to Iraq in 520 AH, and he performed the pilgrimage in 521 AH.
I add: he later travelled to Khurasan by way of Azerbaijan in 529 AH.
His full name is ʿAlī, son of Shaykh Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥasan ibn Hibat Allah ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn al-Ḥusayn. As for the designation “Ibn ʿAsākir,” I do not know which of his forefathers first bore it—perhaps it was the given name of one of them.
He received ḥadīth from al-Sharīf Abū ’l-Qāsim al-Nasīb, in whose possession were the twenty fascicles that his own teacher, the ḥāfiẓ Abū Bakr al-Khaṭīb, had prepared for him; we have heard these from him with an unbroken chain. He also heard from: Qiwām ibn Zayd, the disciple of Ibn Hazarmard al-Ṣarīfīnī; Abū ’l-Waḥsh Subayʿ ibn Qīrāṭ, the disciple of al-Ahwāzī; Abū Ṭāhir al-Ḥinnāʾī; Abū ’l-Ḥasan ibn al-Mawāzīnī; Abū ’l-Faḍāʾil al-Māsiḥ; Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Abī ’l-ʿAlāʾ al-Maṣṣīṣī; al-Amīn Hibat Allah ibn al-Akfānī; ʿAbd al-Karīm ibn Ḥamzah; Ṭāhir ibn Sahl al-Isfarāyīnī; and many others in Damascus.
He resided in Baghdad for five years pursuing knowledge and, during that stay, heard from: Hibat Allah ibn al-Ḥuṣayn; ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd al-Wāḥid al-Dīnavarī; Qaratakīn ibn Asʿad; Abū Ghālib ibn al-Bannāʾ; Hibat Allah ibn Aḥmad ibn al-Ṭabar; Abū ’l-Ḥasan al-Bāriʿ; Aḥmad ibn Mulūk al-Warrāq; the judge Abū Bakr; and many others.
In Mecca he studied with ʿAbd Allah ibn Muḥammad al-Miṣrī, nicknamed al-Ghazāl (1).
In Medina he learned from ʿAbd al-Khallāq ibn ʿAbd al-Wāsiʿ al-Harawī.
In Isfahan he heard from al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAbd al-Malik al-Khallāl and Ghānim ibn Khālid,