Fourth — The Nature of His Studies

Throughout his life al-Dhahabī never broke off from study and audition; nothing could distract him from them. This is plain to anyone who consults the catalogues of his teachers, especially his Muʿjam al-Kabīr (the Grand Index).

His curriculum and the material he heard were wide-ranging and were by no means limited to Qurʾānic readings and ḥadīth.

He devoted particular attention to grammar. He heard al-Ḥājibiyya, the grammatical compendium, from his teacher Muwaffaq al-Dīn Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Abī al-ʿAlāʾ al-Naṣībī al-Baʿlabakkī, d. 695 AH (1).

He also studied under the leading Arabist and doyen of belles-lettres in Egypt at the time, Shaykh Bahāʾ al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm, known as Ibn al-Naḥḥās, d. 698 AH (2).

In addition, he auditioned a large number of collections dealing with poetry, lexicography, and literature (3).

He likewise took a keen interest in historical works, hearing a substantial corpus from his shaykhs: writings on the military campaigns of the Prophet (4), works on the Prophetic biography (5), general histories (6), collections of teachers’ indexes and mashyakhat lists (7), and other biographical compilations (8).