Al-Dhahabi

Among his best-known teachers and scholarly associates were al-Mizzi, al-Birzali, and Ibn Taymiyya.

Life

Of Turkmen descent, al-Dhahabi was born in Damascus. His name, Ibn al-Dhahabi (son of the goldsmith), reveals his father's profession. He began his study of hadith at age eighteen, travelling from Damascus to Baalbek, Homs, Hama, Aleppo, Nabulus, Cairo, Alexandria, Jerusalem, Hijaz, and elsewhere, before returning to Damascus to teach and write. He authored many works and was widely renowned as a perspicuous critic and expert examiner of the hadith. He wrote an encyclopaedic biographical history and was the foremost authority on the canonical readings of the Qur'an. Some of his teachers were women. At Baalbek, Zaynab bint ʿUmar b. al-Kindī was among his most influential teachers.

al-Dhahabi lost his sight two years before he died, leaving three children: the eldest, his daughter, Amat al-'Aziz, and his two sons, 'Abd Allah and Abu Hurayra 'Abd al-Rahman. The latter son taught the hadith masters Ibn Nasir-ud-din al-Damishqi and Ibn Hajar, and through them transmitted several works authored or narrated by his father.