from Egypt (1). Ibn Ḥajar indicates that, on this journey, Ibn Jamāʿah actually benefited from Ibn Kathīr in tracing the chains of the ḥadīths cited by al-Rāfiʿī (2).
- Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Anṣārī al-Dimashqī, widely known as “Ibn al-Shīrjī,” d. 770 AH: Ibn Kathīr received ḥadīth from him. Ibn al-Shīrjī had earlier heard from Fakhr Ibn al-Bukhārī the fascicle entitled Juzʾ al-Anṣārī, which he alone transmitted from him (3).
One of the telling anecdotes that illustrate Ibn Kathīr’s discernment in seeking knowledge and his eagerness for it is that he did not consider it beneath him to learn from someone younger whenever that youth showed distinction. We have already noted that Ibn Kathīr benefited in various matters from the ḥadīth master Zayn al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Raḥīm ibn al-Ḥusayn al-ʿIrāqī—born in Egypt in 725 AH, d. 806 AH. Al-Sakhāwī says:
“The leading scholars of his time—such as al-Subkī, al-ʿAlāʾī, Ibn Jamāʿah, and Ibn Kathīr—lavished praise on his learning. … Ibn Kathīr explicitly stated that he benefited from him in tracing a report that had puzzled the ḥadīth scholars, that he read something to him, and that—in his commentary on the Alfiyyah—he mentions hearing from him a ḥadīth taken from the mashyakha of the judge of the bīmāristān.” (4)
• Those who granted Ibn Kathīr an ijāzah included, among the scholars of Baghdad, Ibn al-Dawālībī (d. 728 AH); and, among the scholars of Egypt, Abū Mūsā al-Qarāfī, Abū al-Fatḥ Muḥammad al-Dabūsī, Yūsuf al-Khutanī, ʿAlī ibn ʿUmar al-Wānī (5), and several others.
• I have found nothing in the early sources at my disposal to show that Ibn al-Qayyim—Muḥammad ibn Abī Bakr al-Zuraʿī al-Dimashqī (d. 751 AH)—was ever a teacher of Ibn Kathīr. Rather, he was his companion and contemporary, a fellow student under Shaykh al-Islām Aḥmad Ibn Taymiyyah. In the obituary notice Ibn Kathīr wrote for Ibn al-Qayyim, he refers to him as:
“Our companion” (6)
and says:
“I was among those who kept closest company with him and whom he loved the most.” (7)
[B. His Students]
Ibn Kathīr’s diligent study under his teachers soon bore fruit, enabling him—at an early stage—to emerge as a celebrated scholar and ḥāfiẓ,