Chapter One: The Life of al-Dhahabī and His Scholarly Standing

First: al-Dhahabī’s Environment and Upbringing

The Bahri Mamluk state arose upon the ruins of the Ayyubid dynasty in Egypt and Syria. The Mamluks succeeded in forging a powerful polity that helped halt the Mongol advance and dismantle the remaining Crusader principalities in the Levant (1).

By the end of the seventh century AH and the beginning of the eighth, Damascus had become a major center of intellectual life. It housed numerous flourishing schools and many institutions dedicated to hadith and Quranic studies, endowed and maintained by its rulers and by some of its affluent citizens, especially since the time of Nūr al-Dīn Zengi (2).

The era was marked above all by a keen devotion to religious disciplines—Quranic exegesis, hadith, jurisprudence, and theology. Conversely, the exact sciences, now derided as “obscure crafts” (3) and “mere prattle” (4), attracted little serious attention.