradi, Abul-Baqa Khalid bin Yusuf An-Nablusi, Abul-Abbas Ahmad bin Salim Al-Misri, Abu Abdullah Al-Jiyani, Abul-Fath Umar bin Bandar, Abu Muhammad At-Tanukhi, Sharafuddin Abdul-Aziz bin Muhammad Al-Ansari, Abul-Faraj Abdur-Rahman bin Muhammad bin Ahmad Al-Maqdisi, and Abul-Fada'il Sallar bin Al-Hasan Al Arbali among others.
His Death:
He died at Nawa at the relatively young age of 44. An-Nawawi's lasting legacy is his contribution to hadith literature through his momentous works Forty Hadiths and Riyadh as-Saaliheen. This made him respected in all madhabs, despite of him being of Shafi'i jurisprudence. According to Al-Dhahabi, Imam Nawawi's concentration and absorption in academic love gained proverbial fame. He had devoted all his time for learning and scholarship. Other than reading and writing, he spent his time contemplating on the interacted and complex issues and in finding their solutions. Sheikh Mohiuddin expresses his impression about Imam Nawawi as thus: Imaam an-Nawawi had three distinctive commendable qualities in his person. If anybody has only one out of these three, people turn to him in abundance for guidance. First, having knowledge and its dissemination. Second, to evade completely from the worldly inclinations, and the third, inviting to all that is good (Islam) enjoining virtue and forbidding vice. Imaam an-Nawawi had all three in him.
