Shams ad-Dīn adh-Dhahabī (), also known as Shams ad-Dīn Abū ʿAbdillāh Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn ʿUthmān ibn Qāymāẓ ibn ʿAbdillāh at-Turkumānī al-Fāriqī ad-Dimashqī (5 October 1274 – 3 February 1348) was an
Islamic historian and
Hadith expert.
Life
Of Arab descent, Adh-Dhahabi was born in
Damascus. His name, ibn adh-Dhahabi (son of the goldsmith), reveals his father's profession. He began his study of
hadith at age eighteen, travelling from Damascus to
Baalbek
Baalbek (; ar, بَعْلَبَكّ, Baʿlabakk, Syriac-Aramaic: ܒܥܠܒܟ) is a city located east of the Litani River in Lebanon's Beqaa Valley, about northeast of Beirut. It is the capital of Baalbek-Hermel Governorate. In Greek and Roma ...
,
Homs
Homs ( , , , ; ar, حِمْص / ALA-LC: ; Levantine Arabic: / ''Ḥomṣ'' ), known in pre-Islamic Syria as Emesa ( ; grc, Ἔμεσα, Émesa), is a city in western Syria and the capital of the Homs Governorate. It is Metres above sea level ...
,
Hama,
Aleppo
)), is an adjective which means "white-colored mixed with black".
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Nabulus
Nablus ( ; ar, نابلس, Nābulus ; he, שכם, Šəḵem, ISO 259-3: ; Samaritan Hebrew: , romanized: ; el, Νεάπολις, Νeápolis) is a Palestinian city in the West Bank, located approximately north of Jerusalem, with a populati ...
,
Cairo
Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...
,
Alexandria
Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandri ...
,
Jerusalem,
Hijaz
The Hejaz (, also ; ar, ٱلْحِجَاز, al-Ḥijāz, lit=the Barrier, ) is a region in the west of Saudi Arabia. It includes the cities of Mecca, Medina, Jeddah, Tabuk, Yanbu, Taif, and Baljurashi. It is also known as the "Western Provinc ...
, and elsewhere, before returning to Damascus to teach and write. He authored many works and was widely renown 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.
Adh-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.
Teachers
Among adh-Dhahabi's most notable teachers in
hadith,
fiqh and
aqida
''Aqidah'' ( (), plural ''ʿaqāʾid'', also rendered ''ʿaqīda'', ''aqeeda'', etc.) is an Islamic term of Arabic origin that literally means "creed". It is also called Islamic creed and Islamic theology.
''Aqidah'' go beyond concise statem ...
:
* Abd al-Khaliq bin ʿUlwān
*
Zaynab bint ʿUmar bin al-Kindī
* Abu al-Hasan 'Ali ibn Mas‘ud ibn Nafis al-Musali
*
Ibn Taymiyyah
Ibn Taymiyyah (January 22, 1263 – September 26, 1328; ar, ابن تيمية), birth name Taqī ad-Dīn ʾAḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥalīm ibn ʿAbd al-Salām al-Numayrī al-Ḥarrānī ( ar, تقي الدين أحمد بن عبد الحليم � ...
Taqi ad-Din Ahmad ibn Taymiyyah
* Ibn al-Zahiri, Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn 'Abd Allah al-Halabi
* Sharaf-ud-din Abd al-Mu'min ibn Khalaf al-Dimyati, the foremost Egyptian authority on hadith in his time
*
Ibn Daqiq al-'Id
Ibn Daqiq al-'Id (; 1228–1302), born in Yanbu into the Arab tribe of Banu Qushayr. He is accounted as one of Islam's great scholars in the fundamentals of Islamic law and belief, and was an authority in the Shafi'i legal school. Although Ibn Da ...
, whom he identified in his youth as Abu al-Fath al-Qushayri, later as Ibn Wahb.
* Jamal-ud-din Abu al-Ma`ali Muhammad ibn 'Ali al-Ansari al-Zamalkani al-Damishqi al-Shafi`i (d. 727), whom he called "Qadi al-Qudat, the Paragon of Islam, the standard-bearer of the Sunna, my shaykh".
* Ahmad ibn Ishaq ibn Muhammad al-Abarquhi al-Misri (d. 701), from which al-Dhahabi received the Suhrawardi Sufi path.
* Ibn al-Kharrat al-Dawalibi
Notable students
*
Imad ad-Din Isma'il bin 'Umar bin Kathir
*
Zain ad-Din 'Abd ar-Rahmān ibn al-Hasan as-Sulamī (Ibn Rajab)
*
Shams-ud-din Abu al Mahasin Muhammad ibn Ali al-Dimashqi
*
Taj al-Din al-Subki
Abū Naṣr Tāj al-Dīn ʻAbd al-Wahhāb ibn ʿAlī ibn ʻAbd al-Kāfī al-Subkī (), or Tāj al-Dīn al-Subkī ()or simply Ibn al-Subki was a leading Islamic scholar, a faqīh, a muḥaddith and a historian from the celebrated al-Subkī family ...
* Ibn Asakir
*
Khalīl ibn Aybak al-Ṣafadī
*
Ibn al-Furat
Works
Adh-Dhahabi authored nearly a hundred works of history, biography and theology. His
history of medicine
The history of medicine is both a study of medicine throughout history as well as a multidisciplinary field of study that seeks to explore and understand medical practices, both past and present, throughout human societies.
More than just histo ...
begins with
Ancient Greek and Indian practices and practitioners, such as
Hippocrates,
Galen, etc., through the
Pre-Islamic Arabia
Pre-Islamic Arabia ( ar, شبه الجزيرة العربية قبل الإسلام) refers to the Arabian Peninsula before the emergence of Islam in 610 CE.
Some of the settled communities developed into distinctive civilizations. Information ...
n era, to Prophetic medicine as revealed by the
Muslim prophet Muhammad to the medical knowledge contained in works of scholars such as
Ibn Sina. The following are the better known titles:
*''
Tarikh al-Islam al-kabir
Shams ad-Dīn adh-Dhahabī (), also known as Shams ad-Dīn Abū ʿAbdillāh Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn ʿUthmān ibn Qāymāẓ ibn ʿAbdillāh at-Turkumānī al-Fāriqī ad-Dimashqī (5 October 1274 – 3 February 1348) was an Islamic historia ...
'' (
'Great History of Islam' (50 vols., in Arabic) Ibn Hajar received it from Abu Hurayra ibn adh-Dhahabi; comprising over 30,000 biographical records.
*''
Siyar a`lam al-nubala'' () ('The Lives of Noble Figures'), 28 volumes, a unique
encyclopaedia of biographical history.
*''al-'Uluww''
*''al-Mowqizah''
*''Al-'Ibar fī khabar man ghabar'' ()
*''
Tadhhib Tahdhib al-Kamal
Shams ad-Dīn adh-Dhahabī (), also known as Shams ad-Dīn Abū ʿAbdillāh Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn ʿUthmān ibn Qāymāẓ ibn ʿAbdillāh at-Turkumānī al-Fāriqī ad-Dimashqī (5 October 1274 – 3 February 1348) was an Islamic historia ...
''; abridgement of
al-Mizzi's abridgement of
al-Maqdisi's ''
Al-Kamal fi Asma' al-Rijal
''Al-Kamal fi Asma' al-Rijal'' ( ar, الكمال في أسماء الرجال) 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-Maqdi ...
'', a biographical compendium of
hadith narrators
Ḥadīth ( or ; ar, حديث, , , , , , , literally "talk" or "discourse") or Athar ( ar, أثر, , literally "remnant"/"effect") refers to what the majority of Muslims believe to be a record of the words, actions, and the silent approval ...
from the
Six major Hadith collections
The ''Kutub al-Sittah'' ( ar-at, ٱلْكُتُب ٱلسِّتَّة, al-Kutub as-Sittah, lit=the six books) are six (originally five) books containing collections of ''hadith'' (sayings or acts of the Islamic prophet Muhammad) compiled by six S ...
.
*''Al-Kashif fi Ma`rifa Man Lahu Riwaya fi al-Kutub al-Sitta''; abridgment of the ''Tadhhib''.
*''Al-Mujarrad fi Asma' Rijal al-Kutub al-Sitta''; abridgment of the ''Kashif''.
*''Mukhtasar Kitab al-Wahm wa al-Iham li Ibn al-Qattan''.
*''Mukhtasar Sunan al-Bayhaqi''; selected edition of
Bayhaqi Bayhaqi (meaning "from Bayhaq") is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
* Ahmad Bayhaqi (994–1066), Persian Islamic scholar
*Abolfazl Beyhaqi (995–1077), Persian secretary, historian, and author
*Abu'l-Hasan Bayhaqi
Zahir al-D ...
's ''Sunan al-Kubara''.
*''
Mukhtasar al-Mustadrak li al-Hakim'', an abridgement of
Hakim's
Al-Mustadrak alaa al-Sahihain.
*''Al-Amsar Dhawat al-Athar'' (Cities Rich in Historical Relics); begins with a description of
Madina al-Munawwara.
*''Al-Tajrid fi Asma' al-Sahaba''; dictionary of the
Companions of the prophet
Muhammad.
* (The Memorial of the Hadith Masters); chronological history of the biography of hadith masters. Ibn Hajar received it from Abu Hurayra ibn adh-Dhahabi.
*''Tabaqat al-Qurra'' (Categories of the Qur'anic Scholars); Biographic anthology.
*''Al-Mu`in fi Tabaqat al-Muhaddithin'', a compendium of
hadith scholars (
Muhaddithin).
*''Duwal al-Islam'' (The Islamic Nations); concise political histories of Islamic nations.
*''Al-Kaba'ir'' (Cardinal Sins)
*''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)
*''
Mizaan-ul-I’tidaal'', a reworking of al-Kamil fi Dhu'afa' al-Rijal by Ibn 'Adi al-Jurjani (d. 277 H)
[al-Dhahabi, Siyar A`lam al-Nubala' (16:154)]
See also
*
Islamic scholars
In Islam, the ''ulama'' (; ar, علماء ', singular ', "scholar", literally "the learned ones", also spelled ''ulema''; feminine: ''alimah'' ingularand ''aalimath'' lural are the guardians, transmitters, and interpreters of religious ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Al-Dhahabi
1274 births
1348 deaths
14th-century biographers
14th-century Syrian historians
14th-century Muslim scholars of Islam
14th-century scholars
14th-century Arabs
Atharis
Hadith scholars
Scholars from the Mamluk Sultanate
Encyclopedists of the medieval Islamic world
Muslim historians of Islam
Writers from Damascus
Shafi'is
Syrian Sunni Muslim scholars of Islam
Proto-Salafists
14th-century jurists
Biographical evaluation scholars
Critics of Ibn Arabi