Al-Malik al-Zahir Baybars, the fourth sultan of the Mamluk dynasty, was a name that sent shivers down the spines of Crusaders and Tatars alike. A fierce warrior, a shrewd ruler. But even lions, they say, have moments of desperation.
The Tatars had to be driven out of Syria. War needed wealth. And wealth… was running dry. The Sultan brooded, paced, schemed. Then came a decree, as sharp and sudden as a sword unsheathed: “Summon the scholars of the realm. Demand a fatwa—signed and sealed—from each one. Let it be declared religiously lawful to seize the private wealth of the people. The state is in need, and in need, extraordinary measures are justified.”
Thus letters were sent across the lands. The jurists and scholars of Damascus were summoned to the court, each expected to sign their name beneath a ruling that would allow the Sultan to use public and private wealth alike for his cause.
But conscience is not easily bought. Many scholars refused. Some paid with their lives. Others, trembling with fear, bent under the pressure. Their signatures were forced, their hearts heavy. Still, the Sultan wanted more.
“Are there any left?” he demanded.
His men replied, “Yes, there is one more. But he refuses to appear.”
“Bring him,” Baybars thundered.
And so, into the royal court came a frail figure—his robe modest, his frame thin, his eyes clear. He stood without fear before the Sultan.
“We require your signature,” the Sultan ordered. “Sign the fatwa.”
The scholar did not flinch.
“I cannot,” he said, firm and calm.
The Sultan’s voice grew hot with rage. “Why not?”
The reply was a sword of its own, forged in truth:
“I know your story well, O Sultan. Once, you were a mere slave in the house of al-Bunduqdār. You owned nothing. But then God elevated you. From chains, He raised you to the throne. Now I hear you have a thousand Mamluks under your command. Each one wears a belt of gold. You possess two hundred slave girls, each adorned with untold ornaments.
“Sell their jewelry. Replace the golden belts with plain woolen ones. Your concubines don’t need gold—they can live with cloth. Spend from your own treasury, your own palaces. Drain your public funds and state storages first. When that is all exhausted, come to me. Then, and only then, will I consider signing such a fatwa.
“As for jihad and struggle in the path of God, that requires broken hearts turned toward Him, not greed that reaches into the homes of the people. Follow the example of the Prophet—not the whims of power.”
Baybars was livid. Who dared speak so? His rage thundered across the court.
“Who is this man?! Strip him of every position! Let him never receive another coin from the treasury!”
The courtiers shifted uncomfortably.
“O Sultan,” they whispered, “he holds no position. He’s never accepted a stipend. He’s not part of the official system.”
The Sultan was silenced—for a moment. Then, unable to contain his fury, he roared: “Let me never see him again in Damascus! Expel him at once!”
The scholar nodded gently.
“As you wish,” he said, and walked out of the court with quiet dignity.
A curious voice behind the Sultan asked: “Why, O Sultan, did you spare him? Why not kill him like the others?”
Baybars’ voice dropped, strange and shaken: “I wanted to. But as I raised my eyes to him, I saw—clearly, as if in a vision—two fierce beasts upon his shoulders, baring their fangs at me. I could not move.”
That scholar, whose mere presence made a mighty Sultan tremble, was none other than Imam Nawawi.
The name Nawawi comes from the small village of Nawa, nestled in the Hawran region near Damascus. His grandfather, Hissam, was the first of the family to settle there. His full name: Abu Zakariyya Yahya ibn Sharaf al-Nawawi.
Though the world came to know him by the honorific Muḥyī al-Dīn—“Reviver of the Faith”—Imam Nawawi was uneasy with grand titles. He was known to have said: “I do not approve of those who call me that.”
His father, Sharaf ibn Mura, was a man of humble trade and sublime character—a gentle soul who shunned materialism and followed the path of the awliya (friends of God). Imam Alā’ al-Dīn ibn al-ʿAṭṭār described him as “a man of delicate insight and noble manners.”
Imam al-Dhahabi referred to him as a shaykhun mubārak—a blessed and venerable elder.
When Imam Nawawi passed away in the year 685 Hijri, funeral prayers were held for him across the lands. He had left no wealth, no estate, no throne—only his piety, his knowledge, and his refusal to bow before kings. And that, perhaps, was his true legacy.
