First: His name, honorifics, and lineage:
He is ʿAbd Allah ibn Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Qudamah ibn Miqdam ibn Nasr al-Jamaʿili al-Salihi al-Dimashqi al-Hanbali, known as Abu Muhammad, Muwaffaq al-Din.

Second: His birth:
Abu Muhammad—may Allah have mercy on him—was born in the month of Shaʿban, 541 AH, in a Palestinian village called Jamaʿil. He later moved to Damascus in 551 AH, when he was ten years old.

Third: His pursuit of knowledge and his journeys for it:
Abu Muhammad began seeking knowledge early on: he memorized the Noble Quran while still a child and then committed to memory a number of foundational texts, foremost among them Mukhtasar Abi al-Qasim al-Khiraqi on Hanbali jurisprudence.
Whoever studies the circumstances of that period will note how devoted the people were to traveling in search of knowledge; yet Abu Muhammad’s share of such journeys was small compared with other students of knowledge in this respect.