Introduction to the Critical Edition
Praise belongs to Allah, Lord of all creation, and may the most perfect and complete blessings and peace be upon the master of the children of Adam, sent as a mercy and guidance to the worlds, and upon his family, his Companions, and all who follow them until the Day of Judgment.

To proceed: this is a separate work devoted to the biography of Shaykh al-Islam Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥalīm ibn ʿAbd al-Salām Ibn Taymiyyah al-Ḥarrānī al-Dimashqī, who died in 728 AH. It was written by his pupil, the eminent traditionist Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad Ibn ʿAbd al-Hādī al-Maqdisī (b. 705 AH – d. 744 AH), when the author had not yet reached forty years of age.

This book is regarded as one of the most important sources for the biography of Shaykh al-Islam. It served as the foundation for most of the later works on his life, with the exception of Abū Ḥafṣ al-Bazzār’s al-Aʿlām al-ʿAliyya, which is an original composition.

These two scholars, together with al-Ḥāfiẓ al-Dhahabī, are the only pupils whose biographical works on the Shaykh have come down to us. More than one of his students promised to write such a biography—among them al-Ḥāfiẓ ʿImād al-Dīn Ismāʿīl Ibn Kathīr al-Dimashqī (d. 774 AH), who made the same pledge (1)—yet I do not know whether he ever fulfilled it.

Although the present work is the longest surviving biography of the Shaykh, the author nevertheless states in his introduction that it is “a brief and concise notice recounting the circumstances of our master and teacher,”