Shaykh Nawawi al-Jawi al-Bantani محمد نووي بن عمر الجاوي البنتني

Shaykh Muhammad Nawawi b. Umar al-Jawi al-Bantani (1230-1316 AH / 1813-1898 CE), rahimahullah, was the preeminent Indonesian Shafi'i scholar of the nineteenth century and one of the most prolific Arabic-language authors from Southeast Asia. Born in Banten, West Java, he traveled to Makka for study and settled there as a teacher for roughly half a century, becoming the central figure through whom the classical Shafi'i and Sunni-Sufi curriculum was transmitted to generations of Malay-Indonesian students who came to Makka for advanced learning. He composed more than thirty commentaries on foundational texts of Shafi'i fiqh, Ashari kalam, and Sunni Sufism - works written in clear Arabic explicitly intended to make the tradition accessible to his students. His Tafsir Marah Labid ala Kashf Mana al-Qur'an al-Majid (also called Tafsir Munir) is the most-used tafsir in Southeast Asian Sunni scholarly circles. Maraqi al-Ubudiyya is his commentary on Imam al-Ghazali's Bidayat al-Hidaya.