An-Nawawi and His Comprehensive Supplication Collection

Yahya ibn Sharaf Al-Nawawi (631–676 AH / 1233–1277 CE) was one of the greatest Islamic scholars of the medieval period, a towering figure in Shafi'i jurisprudence, hadith commentary, and Islamic spirituality. Born in Nawa (a town near Damascus in Syria), he spent most of his scholarly life in Damascus, where he taught at the Dar al-Hadith al-Ashrafiyyah. His short life — he died at approximately 45 years of age — was remarkable for its productivity, producing works that became permanent references in Islamic scholarship.

Al-Nawawi's major works span multiple disciplines. In hadith, his commentary on Sahih Muslim (al-Minhaj Sharh Sahih Muslim) is the definitive commentary on that collection. His Riyadh as-Salihin is the most widely used hadith anthology for general Islamic education. His works on hadith terminology (al-Irshad, al-Taqrib wa at-Taysir) are among the most taught introductions to the hadith sciences. And his al-Adhkar is the most comprehensive collection of authenticated prophetic supplications and formulas of remembrance.

Al-Adhkar an-Nawawiyyah (The Remembrances of Al-Nawawi), commonly known simply as al-Adhkar, is organized to cover the supplications (adhkar is the plural of dhikr) appropriate for every time, place, and circumstance of Muslim life. From the supplication upon waking to the supplication upon going to sleep, from entering the mosque to leaving it, from beginning a journey to arriving at one's destination, from times of difficulty to times of joy — Al-Nawawi assembled the authenticated prophetic formulas for all of them.

The work represents Al-Nawawi's conviction that authentic dhikr practice — using the specific formulas transmitted from the Prophet with sound chains — is a spiritual discipline as important as any other, and that it requires the same critical methodology as hadith authentication. He explicitly notes the chains and reliability of the supplications he includes, distinguishing the strongly authenticated from those with some weakness in their chains.