Al-Dhahabi
Encyclopedia
Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn `Uthman ibn Qaymaz ibn `Abd Allah, Shams al-Din Abu `Abd Allah al-Turkmani al-Diyarbakri al-Fariqi al-Dimashqi al-Dhahabi al-Shafi`i , known as Al-Dhahabi (1274–1348), a Shafi'i
Shafi'i
The Shafi'i madhhab is one of the schools of fiqh, or religious law, within the Sunni branch of Islam. The Shafi'i school of fiqh is named after Imām ash-Shafi'i.-Principles:...

 Muhaddith and historian
Historiography of early Islam
The historiography of early Islam refers to the study of the early origins of Islam based on a critical analysis, evaluation, and examination of authentic primary source materials and the organization of these sources into a narative timeline....

 of Islam
Muslim history
Muslim history is the history of Muslim people. In the history of Islam the followers of the religion of Islam have impacted political history, economic history, and military history...

.

Biography

Al-Dhahabi was born in Damascus
Damascus
Damascus , commonly known in Syria as Al Sham , and as the City of Jasmine , is the capital and the second largest city of Syria after Aleppo, both are part of the country's 14 governorates. In addition to being one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Damascus is a major...

 in 1274 CE/673 AH, where his family had lived from the time of his grandfather `Uthman. He sometimes identified himself as Ibn al-Dhahabi (son of the goldsmith) in reference to his father's profession. He began his study of hadith
Hadith
The term Hadīth is used to denote a saying or an act or tacit approval or criticism ascribed either validly or invalidly to the Islamic prophet Muhammad....

 at age eighteen, travelling from Damascus to Baalbek
Baalbek
Baalbek is a town in the Beqaa Valley of Lebanon, altitude , situated east of the Litani River. It is famous for its exquisitely detailed yet monumentally scaled temple ruins of the Roman period, when Baalbek, then known as Heliopolis, was one of the largest sanctuaries in the Empire...

, Homs
Homs
Homs , previously known as Emesa , is a city in western Syria and the capital of the Homs Governorate. It is above sea level and is located north of Damascus...

, Hama
Hama
Hama is a city on the banks of the Orontes River in west-central Syria north of Damascus. It is the provincial capital of the Hama Governorate. Hama is the fourth-largest city in Syria—behind Aleppo, Damascus, and Homs—with a population of 696,863...

, Aleppo
Aleppo
Aleppo is the largest city in Syria and the capital of Aleppo Governorate, the most populous Syrian governorate. With an official population of 2,301,570 , expanding to over 2.5 million in the metropolitan area, it is also one of the largest cities in the Levant...

, Nabulus, Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...

, Alexandria
Alexandria
Alexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...

, Jerusalem, Hijaz, and elsewhere, after which he returned to Damascus, where he taught and authored many works and achieved wide renown as a perspicuous critic and expert examiner of the hadith, encyclopedic historian and biographer, and foremost authority in the canonical readings of the Qur'an
Qur'an
The Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...

. He lost his sight two years before he died, leaving three children: his eldest daughter Amat al-`Aziz and his two sons `Abd Allah and Abu Hurayra `Abd al-Rahman. The latter taught the hadith masters Ibn Nasir al-Din al-Dimashqi and Ibn Hajar
Ibn Hajar
There were several Muslim scholars named "Ibn Hajar"*Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani – Shafi'i and Hadith scholar*Ibn Hajar al-Makki al-Haitami - Shafi'i*Ibn Hajar Abi Bakr...

, to whom he transmitted several works authored or narrated by his father.

Teachers

Among al-Dhahabi's most notable teachers in hadith
Hadith
The term Hadīth is used to denote a saying or an act or tacit approval or criticism ascribed either validly or invalidly to the Islamic prophet Muhammad....

, fiqh
Fiqh
Fiqh is Islamic jurisprudence. Fiqh is an expansion of the code of conduct expounded in the Quran, often supplemented by tradition and implemented by the rulings and interpretations of Islamic jurists....

 and aqida:
  • Taqi ad-Din Ahmad ibn Taymiyyah.
  • Ibn al-Zahiri, Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn `Abd Allah al-Halabi
  • Sharaf al-Din al-Dimyati, `Abd al-Mu'min ibn Khalaf, the foremost Egyptian authority on hadith in his time
  • Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Daqiq al-`Id, whom he identified in his youth as Abu al-Fath al-Qushayri, later as Ibn Wahb.
  • Jamal al-Din Abu al-Ma`ali Muhammad ibn `Ali al-Ansari al-Zamalkani al-Dimashqi al-Shafi`i (d. 727), whom he called "Qadi al-Qudat, the Paragon of Islam, the standard-bearer of the Sunna, my shaykh".
  • Al-Abarquhi, Ahmad ibn Ishaq ibn Muhammad al-Misri (d. 701), from which al-Dhahabi received the Suhrawardi Sufi path.

Works

He authored nearly a hundred works, some of them of considerable size: (Major History of Islam); Ibn Hajar
Ibn Hajar
There were several Muslim scholars named "Ibn Hajar"*Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani – Shafi'i and Hadith scholar*Ibn Hajar al-Makki al-Haitami - Shafi'i*Ibn Hajar Abi Bakr...

 received it from Abu Hurayra ibn al-Dhahabi. (The Lives of Noble Figures), 23 volumes, a unique encyclopedia of biographical history.
  • Tadhhib Tahdhib al-Kamal, an abridgement of al-Mizzi's
    Yusuf ibn Abd al-Rahman al-Mizzi
    Jamal al-Din, Abi al-Hajjaj, Yusuf ibn 'Abd al-Rahman al-Mizzi was an Islamic scholar from the Levant.-Biography:Al-Mizzi was born in Aleppo and grew up and settled in Damascus. He died at Dar al-Hadith al-Ashrafiyyah in Damascus in the year 1342 C.E...

     abridgement of al-Maqdisee's Al-Kamal fi Asma' al-Rijal
    Al-Kamal fi Asma' al-Rijal
    Al-Kamal fi Asma' al-Rijal is a collection of biographies of hadith narrators within the Islamic discipline of biographical evaluation by the 12th-century Islamic scholar Abd al-Ghani al-Maqdisi.-Overview:...

    , a compendium of historical biographies for hadith narrators
    Ilm ar-Rijal
    Biographical evaluation, , literally: "knowledge of men", refers to a discipline of Islamic religious studies within hadith terminology in which the narrators of hadith are evaluated. Its goal is to distinguish authentic hadith from hadith unacceptable in establishing sanctioned religious...

     cited in the Six major Hadith collections
    Six major Hadith collections
    The six major Hadith collections are collections of hadith by Islamic scholars who, approximately 200 years after Muhammad's death and by their own initiative, collected "hadith" attributed to Muhammad...

    .
    • Al-Kashif fi Ma`rifa Man Lahu Riwaya fi al-Kutub al-Sitta, an abridgment of the Tadhhib.
      • Al-Mujarrad fi Asma' Rijal al-Kutub al-Sitta, an abridgment of the Kashif.
  • Mukhtasar Kitab al-Wahm wa al-Iham li Ibn al-Qattan.
  • Mukhtasar Sunan al-Bayhaqi, an abridgement of Bayhaqi
    Ahmad Bayhaqi
    Abu Bakr Ahmad ibn Husayn Ibn 'Ali Ibn Moussa al-Khosrojerdi al-Bayhaqi, البيهقي also known as Imam Al-Bayhaqi was born 994 CE/384AH in the small town of Khusraugird near Bayhaq in Khurasan...

    's Sunan al-Kubara.
  • Mukhtasar al-Mustadrak li al-Hakim, an abdridgement of Hakim
    Hakim al-Nishaburi
    Abu Abd-Allah Muhammad ibn Abd-Allah al-Hakim al-Nishaburi , and also known as Ibn Al-Baiyi.) was a Sunni scholar and the leading traditionist of his age, frequently referred to as the "Imam of the Muhaddithin" or the "Muhaddith of Khorasan."-Biography:Al-Hakim, who hailed from Nishapur, had vast...

    's Al-Mustadrak alaa al-Sahihain
    Al-Mustadrak alaa al-Sahihain
    Al-Mustadrak alaa al-Sahihain is a five volume hadith collection written by Hakim al-Nishaburi d. 405H.-History:He wrote it in the year 393 AH , when he was 72 years old. It contains 9045 hadith...

    .
  • Al-Amsar Dhawat al-Athar (Cities Rich in Historical Relics), which begins with the description of Madina al-Munawwara
    Medina
    Medina , or ; also transliterated as Madinah, or madinat al-nabi "the city of the prophet") is a city in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia, and serves as the capital of the Al Madinah Province. It is the second holiest city in Islam, and the burial place of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad, and...

    .
  • Al-Tajrid fi Asma' al-Sahaba, a dictionary of the Companions
    Sahaba
    In Islam, the ' were the companions, disciples, scribes and family of the Islamic prophet...

    . (The Memorial of the Hadith Masters), a chronological history of the biography of hadith masters. Ibn Hajar
    Ibn Hajar
    There were several Muslim scholars named "Ibn Hajar"*Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani – Shafi'i and Hadith scholar*Ibn Hajar al-Makki al-Haitami - Shafi'i*Ibn Hajar Abi Bakr...

     received it from Abu Hurayra ibn al-Dhahabi.
  • Al-Mu`in fi Tabaqat al-Muhaddithin, a compendium of hadith
    Hadith
    The term Hadīth is used to denote a saying or an act or tacit approval or criticism ascribed either validly or invalidly to the Islamic prophet Muhammad....

     scholars (Muhaddithin).
  • Tabaqat al-Qurra (Biography-Layers of the Qur'anic Scholars).
  • Duwal al-Islam, a condensed history with emphasis on political figures and events.
  • Al-Kaba'ir (The Enormities)
  • Manaaqib Al-imam Abu Hanifa wa saahibayhi Abu Yusuf wa Muhammad Ibn al-Hasan (The Honoured status of Imam Abu Hanifa and his two companions, Abu Yusuf and Muhammad ibn Al-Hasan)
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