:en:Al-Dhahabi
{{Short description|Muslim historian and traditionist (1274–1348)}}
{{Expand Arabic|date=May 2016|topic=bio}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2022}}
{{Infobox religious biography
| religion = Islam
| region = Sham
| era = Medieval Era (Middle Ages)
| image =
| caption =
| name = Al-Dhahabi
| native_name = الذھبي
| native_name_lang = ar
| birth_date = 5 October 1274 (672 AH)
| death_date = 3 February 1348 (748 AH) (aged 73)
| birth_place = Damascus, Mamluk Sultanate
| death_place = Damascus, Mamluk Sultanate (now Syria)
| denomination = Sunni
| Maddhab = Shafi'i
| creed = Athari{{cite book |last=Halverson |first=Jeffry R. |title=Theology and Creed in Sunni Islam |isbn=978-0-230-10279-8 |pages=43 |chapter= 2: The Demise of ‘Ilm al-Kalam | publisher=Pelgrave Macmillan |location=175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010 |date=2010|quote="In fact, the prominent Shafi‘ite Athari scholar Shams al-Din al-Dhahabi..."}}{{cite book |first=Wael |last=B. Hallaq |title=Law and Legal Theory in Classical and Medieval Islam |chapter=5: Was the Gate of Ijtihad Closed? | pages=16 |publisher=Routledge |year=2016 |quote="...al-Dhahabi, who was a fervent anti-kalam Traditionalist..."|isbn= 9780860784562|location=711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA}}{{cite book |first=Aaron |last=Spevack |title=The Archetypal Sunni Scholar: Law, Theology, and Mysticism in the Synthesis of Al-Bajuri |pages=45, 169 |publisher=State University of New York Press |date=2014 |quote="..in addition to the Ḥanbalīs, the Atharīs also include a small number of followers of the other three schools of law. ... Such as al-Dhahabī and Ibn Kathīr, both Shāfiʿīs."|isbn=978-1-4384-5371-2}}
| main_interests = History, Fiqh, Hadith, Aqidah
| influences = Ibn Asakir, Ibn Daqiq al-'Id, Al-Bayhaqi, Al-Juwayni, Al-Dimyati, Zaynab bint ʿUmar b. al-Kindī, Ibn Taymiyyah
| influenced = Ibn Rajab, Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani, Ibn Kathir, Taj al-Din al-Subki
| works = Siyar A'lam al-Nubala'
Mizan al-Itidal
| title = Imam
| occupation = Historian, Scholar, Jurist, Muhaddith
}}
Shams ad-Dīn adh-Dhahabī ({{lang|ar|شمس الدين الذهبي}}), also known as Shams ad-Dīn Abū ʿAbdillāh Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn ʿUthmān ibn Qāymāẓ ibn ʿAbdillāh at-Turkumānī al-Fāriqī ad-Dimashqī (5 October 1274 – 3 February 1348Hoberman, Barry (September–October 1982). "The Battle of Talas", Saudi Aramco World, p. 26-31. Indiana University.) was an Ashari theologian,Sources:
- {{cite book |last=Halverson |first=Jeffry R. |title=Theology and Creed in Sunni Islam |isbn=978-0-230-10279-8 |pages=43 |chapter= 2: The Demise of ‘Ilm al-Kalam | publisher=Pelgrave Macmillan |location=175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010 |date=2010}}
- {{cite book |first=Wael |last=B. Hallaq |title=Law and Legal Theory in Classical and Medieval Islam |chapter=5: Was the Gate of Ijtihad Closed? | pages=16 |publisher=Routledge |year=2016 |isbn= 9780860784562|location=711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA}}
- {{cite book |first=Aaron |last=Spevack |title=The Archetypal Sunni Scholar: Law, Theology, and Mysticism in the Synthesis of Al-Bajuri |pages=45, 169 |publisher=State University of New York Press |date=2014 |isbn=978-1-4384-5371-2}} Islamic historian and Hadith scholar.
Life
Of Turkic descent,{{Cite web | url=https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/al-dhahabi-COM_0159 | title=Al-Ḏh̲ahabī | date=24 April 2012 }} adh-Dhahabi was born in Damascus. His name, Ibn adh-Dhahabi (son of the goldsmith), reveals his father's profession. He began his study of hadith at age eighteen, travelling from Damascus to Baalbek, Homs, Hama, Aleppo, Nabulus, Cairo, Alexandria, Jerusalem, Hijaz, and elsewhere, before returning to Damascus to teach and write. He authored many works and was widely renown as a perspicuous critic and expert examiner of the hadith. He wrote an encyclopaedic biographical history and was the foremost authority on the canonical readings of the Qur'an. Some of his teachers were women.{{citation|url=http://www.al-athariyyah.com/media/pdf/sisters/female_teachers.pdf |title=The Female Teachers of the Historian of Islam: al-Ḏh̲ahabī}} At Baalbek, Zaynab bint ʿUmar b. al-Kindī was among his most influential teachers.{{citation|url=http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/al-dhahabi-COM_0159 |title=" al-Ḏh̲ahabī." Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Brill Online , 2012. Reference. Princeton University Library. 09 June 2012|date=24 April 2012}}
Adh-Dhahabi lost his sight two years before he died, leaving three children: the eldest, his daughter, Amat al-'Aziz, and his two sons, 'Abd Allah and Abu Hurayra 'Abd al-Rahman. The latter son taught the hadith masters Ibn Nasir-ud-din al-Damishqial-Sakhawi, al-Daw' al-Lami` (8:103). and Ibn Hajar, and through them transmitted several works authored or narrated by his father.
Teachers
Among adh-Dhahabi's most notable teachers in hadith, fiqh and aqida:
- Abd al-Khaliq bin ʿUlwān
- Zaynab bint ʿUmar bin al-Kindī
- Abu al-Hasan 'Ali ibn Mas‘ud ibn Nafis al-Musali
- Ibn Taymiyyah Taqi ad-Din Ahmad ibn Taymiyyah
- Ibn al-Zahiri, Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn 'Abd Allah al-Halabi
- Al-Dimyati, the foremost Egyptian authority on hadith in his time.{{cite book|author=Al-Dimyati|title=THE REWARDS FOR GOOD DEEDS المتجر الرابح [انكليزي]|publisher=Dar al-Kotob al-'Ilmiyya|date=2016|isbn=9782745176554|pages=15}}
- Ibn Daqiq al-'Id, whom he identified in his youth as Abu al-Fath al-Qushayri, later as Ibn Wahb.Cf. al-'Uluw (Abu al-Fath) and al-Muqiza (Ibn Wahb).
- Jamal-ud-din Abu al-Ma`ali Muhammad ibn 'Ali al-Ansari al-Zamalkani al-Damishqi al-Shafi`i (d. 727), whom he called "Qadi al-Qudat, the Paragon of Islam, the standard-bearer of the Sunna, my shaykh".
- Ahmad ibn Ishaq ibn Muhammad al-Abarquhi al-Misri (d. 701).Siyar A`lam al-Nubala [SAN] (17:118–119 #6084, 16:300–302 #5655).
- Ibn al-Kharrat al-Dawalibi
Notable students
- Imad ad-Din Isma'il bin 'Umar bin Kathir
- Zain ad-Din 'Abd ar-Rahmān ibn al-Hasan as-Sulamī (Ibn Rajab)
- Shams-ud-din Abu al Mahasin Muhammad ibn Ali al-Dimashqi
- Taj al-Din al-Subki
- Khalīl ibn Aybak al-Ṣafadī
- Ibn al-FuratFozia Bora, Writing History in the Medieval Islamic World: The Value of Chronicles as Archives, The Early and Medieval Islamic World (London: I. B. Tauris, 2019), p. 38; {{ISBN|978-1-7845-3730-2}}.
- Also Shams al-Din Dhahabi has written about bibi Heravi and her famous role in Tarikh al-Kabir.{{Cite book |url=http://archive.org/details/waq48696 |title=waq48696 |language=Arabic}}
Works
Adh-Dhahabi authored nearly a hundred works of history, biography and theology. His history of medicine begins with Ancient Greek and Indian practices and practitioners, such as Hippocrates, Galen, etc., through the Pre-Islamic Arabian era, to Prophetic medicine {{emdash}} as revealed by the Muslim prophet Muhammad{{emdash}} to the medical knowledge contained in works of scholars such as Ibn Sina.Emilie Savage-Smith, "Medicine." Taken from Encyclopedia of the History of Arabic Science, Volume 3: Technology, Alchemy and Life Sciences, pg. 928. Ed. Roshdi Rashed. London: Routledge, 1996. {{ISBN|0415124123}} The following are the better known titles:
- Tarikh al-Islam al-kabir ({{lang|ar|تاريخ الإسلام}}) [https://archive.org/details/FP3938 'Great History of Islam' (50 vols., in Arabic)]; Ibn Hajar received it from Abu Hurayra ibn adh-Dhahabi;Ibn Hajar, al-Mu`jam (p.400 #1773) comprising over 30,000 biographical records.Maxim Romanov, "Observations of a Medieval Quantitative Historian?" in Der Islam, Volume 94, Issue 2, Page 464{{cite book|last=Dhahabī|first=Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad|author-link=Al-Dhahabi|title=Tārīkh al-Islām|place=Beirut|publisher=Dar al-Garb al-Islami|year=2003|language=ar|volume=17|url= https://archive.org/stream/FP105731/13_105743#page/n170/}}
- Siyar A'lam al-Nubala' ({{lang|ar|سير أعلام النبلاء}}) ('The Lives of Noble Figures'), 28 volumes, a unique encyclopaedia of biographical history.{{cite book|last=Dhahabī|first=Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad|author-link=Al-Dhahabi|title= Sīr al-a'lām al-nublā'|place=Beirut|year=1984|language=ar|volume=25|url=https://archive.org/stream/FP11950/}}
File:Siyar A'lam al-Nubala.jpg
- al-'Uluww
- al-Mowqizah
- Al-'Ibar fī khabar man ghabar ({{lang|ar|العبر في خبر من غبر ويليه ذيول العبر}}){{cite book|last=Dhahabī|first=Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad|author-link=Al-Dhahabi|title=Al-'Ibar|year=1985|language=ar|volume=5|url=https://archive.org/stream/FP72833/}}
- Tadhhib Tahdhib al-Kamal; abridgement of al-Mizzi's abridgement of al-Maqdisi's Al-Kamal fi Asma' al-Rijal, a biographical compendium of hadith narrators from the Six major Hadith collections.
- Al-Kashif fi Ma`rifa Man Lahu Riwaya fi al-Kutub al-Sitta; abridgment of the Tadhhib.
- Al-Mujarrad fi Asma' Rijal al-Kutub al-Sitta; abridgment of the Kashif.
- Mukhtasar Kitab al-Wahm wa al-Iham li Ibn al-Qattan.
- Mukhtasar Sunan al-Bayhaqi; selected edition of Bayhaqi's Sunan al-Kubara.
- Mukhtasar al-Mustadrak li al-Hakim, an abridgement of Hakim's Al-Mustadrak alaa al-Sahihain.
- Al-Amsar Dhawat al-Athar (Cities Rich in Historical Relics); begins with a description of Madina al-Munawwara.
- Al-Tajrid fi Asma' al-Sahaba; dictionary of the Companions of the prophet Muhammad.
- {{ws|Tadhkirat al-ḥuffāẓ|}} (The Memorial of the Hadith Masters); chronological history of the biography of hadith masters. Ibn Hajar received it from Abu Hurayra ibn adh-Dhahabi.Ibn Hajar, al-Mu`jam (p. 400 #1774).
- Tabaqat al-Qurra (Categories of the Qur'anic Scholars); Biographic anthology.
- Al-Mu`in fi Tabaqat al-Muhaddithin, a compendium of hadith scholars (Muhaddithin).
- Duwal al-Islam (The Islamic Nations); concise political histories of Islamic nations.
- Al-Kaba'ir (Cardinal Sins)
- Manaaqib Al-imam Abu Hanifa wa saahibayhi Abu Yusuf wa Muhammad Ibn al-Hasan (The Honoured status of Imam Abu Hanifa and his two companions, Abu Yusuf and Muhammad ibn Al-Hasan)
- Mizaan-ul-I’tidaal, a reworking of al-Kamil fi Dhu'afa' al-Rijal by Ibn 'Adi al-Jurjani (d. 277 H)al-Dhahabi, Siyar A`lam al-Nubala' (16:154)
See also
References
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