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‹Imam Nawawi's 40 Hadiths

40 Hadith of an-Nawawī

Al-Arbaʿūn
an-Nawawiyyah.

Imām an-Nawawī’s anthology of the 42 most pivotal hadiths. Each carries the weight of a chapter — memorise them, and the spine of the religion is with you.

✿ From the preface

“Every one of these hadiths is a major axis of Islam — described by the scholars as the pivot of the religion, or half of it, or a third.”

Imām Yaḥyā ibn Sharaf an-Nawawī · d. 676 AH

Themes

Intention · 1Creed · 6Worship · 6Character · 7Community · 6Tongue · 1Mercy · 4Knowledge · 2Hereafter · 2Patience · 1Qadar · 2Ḥalāl · 4

All 42 Hadiths

About this collection

Why are there 42 hadiths if it's called the 'Forty'?+
The word arbaʿūn (forty) in Islamic literature is a traditional idiom for 'a trusted collection of hadiths on the pillars of the religion'. Imām an-Nawawī (d. 676 AH) originally built on a collection of 26 by Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ, expanded it to 40, and then added two more to reach 42 — all of which circulated together, preserving the title.
Why this collection specifically?+
Nawawī chose hadiths that, in his preface, 'every hadith is a major axis of Islam — described by scholars as the pivot of Islam, or half of it, or a third.' Memorising them gives a Muslim the skeleton of the religion: creed, worship, halal/haram, character, community, the hereafter.
Are all 42 ṣaḥīḥ (authenticated)?+
The overwhelming majority are from Bukhārī, Muslim, or other top-tier collections. Hadith 41 in particular has a disputed chain; Nawawī included it because its meaning is supported across the Qur'an and Sunnah. Each entry on this site lists its source so you can verify.
What's the best way to study it?+
The classical method is to memorise one hadith per week with its translation, reflect on it through the week, then listen to a brief commentary (Ibn Rajab's Jāmiʿ al-ʿUlūm wa al-Ḥikam is the standard reference). Our per-hadith pages give you the matn, translation and a short original commentary — the scaffolding for deeper study, not a replacement for scholarship.
Who was Imām an-Nawawī?+
Yaḥyā ibn Sharaf an-Nawawī (631–676 AH / 1233–1277 CE) was a Shāfiʿī scholar from Nawā, Syria. His Arbaʿūn, Riyāḍ al-Ṣāliḥīn, al-Adhkār and Minhāj al-Ṭālibīn are pillars of the Shāfiʿī school and widely read across madhāhib. He died at 45, leaving a body of work that the ummah has studied for eight centuries.

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