Muhammad ibn Yahya al-Ninowy محمد بن يحيى النينوي

Muhammad ibn Yahya al-Ninowy (b. 1970 CE) is a Syrian-American scholar, traditionally trained as a muhaddith, a specialist in the sciences of hadith. Born in Aleppo to a family of Husayni sayyid descent with roots in the village of Ninawa, he began his studies under his father, Sayyid Yahya, memorizing the Qurʾan and acquiring the foundations of tawhid, fiqh, and hadith before studying with senior scholars across Syria, the Hijaz, Morocco, Egypt, Sudan, and Jordan. He later attended al-Azhar's Faculty of Usul al-Din. He follows the Shafiʿi school in law and the Ashʿari and Maturidi schools in creed, with a spiritual orientation rooted in the Sufism of the people of hadith. Alongside his religious training he holds a Doctor of Medicine and a doctorate in Islamic studies. He is the founding director of the Madina Institute, an Islamic seminary with campuses on several continents, and of the charitable organization Planet Mercy, through which he has long emphasized compassion, mercy, and non-violence as central themes of the faith. His written works include The Book of Love, Expressing Delight in the Birth of the Light (Izhar al-Surur), and a presentation of Ibn Tulun's Forty Hadith on Mercy and Those Who Show Mercy. He teaches and lectures widely in English and Arabic.