Among those who saw not just the surface of Imam Nawawi’s life but the inner radiance of his soul was the spiritual sage Shaykh Muhammad ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Ansārī. One day, he met Imam Nawawi’s foremost student, Ibn al-ʿAṭṭār, and said: “You know Imam al-Qushayrī, don’t you? The one who authored al-Risāla on the masters of the spiritual path?

If he had ever met your teacher, Imam Nawawi, or his teacher Abū Isḥāq, he would have begun his book with their names.

Such was their knowledge, their detachment from the world, their subtlety, and their depth of insight.”

For all his towering knowledge across disciplines, Imam Nawawi lived with the utter simplicity of a dervish. He clung to no worldly pleasures. Imam al-Dhahabī observes: “He renounced rich foods, luxuries, and comfort.

He lived with a trembling awe of God, content with the barest essentials.

In public and private, he was wholly absorbed in God’s gaze.

Even natural pride in his appearance or clothing—he had shed it all.”

Those close to him often tried to persuade him to ease his asceticism, but it was to no avail.

ʿAllāmah Rashīd al-Dīn once pleaded with him: “Why do you live like this, O Imam? Why such strictness in food, clothing, even in your daily life?

Aren’t you afraid your health might break down, and then the Ummah will lose the blessings you bring?”

But Nawawi replied, with a strange and luminous calm: “A man fasts for God. He worships God. And in the end, even his bones become fragrant with light.

Strength is not drawn from worldly bread, but from the unseen nourishment of the soul.”

At that moment, Rashīd al-Dīn says, he understood: “This man is not planning to stay long in the world. His concern is not what we think of. I turned and walked away.”

Even the fruits of Damascus, Imam Nawawi avoided. One day, a student asked him: “Why don’t you eat any of this fruit?”

His answer was unexpected: “I’ve heard that much of the agricultural land here is waqf (endowed in trust for the poor and orphans).

It is only right that its produce goes to those most in need.

But sadly, I doubt whether even one in a thousand among the people today honors this trust.

How then can I, in good conscience, eat from it?”

Whatever he could not verify as clearly ḥalāl, Nawawi stayed far away from.

He would not accept anything from anyone. Even the official stipend allocated to him by al-Ashrafiyya University, where he served as principal, was never truly taken for himself.

It is said that early on, he asked the registrar to hold those funds. After a year, he would use that sum to buy books or property—not for himself, but to endow it back to the madrasa’s library or to the institution as waqf.

Eventually, he stopped accepting any payment at all.

Imam al-Dhahabī confirms: “From the day he was appointed principal at Dār al-Ḥadīth, he never touched the salary owed to him.

He lived only on the simplest foods that his beloved father would occasionally send.

He accepted almost nothing from anyone—except on rare occasions, and only from those he deemed truly trustworthy in their religion.”

One story remained etched in his heart—the story of Ubayy ibn Kaʿb, the noble Companion.

Once, Ubayy taught Qur’an to a man in Yemen. As a gift, the man offered him a beautiful bow. When the Prophet ﷺ heard of it, he said: “If you take it, Ubayy, then know—you have taken a bow from the fire.”

Imam Nawawi remembered that. Not because receiving wages is impermissible—it isn’t. But because he had chosen a path of absolute renunciation, a path for the few.

His lifestyle was not a doctrine he imposed on others. He never demanded that others follow his ways. He was content if others enjoyed good food, wore fine clothes. He would quote: “The Prophet ﷺ loved honey and sweet confections.”

And he would explain: “This ḥadīth teaches us that enjoying good food is not against zuhd (asceticism) or closeness to God.”

His extreme restraint wasn’t because the world was haram to him—it was because he never wanted even the shadow of doubt to fall over what he consumed, what he touched, what he taught.

His every breath was a trust. His every moment, weighed. His every crumb, questioned.

Such was Imam Nawawi—not a scholar living in the world, but a servant already leaning toward the next. In the end, he didn’t abandon the world.
He simply refused to be claimed by it.