Biographical Sketch of the Author

The eminent imam, authority in hadith, and ḥāfiẓ, Abū al-Faḍl Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī—ʿAsqalān is pronounced with an open ʿayn, a silent sīn, and a light lām; it is a town in the Palestinian district near Gaza—was an Egyptian Shāfiʿī. He was born in Egypt on the twelfth of Shaʿbān in the year 773 AH and was raised there. His mother died while he was still a young child, and his father passed away during his early boyhood.

His Studies and Teachers

He entered the elementary kuttāb at the age of five and had completed the memorisation of the Qur’an by the time he was nine. In his youth he also committed to memory many foundational texts, among them al-ʿUmda, al-Ḥāwī al-Ṣaghīr, the Mukhtaṣar of Ibn al-Ḥājib, and Mulḥat al-Iʿrāb.

He studied under a large number of renowned scholars; the most prominent include:

1 – al-Sirāj al-Bulqīnī, with whom he studied jurisprudence.
2 – al-Sirāj Ibn al-Mulqin, to whom he attached himself closely and whom he accompanied constantly.
3 – ʿAbd al-Raḥīm ibn Razīn, from whom he heard the entire Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī.
4 – The ḥāfiẓ al-ʿIrāqī, whose company he kept for about ten years, receiving from him all that al-ʿIrāqī had transmitted.
5 – al-Jamāl Ibn Ẓuhayra, from whom he took knowledge in Mecca.
6 – al-ʿIzz Ibn Jamāʿah, whose lessons he attended frequently and from whom he learned extensively.
7 – al-Hammām al-Khwārazmī.
8 – al-Fayrūzābādī, author of al-Qāmūs, from whom he studied the Arabic sciences.
9 – Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, known as Ibn Hishām; like the former, he instructed him in the disciplines of the Arabic language.
10 – al-Burhān al-Tanuḫī, from whom he learned the seven canonical Qur’anic readings.

In sum, he studied with and benefited from the leading scholars of his age in Egypt and journeyed to other lands to seek knowledge from yet more of them.