Al-Dhahabi

Al-Dhahabi
Born 5 October, 1274
Died 3 February, 1348
Region Syria
Religion Islam
Jurisprudence Shafi'i[1]
Creed Athari[2][1]
Main interest(s) History, Fiqa, Hadith

Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn `Uthman ibn Qayyum `Abu `Abd Allah Shams ad-Din al-Dhahabi (Arabic: محمد بن احمد بن عثمان بن قيوم ، أبو عبد الله شمس الدين الذهبي), known as Al-Dhahabi (1274–1348[3]), a Shafi'i Muhaddith and historian of Islam.

Biography

Al-Dhahabi was born in Damascus 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 at age eighteen, travelling from Damascus to Baalbek, Homs, Hama, Aleppo, Nabulus, Cairo, Alexandria, 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. He studied under more than 100 women.[4] His most important teacher at Baalbek included a woman, Zaynab bint ʿUmar b. al-Kindī.[5] 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[6] and Ibn Hajar, to whom he transmitted several works authored or narrated by his father.

Teachers

Among al-Dhahabi's most notable teachers in hadith, fiqh and aqida:

Works

Dhahabi authored nearly a hundred works, some of them of considerable size. His work regarding the practice of prophetic medicine was straightforward in its presentation, but also categorized by the author as alternative medicine. Much of it consisted of an integration of medicine as understood from the revelations of the Muslim prophet Muhammad and the practices of Pre-Islamic Arabia with Ancient Greek medicine, quoting heavily from the ideas and terminologies of Hippocrates and Ibn Sina.[9]

List of popular works

See also

References

Arabic Wikisource has original text related to this article:
  1. 1 2 Halverson, Jeffry R. (2010). Theology and Creed in Sunni Islam. Pelgrave Macmillan. p. 43. ISBN 9781137473578.
  2. Spevack, Aaron (2014). The Archetypal Sunni Scholar: Law, Theology, and Mysticism in the Synthesis of Al-Bajuri. State University of New York Press. p. 169. ISBN 978-1-4384-5370-5.
  3. Hoberman, Barry (September–October 1982). "The Battle of Talas", Saudi Aramco World, p. 26-31. Indiana University.
  4. The Female Teachers of the Historian of Islam: al-Ḏh̲ahabī (PDF)
  5. " al-Ḏh̲ahabī." Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Brill Online , 2012. Reference. Princeton University Library. 09 June 2012
  6. al-Sakhawi, al-Daw' al-Lami` (8:103).
  7. Cf. al-`Uluw (Abu al-Fath) and al-Muqiza (Ibn Wahb).
  8. Siyar A`lam al-Nubala [SAN] (17:118–119 #6084, 16:300–302 #5655).
  9. Emilie Savage-Smith, "Medicine." Taken from Encyclopedia of the History of Arabic Science, Volume 3: Technology, Alchemy and Life Sciences, pg. 928. Ed. Roshdi Rashed. London: Routledge, 1996. ISBN 0415124123
  10. Ibn Hajar, al-Mu`jam (p. 400 #1773)
  11. Ibn Hajar, al-Mu`jam (p. 400 #1774).
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