The Author’s Biography (1)
His Name and Lineage
Abū al-Faḍl, Shihāb al-Dīn, Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Maḥmūd, Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, the Egyptian, the Shāfiʿī.
Birth
He was born in Shaʿbān of the year 773 AH (1372 CE) in Egypt. Orphaned at an early age, he was raised there and, by the time he was nine, had memorized the Quran, al-ʿUmda, al-Alfiyya of al-ʿIrāqī, al-Ḥāwī al-Ṣaghīr, the Mukhtaṣar of Ibn al-Ḥājib, and other works.
His Travels and Most Notable Teachers
May Allah have mercy on him, he traveled widely in pursuit of knowledge, investing in it both his time and his wealth. He studied with the senior scholars of Egypt and then journeyed to the lands of the Ḥijāz, Yemen, Greater Syria, Aleppo, and other regions.