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Muhammad Nasir al-Din (Arabic: مُحَمَّد نَاصِر ٱلدِّيْن ٱلْأَلْبَانِي; Albanian: Muhamed Nasr ed-Din el-Albani; 1914 – 2 October 1999) also known as Al-Albani, was an Albanian Shaykh known for being a leading hadith scholar in the 20th-century. A major figure in Islamic history, he began his journey in Syria, where his family had moved prior and where he was educated as a child.

Al-Albani had emphasised that in some cases, Islam allows obedience to the government of the country that a Muslim resides in. His profession was as a watchmaker. In his free time, he sought Islamic knowledge. Gradually and just by seeking Islamic knowledge, he became an expert in Hadith and its sciences. He then lectured widely in the Middle East, Spain and the United Kingdom on the Salafi movement consequently.

Early life and education

Muhammad Nasir al-Din was born in 1914 in Shkodër, Albania. His father, Nuh Najati, was a learned scholar of the Hanafi school of Sunni Islam who had studied jurisprudence in Istanbul. Fearing the rise of secularism during the rule of Zog I of Albania, Ahmed Muhtar Zogu, Najati separated his son from school in Albania. At the age of nine in 1923, al-Albani and his family moved to Damascus, then found himself under French-occupied Syria.

In Damascus, he was taught the Qur'an, fiqh, and other topics by his father and several local shaykhs. He learned the Arabic language from al-Is'af, a non-profit civil school where he was to be known as Al-Albani ("the Albanian") just after he dropped out of school and began to write. Afterwards, he studied the renowned Hanafi book, Maraqi al-Falah of al-Shurunbulali (d. 1659) with his teacher, Sa'id al-Burhani.

He studied the book Mukhtasar al-Quduri, which his native Syrian teachers helped to accomplish . In the meantime, he earned a modest living as a carpenter before joining his father as a watchmaker.

Study

Despite his father's discouragement against hadith studies, al-Albani became interested in the Hadith, learning it at about twenty years of age, influenced by Muhammad Rashid Rida. Al-Albani's other teachers were Muhammad Bahjat al-Baytar, 'Izz al din al tanoukhi,Shaykh Sa'id al-Burhani,Ibn al Baghi etc. who collectively led him to comment on Abd al-Rahim ibn al-Husain al-'Iraqi's Al-Mughnee 'an-hamlil-Asfar fil-Asfar fee takhrej maa fil-lhyaa min al-Akhbar. Following this, he wrote a series of lectures and books, and published as well articles in the al-Manar magazine. This work was the beginning of his career as a scholar, and for this book, he became known among the scholarly circles of Damascus. After a while, he began teaching two lessons per week about doctrine, Fiqh and Hadith, which were attended by students and university professors. Additionally, he began organizing advocacy trips to various cities of Syria and Jordan. Then, he obtained a leave from Muhammad Rabegh Al Tabakh, to profess Hadith in Islamic University of Madinah from 1381 until 1383 AH, subsequently returning to Damascus.

Later life and death

In 1963, al-Albani left Saudi Arabia due to the hostility he felt and returned to his studies and work in the Az-Zahiriyah library in Syria. He left his watch shop in the hands of one of his brothers.

Al-Albani visited various countries for preaching and lectures – amongst them Qatar, Egypt, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Spain, and the United Kingdom. He moved a number of times between Syria and a couple of cities in Jordan. He also lived in the UAE. After Bin Baz's intervention with Saudi educational management, al-Albani was invited to Saudi Arabia a second time in order to serve as the head of higher education in Islamic law in Mecca.

Al-Albani returned to Syria, and sometime later moved to Jordan, living there for the remainder of his time. He died in 1999 at the age of 85. Al-Albani's wife was Umm al-Fadl.

Views

Al-Albani was a proponent of Salafism, and is considered one of the movement's primary figureheads in the 20th century. Al-Albani criticized the four mainstream schools of Islamic law and rejected the traditional Sunni view that Muslims should automatically turn to a madhhab for fiqh (jurisprudence). Instead, he spent much of his life critically re-evaluating hadith literature and felt that numerous previously accepted hadiths were unsound. This led him to produce rulings that were at odds with the Islamic majority. Although Salafism has frequently been associated with Wahhabism, al-Albani distinguished between the two movements, and he criticized the latter while supporting the former. He had a complex relationship with each movement.

Al-Albani was amongst some leading Salafi scholars who were preaching for decades against what they considered the warped literalism of extremists. They believed that Muslims should focus on purifying their beliefs and practice and that, in time, "God would bring victory over the forces of falsehood and unbelief."

Al-Albani openly criticized Sayyid Qutb after the leader was executed. He claimed that Qutb had deviated in creed and held the belief of Oneness of Being. Further, al-Albani accused Hassan al-Banna, the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, of not being a religious scholar and holding "positions contrary to the Sunna".

Formula for Salah (Prayer)

Al-Albani wrote a book in which he redefined the proper gestures and formula that constitute the Muslim prayer ritual abiding by the prophet Muhammad's teachings. These were contrary to the prescriptions of all established schools of jurisprudence.As he argued that several details of the concrete prayer that have been taught from generation to generation were based on dubious hadith, his book caused considerable controversy.

Controversies

Al-Albani held a number of controversial views that ran counter to the wider Islamic consensus, and more specifically to Hanbali jurisprudence. These include:

• his view that mihrabs – the niche found in mosques indicating the direction of Mecca – were bid'ah (innovation).
• his view that it was permissible to pray in a mosque with one's shoes.
• his call for Palestinians to leave the occupied territories since, according to him, they were unable to practice their faith there as they should. This view was also controversial within the Salafi movement.
• his view that it is prohibited for women to wear gold bracelets.

Works

Emad Hamdeh has described al-Albani as a "prolific scholar". He was the author of 217 books on various topics; such as hadith, fiqh, and creed.

Notes

References

1. Wagemakers 2016, p. 100.
2. ^ Thurston 2016, p. 59.
3. Lav 2012, p. 108.
4. Hamdeh 2016, pp. 9–10.
5. Hamdeh 2016, pp. 10–11.
6. ^ Meijer, Roel (2009-10-01). Global Salafism: Islam's new religious movement. New York, the USA: C. Hurst & Co., Columbia University Press. pp. 63–68. ISBN 9781850659792. In this way he became a self-taught expert on Islam, learning from the books rather than the ulema. One of his biographers even states that al-Albani was distinguished in religious circles by how few ijazats (certificates) he possessed.
7. ^ Sheikh Mohammad Nasir Ad-Din Al-Albani, King Faisal International Prize official website. Accessed November 26, 2014.
8. ^ Lacroix, Stephane; Holoch, George (2011-08-15). Awakening Islam. Harvard University Press. pp. 68–220. ISBN 978-0-6740-6107-1.
9. ^ Bruinessen, Martin van; Allievi, Stefano (2013-06-17). Producing Islamic Knowledge: Transmission and Dissemination in Western Europe. Routledge. p. 5. ISBN 978-1-1369-3286-1.
10. لقاء مع أم الفضل زوجة الشيخ الألباني رحمه الله [A Sitting with Umm al-Fadl, Wife of Shaikh al-Albaani (May Allaah have mercy on him)] (PDF). The Albaani Site. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2020-11-08.
11. Hamdeh, Emad (2017-06-09). "Qurʾān and Sunna or the Madhhabs?: A Salafi Polemic Against Islamic Legal Tradition". Islamic Law and Society. 24 (3): 211–253. doi:10.1163/15685195-00240A01. ISSN 1568-5195.
12. ^ Inge, Anabel (2016-01-01). The Making of a Salafi Muslim Woman: Paths to Conversion. Oxford University Press. p. 25. ISBN 9780-1-9061-1675.
13. A. C. Brown, Jonathan (2014). Misquoting Muhammad: The Challenge and Choices of Interpreting the Prophet's Legacy. Oneworld Publications. p. 129. ISBN 978-1780744209.
14. ^ Stephane Lacroix (Spring 2008), Al-Albani's Revolutionary Approach to Hadith (PDF), Leiden University's ISIM Review, p. 6, archived from the original (PDF) on October 10, 2017, retrieved February 13, 2013
15. Batrawi, Samar (28 October 2015). "What ISIS Talks About When It Talks About Palestine". Foreign Affairs. Foreign Affairs. Retrieved 5 June 2016.
16. Brown, Jonathan (2007-06-05). The Canonization of Al-Bukhari and Muslim: The Formation and Function of the Sunni Hadith Canon. Brill. p. 325. ISBN 978-9004158399.
17. Hamdeh, Emad (2021). Salafism and Traditionalism: Scholarly Authority in Modern Islam. Cambridge University Press. p. 41. ISBN 978-1-108-61836-6. A prolific scholar, he authored 217 books on various topics such as ḥadīth, fiqh, and creed.

Sources

• Lav, Daniel (2012). Radical Islam and the Revival of Medieval Theology. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-1070-0964-6.
• Bruinessen, Martin van; Allievi, Stefano (2013-06-17). Producing Islamic Knowledge: Transmission and dissemination in Western Europe. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-1369-3285-4.
• Hamdeh, Emad (July 2016). "The Formative Years of an Iconoclastic Salafi Scholar". The Muslim World. 106 (3): 411–432. doi:10.1111/muwo.12157. ISSN 0027-4909.
• Hegghammer, Thomas; Lacroix, Stéphane (February 2007). "Rejectionist Islamism in Saudi Arabia: The Story of Juhayman al-ʿUtaybi Revisited" (PDF). International Journal of Middle East Studies. 39 (1): 103–122. doi:10.1017/S0020743807002553. JSTOR 4129114. S2CID 163081762.
• Hamdeh, Emad (2017-06-09). "Qurʾān and Sunna or the Madhhabs?: A Salafi Polemic Against Islamic Legal Tradition". Islamic Law and Society. 24 (3): 211–253. doi:10.1163/15685195-00240A01. ISSN 1568-5195.
• Norris, Harry Thirlwall (1993). Islam in the Balkans: religion and society between Europe and the Arab world. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0-87249-977-5.
• Brachman, Jarret M. (2008-09-03). Global Jihadism: Theory and Practice. Routledge. p. 33. ISBN 978-1-1340-5541-8.
• Thurston, Alexander (2016). Salafism in Nigeria: Islam, Preaching, and Politics. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-1071-5743-9.
• Wagemakers, Joas (2016). Salafism in Jordan: Political Islam in a Quietist Community. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-10716-366-9.

External links

• The Albaani Site – Translations from His Works – Updated Regularly
• Official Website of Sheikh Al-Albani
• Pages 6-7: Al-Albani's Revolutionary Approach to Hadith - 2-page article on Al-Albani's hadith methodology in a backdrop to nepotism among Salafi scholars in Saudi Arabia

• 1914 births
• 1999 deaths
• 20th-century imams
• Albanian Sunni Muslim scholars of Islam
• 20th-century Albanian writers
• 20th-century Syrian writers
• Albanian Arabic-language writers
• Carpenters
• Hadith scholars
• Non-conformists
• Albanian Islamic religious leaders
• 20th-century Muslim scholars of Islam
• People from Shkodër
• Albanian Salafis
• Wahhabism
• Sunni imams
• Critics of Shia Islam
• Watchmakers (people)
• Albanian emigrants to Syria
• Atharis
• Zahiris
• Salafi Quietists
• Biographical evaluation scholars