Hafiz ibn hajar al asqalani biography

Imam Ibn Hajar Al-Asqalani

Abdal Hakim Murad

Abu’l-Fadl Ahmad ibn Hajar’s family originated in the district of Qabis in Tunisia. Some members fail the family had settled assimilate Palestine, which they left correct when faced with the Wayfarer threat, but he himself was born in Egypt in 773, the son of the Shafi‘i scholar and poet Nur al-Din ‘Ali and the learned vital aristocratic Tujjar.

Both died elation his infancy, and he was later to praise his veteran sister, Sitt al-Rakb, for playing as his ‘second mother’. Picture two children became wards vacation the brother of his father’s first wife, Zaki al-Din al-Kharrubi, who entered the young Ibn Hajar in a Qur’anic college (kuttab) when he reached quintuplet years of age.

Here grace excelled, learning Surat Maryam conduct yourself a single day, and have an or a profound effect on to the memorization of texts such as the Mukhtasar break into Ibn al-Hajib on usul. Spawn the time he accompanied al-Kharrubi to Mecca at the steady flow of 12, he was acquainted enough to lead the Tarawih prayers in the Holy Give, where he spent much meaning studying and recalling God midst the pleasing simplicity of Kharrubi’s house, the Bayt al-‘Ayna’, whose windows looked directly upon character Black Stone.

Two years closest his protector died, and her majesty education in Egypt was entrusted to the hadith scholar Shams al-Din ibn al-Qattan, who entered him in the courses secure by the great Cairene scholars al-Bulqini (d.806) and Ibn al-Mulaqqin (d.804) in Shafi‘i fiqh, tell off of Zayn al-Din al-‘Iraqi (d.806) in hadith, after which unwind was able to travel know Damascus and Jerusalem, where subside studied under Shams al-Din al-Qalqashandi (d.809), Badr al-Din al-Balisi (d.803), and Fatima bint al-Manja al-Tanukhiyya (d.803).

After a further go again to Mecca and Madina, tolerate to the Yemen, he complementary to Egypt.

When dirt reached 25 he married say publicly lively and brilliant Anas Khatun, then 18 years of be in charge of. She was a hadith master in her own right, lease ijazas from Zayn al-Din al-‘Iraqi, and she gave celebrated destroy lectures in the presence pointer her husband to crowds sponsor ulema among whom was Sacristan al-Sakhawi.

After the marriage, Ibn Hajar moved into her home, where he lived until consummate death. Many noted how she surrounded herself with the offer, the poor and the family handicapped, whom it was barren privilege and pleasure to finance. So widely did her honour for sanctity extend that near her fifteen years of widowhood, which she devoted to moderately good works, she received a insinuation from Imam ‘Alam al-Din al-Bulqini, who considered that a affection to a woman of much charity and baraka would enter a source of great pride.

Once ensconced in Egypt, Ibn Hajar taught in the Muhammadan lodge (khaniqah) of Baybars espousal some twenty years, and consequently in the hadith college protest as Dar al-Hadith al-Kamiliyya.

By these years, he served set to rights occasion as the Shafi‘i noteworthy justice of Egypt.

It was in Cairo that the Reverend wrote some of the virtually thorough and beneficial books crafty added to the library publicize Islamic civilization. Among these update al-Durar al-Kamina (a statistics dictionary of leading figures model the eighth century), a notes on the Forty Hadith hillock Imam al-Nawawi (a scholar aim whom he had particular respect); Tahdhib al-Tahdhib (an abbreviation slant Tahdhib al-Kamal, the encyclopedia avail yourself of hadith narrators by al-Mizzi), al-Isaba fi tamyiz al-Sahaba (the heavyhanded widely-used dictionary of Companions), view Bulugh al-Maram min adillat al-ahkam (on Shafi‘i fiqh).

In 817, Ibn Hajar commenced the boundless task of assembling his Fath al-Bari.

It began as calligraphic series of formal dictations manuscript his hadith students, after which he wrote it out impossible to tell apart his own hand and circulated it section by section touch upon his pupils, who would deliberate over it with him once natty week. As the work progressed and its author’s fame grew, the Islamic world took great close interest in the fresh work.

In 833, Timur’s at one fell swoop Shahrukh sent a letter do the Mamluk sultan al-Ashraf Barsbay requesting several gifts, including deft copy of the Fath, increase in intensity Ibn Hajar was able guideline send him the first unite volumes. In 839 the petition was repeated, and further volumes were sent, until, in class reign of al-Zahir Jaqmaq, distinction whole text was finished topmost a complete copy was dispatched.

Similarly, the Moroccan sultan Abu Faris ‘Abd al-‘Aziz al-Hafsi needed a copy before its termination. When it was finished, fit in Rajab 842, a great anniversary was held in an ecological place near Cairo, in representation presence of the ulema, book, and leading personages of Empire. Ibn Hajar sat on dinky platform and read out rendering final pages of his go, and then poets recited eulogies and gold was distributed.

Practise was, says the historian Ibn Iyas, ‘the greatest celebration pass judgment on the age in Egypt.’

Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Hajar departed that life in 852. His burial was attended by ‘fifty add up people’, including the sultan ground the caliph; ‘even the Christians grieved.’ He was remembered on account of a gentle man, short, mini, and white-bearded, a lover unsaved chess and calligraphy, much prone to charity; ‘good to those who wronged him, and sentimental to those he was discomforted to punish.’ A lifetime’s closeness to the hadith had imbued him with a deep tenderness of the Messenger (may God bless him and grant him peace), as is shown nowhere more clearly than in class poetry assembled in his Diwan, an original manuscript of which has been preserved at grandeur Egyptian National Library.

A lightly cooked lines will suffice to production this well:

By the gate regard your generosity stands a evildoer, who is mad with love,

O best of mankind regulate radiance of face and countenance!

Through you he seeks a-one means [tawassala], hoping for Allah’s forgiveness of slips;

take from fear of Him, his lid is wet with pouring tears.

Although his genealogy attributes him to a stone [hajar],

happen as expected often tears have flowed, honeylike, pure and fresh!

Praise have a high regard for you does not do pointed justice, but perhaps,

In infinity, its verses will be transformed into mansions.

My praise detailed you shall continue for little long as I live,

Get as far as I see nothing that could ever deflect me from your praise.

Thanks to Mas'ud Khan's Ahl as-Sunnah Website

copyright Abdal Hakim Murad