Muhammad Nasiruddin al-Albani

Muhammad Nasiruddin al-Albani was born in the year 1914; he died on the 2^nd October, 1999. He was a student of Albania of the 20^th century, and he is good at the fields of Hadith and Fiqh. He was also a writer and a speaker.

source of picture: makalahmajannaii.blogspot.com

Biography

Albania was born and raised into a poor family in the city of Shkoder in the northwestern part of Albania. At the time of the leadership of Ahmet Zogu, secularist leader of the country, his family relocated to Damascus, Syria, because of the discontentment with the western-influenced views of the government of the country. In Syria, he finished his early education; he was initially taught by his father – in Quran, Arabic, Tajwid, Hanafi Fiqh, Linguistic science and some other branches of the Islamic faith with the assistance of the native student of the country, Syria. While he was doing so, he earned a little living from carpentry work before he joined his father in the business of making watch.

At 20, Albani started to specialize in the field of Hadith and the related sciences, as he was influenced by the articles in Al-Manaar magazine. He started working in the field by transliterating Abd al-Rahim ibn al-Husain al-'Iraqi's monumental Al-Mughnee 'an-hamlil-Asfar fil-Asfar fee takhrej maa fil-lhyaa min al-Akhbar.

Being known for the knowledge he has on the Hadith Studies in the country, Albani started giving informal weekly lessons from the year 1954. In the year 1960, the popularity he was getting started disturbing the government of the country, Syria despite his apolitical nature, so he was placed under investigation. After some his works has been seen in the print, he was given the invitation to teach Hadith in the Islamic University of Madinah, by the then-vice president of the University, Ibn Baz. Soon after he entered the school, his anti-traditionalist deportments became a thing of anger to the Wahhabi elite in Saudi Arabia, and they alarmed at the intellectual challenges of Abani to the ruling Hanbali School of law, though they could not openly challenge him because of the popularity he has gained. When Albani wrote a book in support of the view he had; that the Niqab was not a binding obligation upon the women of Muslim, he causes a little pandemonium in the nation and that gave his opponents the justification for permitting his contract with the university to expire without renewing the contract. In the year 1963, he left the country and went back to his studies and work in the Az-Zahiriyah library, and he left the shop of watch to his brothers.

In the year 1967, he was arrested by the government of Syria in a sweep of Sunni clerics and he was in prison for a month, before all of them were released from prison. After the intervention of Bin Baz with the management of Saudi education, he was also invited to Saudi Arabia for the second time to work as the head of higher education in the Islamic Law in Mecca.  Because of the problem of about the views of Albani, he did not stay there for a long time, he went back to Syria, and it was there that he was imprisoned for a short time again in the year 1979, at this time he had to move to Jordan.

He went to many countries like; Qatar, Egypt, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Spain and the United Kingdom to lecture and preach.

Works

His works, mainly in the field of Hadith and its sciences, number over 100 and include:

·         At-Targhib wa't-Tarhib (Volumes 1–4)

·         At-Tasfiyah wa't-Tarbiya

·         At-Tawassulu: Anwa'uhu wa Ahkamuhu (Tawassul: Its Types & Its Rulings)

·         Irwa al-Ghalil (Volumes 1–9)

·         Talkhis Ahkam al-Jana'iz

·         Sahih wa Da'if Sunan Abu Dawood (Volumes 1–4)

·         Sahih wa Da'if Sunan at-Tirmidhi (Volumes 1–4)

·         Sahih wa Da'if Sunan ibn Majah (Volumes 1–4)

·         Al-Aqidah at-Tahawiyyah Sharh wa Ta'liq

·         Sifatu Salati An-Nabiyy

·         Silsalat al-Hadith ad-Da'ifa (Volumes 1–14)

·         Silsalat al-Hadith as-Sahiha (Volumes 1–11)

·         Salat ut-Tarawih (later an abridgement of this book was published by al-Albani – Qiyamu Ramadhan)

·         Salat an-Nabawi (the prayer of the prophet in the light of authentic hadiths)