1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Nawāwī
NAWĀWĪ [Abū Zakarīyya ibn Sharaf un-Nawāwī ] (1233–1278), Arabian writer, was born at Nawā near Damascus. In the latter city he studied from his eighteenth year, and there, after making the pilgrimage in 1253, he settled as a private scholar until 1267, when he succeeded Abu Shāma as professor of tradition at the Ashrafīyya school. He died at Nawā from overwork.
His manual of Moslem law according to the Shāfi‛ite school has been edited with French translation by van den Bergh, 2 vols., Batavia (1882–1884), and published at Cairo (1888). The Tahdhīb ul-Asma‛i has been edited as the Biographical Dictionary of Illustrious Men chiefly at the Beginning of Islam by F. Wüstenfeld (Göttingen, 1842–1847). The Taqrīb wa Taisīr, an introduction to the study of tradition, was published at Cairo, 1890, with Suyūṭī’s commentary. It has been in part translated into French by M. Marcais in the Journal asiatique, series ix., vols. 16-18 (1900–1901). Nawāwī’s collection of the forty (actually forty-two) chief traditions has been frequently published with commentaries in Cairo. For other works see C. Brockelmann’s Gesch. der arabischen Litteratur, vol. i. (Weimar, 1898). pp. 395-397. (G. W. T.)