Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi

Who was Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi?

Shaykh ′Abd al-Ghani ibn Isma′il al-Nablusi, an eminent Muslim scholar and Sufi, was born in Damascus in 1641 into a family of Islamic scholarship. His father, Isma'il Abd al-Ghani, was a jurist in the Hanafi school of Sunni Islam and a contributor to Arabic literature. He was orphaned at an early age. Abd al-Ghani did not trace his descent to the city of [Nablus] as some laymen think, hence his surname Nabulsi has nothing to deal with the city of.

Before the age of 20 he was teaching and giving formal legal opinions. He joined both the mystical orders Qadiriyya and Naqshbandi. He then studies in isolation in his house for 7 years studying divine experiences. He taught in the Umawi Mosque in Damascus and the Salihiyya Madrasa, becoming renowned throughout the region as an accomplished Islamic scholar. He travelled extensively, seeing Istanbul, Lebanon, Jerusalem, Palestine, Egypt, Arabia, and Tripoli.

He died and was buried in Damascus in 1731 at 90 years of age. He left behind hundreds of written works.