His full name was al-Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan ibn Hibat Allāh ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAsākir of Damascus, a follower of the Shāfiʿī school.
He was born on the last day of Rabīʿ al-Awwal in the year 544 AH.
He heard ḥadīth from: Abū al-ʿAshāʾir Muḥammad ibn al-Khalīl al-Qaysī—when he was only five years old—; Abū al-Muẓaffar al-Falakī; ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī al-Ḥasan al-Dārānī; Abū al-Qāsim ibn al-Bunn al-Asadī; ʿAbd al-Wāḥid ibn Ibrāhīm ibn al-Quzza; al-Khaḍir ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥārithī; Ibrāhīm ibn al-Ḥasan al-Ḥiṣnī; ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad ibn Muqātil al-Sūsī; Muḥammad ibn Asʿad al-ʿIrāqī; Ḥassān ibn Tamīm al-Zayyāt; Abū al-Najīb al-Suhrawardī; Muḥammad ibn Ḥamzah ibn al-Mawāzīnī; ʿAlī ibn Mahdī al-Hilālī; Muḥammad ibn Barakah al-Ṣilḥī; al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī al-Baṭalyawsī; ʿAbd al-Rashīd ibn ʿAbd al-Jabbār al-Khawārī; Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Kushmīhanī; his brother Maḥmūd; and many others.
Among those who narrated from him were: the Imām ʿIzz al-Dīn Ibn al-Athīr; Kamāl al-Dīn Ibn al-ʿAdīm and his son Abū al-Majd; Zakī al-Dīn al-Mundhirī; al-Zayn Khālid; al-Sharaf Ibn al-Nābulusī; al-Jamāl Ibn al-Ṣābūnī; al-Shams Ibn al-Kamāl; Saʿd al-Khayr ibn Abī al-Qāsim and his brother Naṣr Allāh; al-ʿImād ʿAbd al-Ḥāfiẓ and the other members of the Nābulusī family; al-Shihāb al-Abarqūhī; al-Sharaf Ibn ʿAsākir; his grandson Amīn al-Dīn Abū al-Yaman; and many others.