Salih al-Fawzan Biography

Shaykh Salih ibn Fawzan al-Fawzan is a senior Saudi Salafi scholar, long-serving member of the Council of Senior Scholars, and the Permanent Committee for Islamic Research and Issuing Fatwas. Born in 1354 AH / 1933 CE in the town of al-Shamasiyya in the Qassim region, he was orphaned of his father in childhood and raised by his extended family. He studied at the Faisaliyya School in Buraydah and then at the Faculty of Shari'a at the Imam Muhammad ibn Sa'ud Islamic University in Riyadh, where he completed his bachelor's degree, master's, and PhD — his doctoral dissertation, Ahkam al-At'imah fi al-Shari'a al-Islamiyya ('Rulings on Foodstuffs in Islamic Law'), was later published as a standard fiqh reference.

Al-Fawzan held a series of senior teaching, judicial, and educational posts: lecturer and then dean of the Higher Judicial Institute, member of the Permanent Committee for Issuing Fatwas, and member of the Fiqh Council of the Muslim World League. He was appointed to the Council of Senior Scholars and continues to serve, where he has now spent more than forty years issuing fatwas on creed, ritual worship, contemporary social issues, and economic matters. His major works include I'anat al-Mustafid 'ala Sharh Kitab al-Tawhid, a multi-volume commentary on Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab's Kitab al-Tawhid; al-Mulakhkhas al-Fiqhi, a popular two-volume Hanbali fiqh summary; and a long list of treatises on creed, biography, and refutations.

Al-Fawzan continues to teach at the Imam Turki ibn Abdullah Mosque in Riyadh and to host weekly fatwa sessions. He is known among the senior scholarly establishment for taking firm positions on questions of creed and methodology, and his rulings — gathered in Fatawa al-Lajna al-Da'ima and his personal fatwa collections — are heavily consulted in Salafi-oriented communities and among students of the Saudi religious establishment worldwide.