Shaykh 'Abd al-'Aziz bin Baz was born in the city of Riyad, Saudi Arabia in 1910 CE. His family was well-known for its interest in Islamic knowledge. He was the Grand Mufti and head of the Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, the arbiter of all that is Islamically proper, correct, and permissible in Saudi Arabia. The shaykh’s father died when he was young. Therefore, it was a big responsibility on his mother to raise the shaykh. As a matter of fact, when asked about his childhood, the shaykh said, “my father died when I was three years old; and I only had my mother who took care of me and educated me encouraging me to learn more about Shari’ah (Islamic Law); she also died when I was twenty six.” In fact, his mother played an important role in bringing him up and later in directing him toward memorizing the Qur’aan, at the age of fourteen, and studying different Islamic books. Life was not easy for the shaykh; when he was thirteen or so, he had to work with his older brother, Muhammad, selling “Bishts”, men’s gowns, on the market.

Despite the fact that he helped a great deal in supporting his family, he had never forgotten to study Qur’an, Hadith, Fiqh (Jurisprudence), and Tafsir. In 1927, when the Shaykh was sixteen, he started losing his eyesight after being afflicted with a serious infection in his eyes. By the time he was twenty, he had totally lost his sight and become blind. Nonetheless, his thirst for knowledge was unquenchable; he dedicated his full time to studying Islamic books benefiting and learning from different scholars. Some of the scholars he had studied under include: Muhammad bin Ibrahim bin ‘Abdul-Lateef Aalush-Shaykh, Muhammad bin ‘Abdul-Latif bin Hasan Aal ash-Shaykh, Sa’ad bin Hammad bin ‘Atiq (judge of Riyad), Hammad bin Faaris (Arabic grammarian), Sa’d Wakhas al-Bukhari (Tajwid scholar).

The Shaykh set an example to the Muslim youth wherever they may be; his main concern besides studying Shari’ah was da’wah both inside and outside the country. He had also undertaken a number of charitable organizations and activities such as:

1. His endless support for da’wah organizations and Islamic centres all over the world.
2. The establishment and supervision of schools for teaching the Qur’an.
3. The foundation of an organization that facilitates marriage for Muslim youth.
4. The popular radio program, “Nurun ‘ala ad-Darb” (light on the path), which hosting one of the shaykhs, discusses a lot of problems answering different questions by listeners as well as providing fatwa if needed.

Although Shaykh Ibn Baz was busy with so many things in his life including his job as minister, he managed to write a good number of books on different issues. The number of books written by shaykh Ibn Baaz exceeds sixty and it is hard to name them all in here; however, the subject matter that he mainly wrote on was Hadith, Tafsir, Fara’id, Tawhid, Fiqh and also a great deal of books on Salah, Zakah, Da’wah, Hajj and ‘Umrah.

He died on Thursday morning May 13, 1999 and at the age of ninety. Hundreds of thousands of people performed funeral prayers on him at the Holy Mosque in Makkah.

Home Page