Al-ʿAṭṭār remarked, “He was the one who secured an ijāzah (formal authorisation) for al-Dhahabī in the very year of his birth, and al-Dhahabī later drew immense benefit from that licence.” (1)

The child then moved on to one of the professional tutors, ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad al-Ḥalabī, known as al-Baṣbaṣ. He was among the finest calligraphers of his day and the most experienced in teaching children, so al-Dhahabī remained in his school for four years (2). During that time his grandfather ʿUthmān had him constantly practise pronouncing the letter rāʾ (the Arabic “r”) to refine his speech (3).

We do not know precisely when he left the kuttāb (elementary Qurʾānic school), but he was still there in 682 AH, for in that year he recited to his tutor some poetry by Abū Muḥammad al-Qāsim al-Ḥarīrī (4).

After this, al-Dhahabī turned to the Qurʾān instructor Masʿūd ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Ṣāliḥī, who first taught him the entire Qurʾān and then supervised roughly forty complete readings. Shaykh Masʿūd, the imām of the Shāghūr Mosque, was a pious and humble man, kind to his young pupils, and he taught a great many students. He died in 720 AH (5).

The boy also began to attend the gatherings of senior scholars so that he could listen to their discussions (6). When ʿIzz al-Dīn al-Fārūthī, the Iraqi scholar, visited Damascus in 690 AH, the youth went to greet him and heard hadith from him (7). This attests to his passion for knowledge and for scholars from a very early age.