Mohamad Rateb Al-Nabulsi

Early life and education

He was born in Damascus on 29 January 1938 into a family of scholars; his father taught in the city's mosques and left him a large library. After graduating from the teachers' institute in 1956, he earned a degree in Arabic language and literature from Damascus University in 1964, a teaching qualification diploma with distinction in 1966 and a master's degree in literature from the University of Lyon. In 1999 he received a doctorate in education from Trinity College Dublin. Alongside his academic studies he learned tafsir, hadith, fiqh, sira and inheritance law from Damascene scholars, and received an ijaza to transmit hadith from Sheikh Subhi al-Salih.

Teaching and preaching

After teaching in secondary schools, he lectured at the Faculty of Education of Damascus University from 1969 to 1999, and taught scientific signs in the Quran and Sunnah, Islamic creed and the principles of education at the Damascus branches of Al-Azhar and Omdurman universities and at the Islamic University of Tripoli. From 1974 he delivered the Friday sermon and weekly lessons in creed, tafsir, hadith, fiqh and sira at the Damascus mosque of his forebear Sheikh Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi, and also taught at the Umayyad Mosque. He founded a Quran memorisation institute, the al-Nabulsi sharia secondary school (2006) and the Sheikh Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi Complex for Islamic Sciences.

His lessons have been broadcast by many Arab radio stations and on channels such as Iqraa and Al-Resalah, including series on the Divine Names, a commentary on Al-A'raf and "civilisational fiqh". His website, the Nabulsi Encyclopedia, publishes his lessons and books in seven languages.

Works

His publications include a ten-volume Quran commentary, an Encyclopedia of the Beautiful Names of Allah, an Encyclopedia of Scientific Signs in the Quran and Sunnah and many other books, such as Ta'ammulat fi al-Islam (Reflections on Islam) and Rabi' al-Iman (The Spring of Faith).

Since 2011

An opponent of Bashar al-Assad's government, he left Syria after the 2011 uprising began and settled in Jordan. He returned to Damascus on 31 December 2024, after the fall of the regime, and in March 2025 was appointed to Syria's Supreme Fatwa Council.