among the foremost teachers of his age, so that students of knowledge flocked to him from every direction.

We know that al-Dhahabī held numerous teaching posts, among them the chair of hadith at Turbat Umm al-Ṣāliḥ, the Zāhiriyya Dār al-Hadith, the Nafīsiyya Madrasa, the Tankaziyya Dār al-Hadith, the Fāḍiliyya Dār al-Hadith, and the ʿArawiyya Dār al-Hadith.

These appointments enabled a host of students beyond reckoning to study under him. His disciple al-Ḥusaynī said, “Legions of people transmitted from him the Book and the Sunnah.” (1) Ibn Qāḍī Shuhbah al-Asadī added, “Al-Subkī, al-Barzalī, al-ʿAlāʾī, Ibn Kathīr, Ibn Rāfiʿ, Ibn Rajab, and multitudes of his own teachers and contemporaries heard from him—and ḥuffāẓ graduated through him.” (2)

Eighth-century works abound with the names of hundreds of al-Dhahabī’s distinguished pupils, but listing them here would be of little benefit for a study of this kind.

It is, however, useful to conclude this chapter by sampling the scholars’ assessments of him, for they are crucial to his evaluation. We have already cited some of these opinions in the course of our study. His companion and teacher ʿAlam al-Dīn al-Barzalī (d. 739 AH), in his Muʿjam Shuyūkh—written while al-Dhahabī was still at the dawn of his scholarly life—described him thus: “A virtuous man, sound of mind. He applied himself, traveled widely, and wrote copiously. He possesses useful works and abridgments, and he is knowledgeable about the shaykhs of Qurʾān recitation.” (3)

His student Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-Ṣafadī (d. 764 AH) said: “The shaykh, the imam, the erudite scholar, the ḥāfiẓ Shams al-Dīn Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Dhahabī— a ḥāfiẓ whom none can outrun, an authority whom none can rival. He mastered hadith and its transmitters, investigated its defects and circumstances, knew people’s biographies, and removed obscurity and confusion from their chronologies; a mind ablaze…”