Answered by Shaykh Muhammad ibn Adam al-Kawthari
Assalamu alaikum,
A lot of people ask this Question, so Mufti Muhammad ibn Adam al-Kawthari replied below. Faraz.
Assalamu Alaykum respected Brother
The are two (or three) reasons behind me using the name 'al-Kawthari'.
Firstly, during my stay in Damascus (Syria), I was fortunate to work on a book in Arabic by one of the great scholars of India. I re-published the work with adding footnotes, etc...
The manager at the publishing house insisted that I use a name on the book that could be more universal. He recommended I use a name that has a nisbah to something. I could not really think of anything, besides that many of the scholars of the indo/pak used names that attributed them to a madrasa/institution from where they graduated, such as: al-Qasmi, al-Mazahiri, etc... One of the the Institutes (Darur Uloom) I graduated from, has the title al-Kawthari for those who graduate from there. This is used for a specific reason, for which this is not the time to explain. Most of the graduates don't really use this name, but due to the above reason, I started using it.
Secondly, In using this name, I also had the great Imam Zahid al-Kawthari in mind. I have always admired the great Imam for his depth in knowledge, and especially his Sunni-ness and Hanafism. And through him, I also have great admiration for his student Shaykh Abdul Fattah Abu Ghudda. I can’t, of course, reach the level of Imam al-Kawthari, but by using his name, Allah might just say on the day of Qiyamah "Hold onto him and enter Jannah".
These are the basic reasons why I have been using the name 'al-Kawthari'
Wassalam
Muhammad ibn Adam al-Kawthari, UK
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