Muhammad Nāsir ad-Dīn al-Albānī

Muhammad b. Al-Hajj Nuh b. Nijati b. Adam al-Ischqudri al-Albani al-Arnauti ( Arabic محمد بن الحاج نوح بن نجاتي بن آدم الأشقودري الألباني الأرنؤوطي Muhammad Nāsir ad-Dīn al-Albānī , DMG Muḥammad Nāṣir ad-Dīn al-Albānī ; * 1914 in Shkodra , Principality of Albania ; † October 2, 1999 in Amman , Jordan ) was a well-known Islamic scholar from Albania who had great influence on the development of contemporary Islam.

Many mosques in the Muslim world are dedicated to Albani, such as the Green Mosque in Benghazi, Libya

Life

Albani was born in 1914 in Shkodra, Albania, his father Najati al-Albani studied Hanafi Fiqh in Istanbul during the Ottoman period . In 1923, after a secular government came to power, his family decided to leave the country and settle in Damascus . Here al-Albānī received instruction in Hanafi law, and he also trained as a watchmaker.

At the age of 20, he began to specialize in hadith studies. Albani continued to research in the area, despite the discouragement on the part of his father, who hoped that he would deal with simpler subjects. Financially unable to afford the books, Albani borrowed them frequently from the famous az-Zahiriya library in Damascus. The library owner then allocated him his own work space in which he could pursue his research. He is said to have only interrupted his work for prayer. He participated in the cataloging of Arabic manuscripts and manuscript catalogs in the library, which are still groundbreaking today. In 1954 al-Albānī began teaching hadeeth himself and became famous for his vast knowledge in the field.

Although al-Albānī avoided taking any political position, his growing popularity worried the Syrian government and placed him under house arrest in 1960. In 1961, at the suggestion of Abd al-Aziz ibn Baz, he was appointed to the newly founded Islamic University of Medina , where he taught hadith studies for the next two years. After several violent disputes with Wahhabi scholars here, his contract was not renewed in 1963 and he had to leave the kingdom. He lived in Syria for the following years, but was detained there twice for several months. After Sayyid Qutb was executed in 1965 and many Islamic movements paid homage to him, he was one of the few who openly criticized Qutb by attacking his concept of belief, which he believed to be elements of the Sufi teachings of Muhyī d- Dīn Ibn ʿArabi exhibited .

In 1975 he was appointed a member of the Supreme Council of the Islamic University of Medina and thus partially rehabilitated in Saudi Arabia. During this time he came into ever sharper opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood , whose supporters boycotted his lectures and wrote very negatively about him in their magazine al-Mujtamaʿ . Students of al-Albānī, who wanted to free Wahhabiism from the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood , formed a group called Ahl al-hadīth and against the " Islamic awakening " movement ( aṣ-ṣaḥwa al-islāmīya) that flourished in the early 1970s ) proceeded. With the occupation of the Great Mosque in 1979 , this group violently challenged the Saudi government. So al-Albānī had to leave Saudi Arabia again. He now settled in Jordan and lived under house arrest in Amman until his death . In his final years he was less confrontational.

In the year of his death, Al-Albānī was rehabilitated by being awarded the King Faisal International Prize for his study of hadith literature in Saudi Arabia.

reception

Albani's hadith studies were often criticized in the Islamic world for being too dogmatic and lacking in context. Above all, the opinion expressed by him in his book Ādāb al-Zifāf (The Labels of Marriage) that gold in the form of rings, ribbons or other round objects is also forbidden for women ( haram ) is also supported by the Salafist tendency, the al-Albani belonged to, rejected as wrong.

Among his editions of old hadith works of Islamic scholarship, one publication has been severely criticized: the "Book on the Priority of Speaking the Blessing on the Prophet (Mohammed)" by Isma'il ibn Ishaq al-Qadi († 895), a famous Malikiite Legal scholars of his time from Baghdad. As'ad Salim Tayyim examined the edition of al-Albani (1st edition Damascus 1963; 2nd edition Beirut 1969; 3rd edition Beirut 1977) on a total of 87 pages in small format and in his review of 60 (!) Pages significant shortcomings both in the edition and in al-Albani's comments.

literature

• Kamaruddin Amin: Nāṣiruddīn al-Albānī on Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ: A Critical Study of His Method. In: Islamic Law and Society. Vol. 11, No. 2, 2004, ISSN  0928-9380 , pp. 149-176, JSTOR 3399302 .
• Stéphane Lacroix: Between revolution and apoliticism: Nasir al-Din al-Albani and his impact on the shaping of contemporary Salafism. In: Roel Meijer (Ed.): Global Salafism. Islam's new religious movement. Hurst, London 2009, ISBN 978-1-85065-979-2 , pp. 58-80.
• Stéphane Lacroix: Awakening Islam. The politics of religious dissent in contemporary Saudi Arabia. Harvard University Press, Cambridge et al. 2011, ISBN 978-0-674-04964-2 , pp. 81-89.
• Andreas Meier: Nāsir ad-Dīn al-Albānī, pioneer of Salafism. In: Andreas Meier (Hrsg.): Political currents in modern Islam. Sources and Comments. Peter Hammer, Wuppertal 1995, ISBN 3-87294-724-9 , pp. 69–71, (special edition. Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung, Bonn 1995, ISBN 3-89331-239-0 ; also in the extended first edition: The political order des Islam. Programs and criticism between fundamentalism and reforms. Original voices from the Islamic world. Peter Hammer, Wuppertal 1994, ISBN 3-87294-616-1 (with an original text, in German)).

Web links

• Literature by and about Muhammad Nāsir ad-Dīn al-Albānī in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ See Lacroix: Awakening Islam. 2011, p. 81 f.
2. ^ Tilman Seidensticker: Islamism - History, Vordenker, Organizations , Munich, 2014, p. 67
3. ↑ See Lacroix: Awakening Islam. 2011, p. 83.
4. ↑ See Lacroix: Awakening Islam. 2011, p. 83.
5. ↑ See Lacroix: Awakening Islam. 2011, p. 83 f.
6. ↑ See Lacroix: Awakening Islam. 2011, p. 85.
7. ↑ See Lacroix: Awakening Islam. 2011, p. 86.
8. ↑ See Lacroix: Awakening Islam. 2011, p. 87.
9. ↑ See Lacroix: Awakening Islam. 2011, pp. 81, 86.
10. ↑ See Lacroix: Awakening Islam. 2011, p. 87.
11. ↑ Tilam Seidensticker: Islamism - history, thought leaders, organizations , Munich, 2014, p 69
12. ↑ Islam-QA Albani legal question
13. ↑ See: Fuat Sezgin : History of Arabic literature. Volume 1: Quranic studies, Ḥadīṭ, history, fiqh, dogmatics, mysticism. Up to about 430 H. Brill, Leiden 1967, pp. 475-476.
14. ↑ As'ad Sālim al-Tayyim: Bayān awhām al-Albānī fī taḥqīqihi li-kitāb faḍl aṣ-ṣalāt ʿalā n-nabīy ṣallā ʾllāhu ʿalaihi wa-sallam. Dār ar-Rāzī, Amman 1999.