Mohammed Rateb al-Nabulsi

Mohammed Rateb al-Nabulsi is a Syrian preacher and writer, born in Damascus on 29 January 1938. He taught at Damascus University for about thirty years, became famous for his lessons and lectures on the scientific inimitability (i'jaz) of the Quran and the Sunna and for his series on the names of God and the Prophet's character (al-Shama'il), and is the founder and manager of the online Nabulsi Encyclopedia of Islamic Sciences. ^{1 2}

He grew up in Damascus, attended its primary, intermediate and secondary schools, and graduated from the Teacher Training College in 1956. He then studied Arabic language at the Faculty of Arts of Damascus University, graduating with a licentiate in 1964, and took a diploma in educational qualification with distinction in 1966. ^{1 2}

He went on to a master's degree in Arabic arts from the University of Lyon, and a doctorate in education from the University of Dublin (Trinity College) in 1999; his thesis was on raising children in Islam. ^{1 2}

He sought religious learning early, attending the lessons of a number of Damascus scholars in exegesis, hadith, jurisprudence, the Prophet's biography and inheritance law, and received an ijaza in hadith narration from his teacher Dr Subhi al-Salih. ¹

The sources disagree about his birth date: Arabic Wikipedia and Wikidata give 29 January 1938, the English article's infobox gives 26 December 1938 while its lead gives 29 January 1939, and an article in an Indonesian university journal also gives 26 December 1938. This record adopts the date two of its sources agree on, with the disagreement noted. ^{1 3 2}

He worked in state secondary teaching and then at university, as a lecturer at the Faculty of Education of Damascus University from 1969 to 1999. ¹

He afterwards taught the subject of scientific i'jaz in the Quran and the Sunna at the faculties of Sharia and Fundamentals of Religion of Al-Azhar University's al-Fath al-Islami Institute branch in Damascus, Islamic creed at Omdurman Islamic University's branch at the Abu al-Noor complex in Damascus, and fundamentals of education at Tripoli Islamic University, and he supervised the magazine Nahj al-Islam, published by Syria's Ministry of Awqaf. ¹

He is a founding member of the Syrian association against smoking and harmful substances, president of the Syrian Child Rights Association, and head of the Quranic I'jaz authority. ¹

In 1974 he ascended the pulpit of his grandfather, Sheikh Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi, in his mosque, and founded there weekly lessons in creed, exegesis, hadith, jurisprudence and the Prophet's biography. He also preached and taught for a time at the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, and lectured in most of Syria's cultural centres. ¹

He worked to build an Islamic complex comprising a Quran memorisation institute, a sharia secondary school and an Islamic university. He founded the memorisation institute, which today has more than five hundred students, and in 2006 the official Sheikh Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi Sharia secondary school opened with about five hundred students; the complex is officially named the Sheikh Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi Complex for Islamic Sciences. ¹

He represented Syria at many international conferences from 1993, including ISESCO, family, Islamic jurisprudence and scientific-i'jaz conferences, lectured in many Arab and foreign countries, and accepted official invitations that included an address to the German parliament and visits to China, the United States, Australia and several European countries. ¹

Al-Nabulsi has many television lessons, talks and series broadcast by channels including Syria TV, Iqraa, Cham TV, Addounia TV, Al-Resalah, Infinity, Future TV, Abu Dhabi TV and Sharjah TV. Among his series are "Anwar al-Quran" (Lights of the Quran), "Ala al-Huda" (On Guidance), "al-Shama'il al-Nabawiyya" (The Prophet's Character), "Asma' Allah al-Husna" (The Names of God) and "Allamna" (He Taught Us), and he took part in the programme "Sawa'id al-Ikha'". ^{1 2}

He founded the Nabulsi Encyclopedia of Islamic Sciences on the internet (nabulsi.com), which holds his sermons and lectures on creed, exegesis, hadith, the Prophet's biography and education. The article puts it at close to 250,000 pages, with a free audio library of more than ten thousand audio files and a video channel in several languages. ^{1 3}

The Arabic article describes him as an opponent of the Ba'ath regime and of President Bashar al-Assad. He was living in Syria; after the Syrian revolution began in 2011 he moved to Jordan, and after the fall of the Assad regime he returned to Syria in 2024. ^{1 2}

This section sets out different positions as reported in the sources. It is not a verdict by the museum.

The scientific-i'jaz approach. Much of al-Nabulsi's fame rests on his lessons on the "scientific inimitability of the Quran and the Sunna". His printed encyclopedia on the subject runs to two volumes and twenty editions; he taught the subject at universities and institutes and made it a set subject at the al-Fath al-Islami Institute through his book. The approach is widely embraced by his audience; academic and dawah voices criticise tying Quranic texts to changing scientific theories as methodologically risky. The museum presents the approach as the sources describe it, without adopting a judgement on it. ¹

Criticism by the Investigative Project on Terrorism. In 2014, during a fundraising tour of the United States for Syrian organisations, the Investigative Project on Terrorism — a US advocacy organisation openly critical of him — published a report attacking his being granted a visa. It quoted an essay he published in 2001 on the ruling on martyrdom operations in Palestine, in which he said he was too insignificant to issue a fatwa himself, set out two earlier fatwas permitting such operations at length, and concluded in his presentation that all Jewish people are combatants who may be targeted. The report also cited his published support for the death penalty for homosexuals. The museum presents this criticism attributed to its source, which is a declared opponent, and has not itself verified the original texts. ⁴

Al-Nabulsi has written dozens of books. The sources list among them: "Reflections on Islam" (Nazarat fi'l-Islam) and "Contemplations on Islam" (Ta'ammulat fi'l-Islam), both translated into English; "Bright Words and Productive Meetings with al-Sha'rawi"; the "Encyclopedia of the Names of God" in three volumes; "Creed and Quran Miraculousness"; "Constituents of Divine Assignment"; "Ramadan Fatwas"; "The Hajj Journey — God is Greatest: Rulings and Secrets"; "Isra and Mi'raj"; "The Hijra"; "God is the Greatest"; "Flashes in Islam"; "Reply to the Pope"; and the "Encyclopedia of Scientific I'jaz in the Quran and the Sunna" in two volumes, "God's Signs in the Horizons" and "God's Signs in Man". Al-Iqtisadi magazine counted the I'jaz encyclopedia among the five best-selling books in Syria in 2009. ^{1 2}

He also co-wrote university books, most notably "From the Literature of Life" (Min Adab al-Haya), which was the set reading textbook for the Syrian secondary-school certificate for about ten years, and "Principles of Teaching Arabic" for diploma students at Damascus University's Faculty of Education. ¹

His official biography records an honorary doctorate from the American Open University for Islamic and Arabic Sciences, awarded at a ceremony in Amman on 27 July 2015 in appreciation of his dawah work. ¹

Al-Nabulsi's lessons reached a wide audience through satellite television and through his internet encyclopedia, which works in several languages and holds large text, audio and video libraries. Wikidata records his X account as DrNabulsiRateb, with follower figures in the hundreds of thousands — platform figures that change constantly and that the museum records only with a date. ^{1 3}

• The defined source entities cited above, recorded in data/source/.
• Revisions of this article must be dated, and must name the source that changed each fact.