The Most Written-About Relic

Seven Centuries of Scholars on the Na'layn Shareef

Category: Relics · Published 21 August 2026

Among all the blessed relics of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, none have inspired a more sustained tradition of scholarly reverence than the Na'layn Shareef, the blessed sandals. At least seven dedicated treatises spanning seven centuries have been written in their honour, from Damascus to Morocco to the Indian subcontinent. Scholars have kissed their images. Saints have woven their outlines into their turbans. And from Sahih Muslim to Shaykh Yusuf al-Nabhani رحمة الله عليه, the blessed sandals have been a touchstone of Sunni Islamic spirituality.

The Companion Who Carried the Sandals

Sayyidina Abdullah ibn Mas'ud (رضي الله عنه) held a special role in the household of the Prophet ﷺ: he was the keeper of the sandals. Imam al-Qastallani documents in Al-Mawahib al-Laduniyyah that when the Prophet ﷺ sat down, Ibn Mas'ud would remove the sandals and tuck them under his own arms. When the Prophet ﷺ stood, he would place them back on his blessed feet.

After the Prophet's ﷺ passing, Sayyidina Anas ibn Malik (رضي الله عنه) became the keeper of the sandals.

The Sandals in Sahih Muslim

In a hadith recorded in Sahih Muslim, the Prophet ﷺ once gave his sandals to Sayyidina Abu Hurayrah (رضي الله عنه) with an instruction:

“Whoever you meet behind this garden who testifies that there is no god but Allah with certainty in his heart, give him glad tidings of Paradise.”

The sandals of the Prophet ﷺ were carried as a bearer of good news.

Seven Centuries of Scholarship

The Na'layn Shareef is unique among blessed relics in having attracted dedicated treatises from scholars of every era and every region of the Muslim world:

• ›Ibn Asakir of Damascus (686 AH): Timthālu Na'l al-Nabiyy, “A Sketch of the Sandal of the Prophet ﷺ,” the first dedicated treatise on the subject.
• ›Imam al-Maqqari of Tilimsan (d. 1041 AH): Fath al-Muta'āl fi Madh al-Ni'āl, the most comprehensive work on the subject, so significant that it produced three separate abridgements by later scholars.
• ›Imam al-Jazuli (Morocco, d. 869 AH): author of Dala'il al-Khayrat, the most widely read book of salawat in history, who included an image of the sandals as a means of seeking blessing.
• ›Imam Shams al-Din al-Muqri': Qurrat al-'Aynayn fi Tahqiq Amr al-Na'layn, “A Joy for Eyes by Verifying the Matter of the Sandals.”
• ›Imam al-Zarqani: wrote that if one cannot reach the actual sandals, one should kiss a drawing of them, stating: “If possible, kiss the dust touched by the sandals; otherwise, kiss an image of the sandals.”
• ›Mullah Ali Qari and Imam Muhyuddin ibn Arabi: both wrote on the spiritual and symbolic significance of the sandals, addressing their inner dimensions.
• ›Shaykh Yusuf al-Nabhani رحمة الله عليه: the great Syrian scholar and defender of the Ahl al-Sunnah, whose biography is featured in Ehtram's Knowledge Corner, wrote an abridgement of Imam al-Maqqari's work, bringing this tradition of reverence into the modern era.

The Tradition of Carrying Sandal Images

From the scholarship of Imam al-Zarqani and others, a widespread practice developed across the Muslim world: scholars and students of knowledge would carry outlines or drawings of the Na'layn Shareef on their turbans, in their homes, or in their books as a form of love and tawassul.

This tradition spread from Morocco across North Africa, through the Levant, into Persia, and across the Indian subcontinent. The outline of the sandals, a simple form, became one of the most recognisable symbols of Sunni Islamic devotional culture.

Where the Sandals Are Preserved

Sandals attributed to the Prophet ﷺ are preserved at the Topkapi Palace Museum in Istanbul as part of the Sacred Relics collection, at the Ashrafiyya Teaching College in Damascus, and at the Hırka-i Şerif Foundation in Istanbul, which also holds a leather overshoe (Başmak-ı Şerif).

A 2024 paper in The Muslim World journal by James Piscatori, titled “The Prophet's ﷺ sandals and image-relics: Tracing a symbol,” traces how the Na'layn's symbolic form was established and spread across the Sunni world over centuries.

A Living Tradition

Among the contents of Shaiekh Ahmad Al Khazraji's collection in Abu Dhabi, documented in our article on his 2014 meeting with Dr. Allaamah Kaukab Noorani Okarvi, were fragments associated with the blessed sandals of Sayyidah Faatimah Zahrah (رضي الله عنها). That private collection sits within a living tradition running from the Companions through Imam al-Maqqari through Shaykh al-Nabhani to the present day.

The scholarly tradition around the Na'layn Shareef is not an antiquarian curiosity. It is the documented, continuous expression of a community that understood: to revere what touched the Prophet ﷺ is to revere the Prophet ﷺ himself.