The collection of Forty Hadith by al-Imam an-Nawawi has been known, accepted and appreciated by Muslim scholars for the last seven centuries. Its significance lies in the fact that these selected forty hadiths comprise the main essential and fundamental concepts of Islam which, in turn, construct the minimum level of required revealed knowledge for every single Muslim.
Since good knowledge of the fundamental aspects of the religion is key to a Muslim's practice and application of Islam, this book provides simple and practical commentaries on the collection. Various principles are contained in these hadiths — belief, Muslim ethics, and fiqh — and the commentaries also offer discussion of related contemporary issues arising from certain concepts within them.
From the Back Cover
This book, Forty Hadith, by the great scholar and specialist in many fields of knowledge, Al-Imam Yahya bin Sharaf An-Nawawi, contains a collection of narrations with simple expressions entailing comprehensive meanings from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, generally called Ahadith al-Jawami'.
Al-Imam An-Nawawi so carefully selected authentic narrations to widely cover the issues of the pillars of Islam and Iman, excellent manners, good conduct, other noble deeds, and some fundamentals of adjudication. By Allah's will, the book has had great positive impact and found acceptance among Muslims generation after generation. Allah alone knows the number of commentaries and explanations of An-Nawawi's Forty Hadith given by the people of knowledge and their students over time.
How This Particular Commentary Came About
This commentary was given during lectures delivered by the eminent Shaykh Dr. Salih bin Fawzan bin Abdullah Al-Fawzan — may Allah preserve him upon goodness — after the Fajr prayers at the Hammad As-Salamah Mosque in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in the year 1426 AH.
The audio was painstakingly transcribed and edited to produce the original Arabic text on which this work depends. That origin is worth knowing: it accounts for the directness of the explanation, which was spoken to a congregation rather than composed for a reader.
ISBN: 978-1-911448-78-5
Why These Forty Need a Commentary
Because An-Nawawi selected them for a specific reason: each carries a principle rather than a single ruling. Scholars have described them as poles around which the whole religion turns — short enough to memorize in a minute and deep enough that entire volumes have been written on each.
Other Forty-Hadith Collections
