Biography of Ibn Asakir (Abu al-Qasim al-Dimashqi)

[...] of Abou Ghalib al-Baqdari; Manoujhar ibn Tourkanchah; and Abou Muhammad al-Moubarak ibn Ali ibn at-Tabbakh, in Mecca.

No. 354: Ibn Asakir, Thiqat ad-Din, Abou al-Qasim ad-Dimashqi.

The imam, the deeply learned, the great hafiz, the master craftsman, the traditionist of Syria, Thiqat ad-Din, Abou al-Qasim ad-Dimashqi, the Shafiite, author of the "Chronicle of Damascus".

I transcribed his notice from the handwriting of his son, the traditionist Abou Muhammad al-Qasim ibn Ali, who said:

The birth and the teachers of Ibn Asakir

"He was born in Muharram, at the beginning of the month, in the year four hundred ninety-nine. His brother Sa'in ad-Din Hibbatallah made him hear in the year five hundred five and after. He departed for Iraq in the year twenty, and performed the pilgrimage in the year twenty-one."

I say: he travelled to Khurasan by way of Azerbaijan in the year five hundred twenty-nine.

He is Ali, son of the sheikh Abou Muhammad al-Hasan ibn Hibbatallah ibn Abdallah ibn al-Husayn. As for Asakir, I do not know whether it is the byname of one of his ancestors; perhaps it is the name of one of them.

He heard: the sharif Abou al-Qasim an-Nasib, in whose possession were the twenty fascicules that his master the hafiz Abou Bakr al-Khatib had compiled for him: we heard them in unbroken chain. He heard from: Qawam ibn Zayd, companion of Ibn Hazarmard as-Sarifini; Abou al-Wachh Soubay' ibn Qirat, companion of al-Ahwazi; Abou Tahir al-Hinna'i; Abou al-Hasan ibn al-Mawazini; Abou al-Fada'il al-Massih; Muhammad ibn Ali ibn Abi al-Ala' al-Massissi; al-Amin Hibbatallah ibn al-Akfani; Abd al-Karim ibn Hamza; Tahir ibn Sahl al-Isfarayini; and people, in Damascus.

He resided five years in Baghdad, accumulating knowledge. He heard from: Hibbatallah ibn al-Housseyn; Ali ibn Abd al-Wahid ad-Daynawari; Qaratkine ibn As'ad; Abou Ghalib ibn al-Banna; Hibbatallah ibn Ahmad ibn at-Tabar; Abou al-Hasan al-Bari'; Ahmad ibn Malouk al-Warraq; the judge Abou Bakr; and a multitude.

In Mecca: from Abdallah ibn Muhammad al-Misri, nicknamed al-Ghazal.

In Medina: from Abd al-Khallaq ibn Abd al-Wassi' al-Harawi.

In Isfahan: from al-Husayn ibn Abd al-Malik al-Khallal; Ghanim ibn Khalid; Isma'il ibn Muhammad the hafiz; and people.

In Nishapur: from Abou Abdallah al-Furawi; Abou Muhammad as-Sayyidi; Zahir ach-Chachchami; Abd al-Moun'im ibn al-Qouchayri; Fatima bint Za'bal; and people.

In Merv: from Youssouf ibn Ayyoub al-Hamadhani the ascetic; and people.

In Herat: from Tamim ibn Abi Sa'id the tutor; and several.

In Koufa: from Umar ibn Ibrahim az-Zaydi the sharif; as well as in Hamadhan, Tabriz and Mossoul.

The works of Ibn Asakir

He compiled "Forty" hadiths by countries.

The number of his masters appearing in his "Collection": one thousand three hundred sheikhs by audition; forty-four sheikhs who recited to him; two hundred ninety-two sheikhs by authorization: all in his "Collection"; and some eighty-six women possessing a small "Collection" which he heard from them.

He narrated in Baghdad, the Hijaz, Isfahan, and Nishapur.

He composed much.

He was perceptive, a memorizer, exact, intelligent, versed in this matter: his standing could not be matched, his dust could not be equalled, and he had no like in his time.

The narrators of Ibn Asakir

Those who narrated from him: Ma'mar ibn al-Fakhkhar; the hafiz Abou al-Ala' al-Attar; the hafiz Abou Sa'd as-Sam'ani; his son al-Qasim ibn Ali; the imam Abou Ja'far al-Qourtoubi; the hafiz Abou al-Mawahib ibn Sassra; his brother Abou al-Qasim ibn Sassra; the judge of Damascus Abou al-Qasim ibn al-Harastani; the hafiz Abd al-Qadir ar-Rouhawi; the mufti Fakhr ad-Din Abd ar-Rahman ibn Asakir; his two brothers Zayn al-Oumana' Hasan and Abou Nasr Abd ar-Rahim; their brother Taj al-Oumana' Ahmad; his son al-Izz the genealogist; Younous ibn Muhammad al-Fariqi; Abd ar-Rahman ibn Nassim; the jurist Abd al-Qadir ibn Abi Abdallah al-Baghdadi; the judge Abou Nasr ibn ach-Chirazi; Ali ibn Hajjaj al-Batalhi; Abou Abdallah Muhammad ibn Nasr al-Qourachi, nephew of the sheikh Abou al-Bayan; Abou al-Ma'ali As'ad and as-Sadid Makki, sons of Moussallam ibn Allane; Muhammad ibn Abd al-Karim ibn al-Hadi the market inspector; Fakhr ad-Din Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab ibn ach-Chiraji; Abou Ishaq Ibrahim and Abd al-Aziz, sons of Abou Tahir al-Khouchou'i; Abd al-Wahid ibn Ahmad ibn Abi al-Mada'; Nasrallah ibn Abd ar-Rahman ibn Fityan al-Ansari; Abd al-Jabbar ibn Abd al-Ghani ibn al-Harastani; Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Maksini; Mahassine ibn Abi al-Qasim al-Joubarani; Sayf ad-Dawla Muhammad ibn Ghassan; Abd ar-Rahman ibn Chou'la al-Bayt Sawwa'i; Khattab ibn Abd al-Karim al-Mizzi; Atiq ibn Abi al-Fadl as-Salmami; Umar ibn Abd al-Wahhab ibn al-Baradhi'i; Muhammad ibn Roumiyan as-Saqbani; ar-Rachid Ahmad ibn al-Mouslama; Baha' ad-Din Ali ibn al-Joumayzi; and people.

He transmitted, for my own masters, some forty persons among the disciples of the hafiz, to whom I dedicated a fascicule.

He had elevated authorizations. Those who gave him authorization: Mousnad Baghdad the chamberlain Abou al-Hasan ibn al-Allaf; Abou al-Qasim ibn Bayan; Abou Ali ibn Nabhan the secretary; Abou al-Fath Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Haddad; Ghanim al-Barji; Abou Ali al-Haddad the reciter; Abd al-Ghaffar ach-Chirawi; the companion of the judge Abou Bakr Ahmad ibn al-Hasan al-Hiri; and a crowd of others gave him authorization while he was a child.

His son al-Qasim said: "Things from his works were transmitted from him by authorization during his life. His name became famous on the earth. In his youth he studied fiqh under Jamal al-Islam Abou al-Hasan as-Sulami and others. He profited from the company of his maternal grandfather, the judge Abou al-Moufad-dal Isa ibn Ali al-Qourachi, in grammar. He noted questions of divergence from Abou Sa'd ibn Abi Salih al-Kermani, in Baghdad. He devoted himself to study and fiqh at the Nizamiyya in Baghdad, composed and collected with excellence."

He said: "Among that is his 'Chronicle' in eight hundred fascicules." I say: the fascicule is twenty folios: that makes sixteen thousand folios.

He said: "He gathered the 'Mouwafaqat' in seventy-two fascicules; the 'Awali Malik'; their 'Supplement' in fifty fascicules; the 'Rarities of Malik' in ten fascicules; the 'Collection' in twelve fascicules." I say: it is a bare transmission in which he made no notices on his masters.

He said: "He has the 'Merits of the young men' in fifteen fascicules; the 'Merits of the people of hadith' in eleven fascicules; the 'Merit of Friday', one volume; the 'Revelation of the liar's falsehood as to what was attributed to al-Ach'ari', one volume; the 'Enchained chains', one volume; the 'Suba'iyyat', seven fascicules; 'He whose kunya coincides with the kunya of his wife', four fascicules; 'On the founding of Dar as-Sunna', three fascicules; 'The day of al-Mazid', three fascicules; 'The ascetics of testimony', one volume; 'The ways of the grasp of knowledge'; 'The hadith of the hiccup'; 'The hadith of the descent and its authenticity'; 'The chains of al-Awza'i and his state', two fascicules."

Among the delicate works of Ibn Asakir: "The quintuple collections", a fascicule; "The sextuple collections", a fascicule; "The names of the places where he heard"; "The dyeing"; "The strengthening of the Hijra when aid is wanting"; "The shameful discourse"; "The merit of writing the Quran"; "He who is not trustworthy shall not be a muezzin"; "The merit of generosity toward the people of the sanctuary"; "On the digging of the trench"; "The saying of Uthman: I did not sing"; "The names of the companions of the Musnad"; "The hadiths that open the chapter of Chou'ba"; "The accounts of Sa'id ibn Abd al-Aziz"; "The enchained chain of the feast"; "Suckling kinship"; "The merits of the Ten", two fascicules; "He who dwelt in the Mizza"; "On the Rabwa and an-Nayrab"; "On the disbelief of Sousse"; "The transmission of the people of Sanaa"; "The people of al-Himrayyan"; "Fadhaya"; "The house of Qoufa"; "The palace"; "The tomb of Sa'd"; "Jisrine"; "Koufr Batna"; "Harasta"; "Douma and Misraba"; "Bayt Sawwa"; "Djourkane"; "Jadaya and Tarmis"; "Zamlaka"; "Joubar".

He also composed: "Bayt Lihya"; "Barza"; "Maynine"; "Ya'qouba"; "The hadiths of Baalbek"; "The merit of Ascalon"; "Jerusalem"; "Medina"; "Mecca"; the "Book of striving"; "The Musnad of Abou Hanifa and of Mak'houl"; "Coition" and other things; "The Forty long ones", one volume; "The Forty of the land", a fascicule; "The Forty on striving"; "The Forty of the substitutes"; "The merit of Achoura", three fascicules; "The ways of the grasp of knowledge", a fascicule; the "Book of earthquakes", one volume; "The affliction by the child", two fascicules; "The masters of Nablous", one volume; "The chains of Chou'ba", twelve fascicules; "The chains of Soufyan", four fascicules; the "Collection of the villages and the cities", a fascicule; and he narrated for him several works.

He said: "He dictated four hundred and eight sessions."

He said: "He was constant in the prayer in congregation and the recitation of the Quran: he completed it every week, and completed it every day in Ramadan. He made retreat in the eastern tower. He multiplied the supererogatory prayers and the litanies; he kept awake the night of mid-Chaabane and those of the two feasts with prayer and glorification; and he held himself to account for every instant spent outside obedience. He said to me:"

"When my mother was pregnant with me, she saw in her sleep one who said: you will bear a boy who will have standing."

"And he related to me that his father saw a dream meaning: a child will be born to you by whom Allah will revive the year. And when he resolved on travel, Abou al-Hasan ibn Qoubays said to him: I hope that Allah will revive by you this standing."

"My father related to me, saying: one day I was reading before Abou al-Fath al-Moukhtar ibn Abd al-Hamid while he conversed with the assembly. He said: there came to us Abou Ali ibn al-Wazir, and we said: we have seen nothing like him. Then there came to us Abou Sa'd as-Sam'ani, and we said: we have seen nothing like him. Until this one came to us, and we saw no like of him."

Al-Qasim said: "Abou al-Hasan Ali ibn Ibrahim al-Ansari the Hanbalite related to me, from Abou al-Hasan Sa'd al-Khayr, who said: I have not seen, in the lifetime of the hafiz Abou al-Qasim, his like."

"Taj Muhammad ibn Abd ar-Rahman al-Mas'oudi related to us: I heard the hafiz Abou al-Ala' al-Hamadhani say to some of his students, who had asked his leave to travel, and he said: if you know a master more knowledgeable than I, or my equal in merit, then I grant you leave to travel to him, unless you travel to the hafiz Ibn Asakir: for he is a hafiz as he ought to be."

I say: "Who is this hafiz?"

He said: "The hafiz of Syria, Abou al-Qasim, who dwells in Damascus," and he praised him.

"His name was mentioned with the master of his master, the preacher Abou al-Fadl ibn Abi Nasr at-Tousi, who would say: we do not know who deserves today this title, the hafiz, and who would be its reality, other than him." Such was the relation of Abou al-Mawahib ibn Sassra.

He said: "When I entered Hamadhan, the hafiz Abou al-Ala' praised him and said to me: I know better than anyone that none rivals the hafiz Abou al-Qasim in his matter. Were he to mix with people and jest with them as others do, then the agreeing and the disagreeing would unite upon him."

Abou al-Ala' said to me one day: "What was opened to him? And how do you see the people toward him?" I said: "He is far above all that: for forty years he engaged in nothing but collecting, composing, and auditioning, even in his strolls and his retreats."

He said: "Praise be to Allah: that is the fruit of knowledge. Know that there came to us this house, the books, and the mosque. This attests to the scantiness of the lot of the people of knowledge in your lands."

Then he said to me: "Abou al-Qasim, in Baghdad, was called nothing but a flame of fire, for his blaze, his intelligence, and his fine grasp."

Zayn al-Oumana' related: Ibn al-Qazwini related to us, from his father, teacher of the Nizamiyya, who said: "Al-Furawi related to us: there came to us Ibn Asakir. He read before me three days running, and much. He wearied me, and I vowed to shut my door and refused. This thought came to me by night: the next day someone presented himself and said: I am the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, sent to you. I saw him in sleep. He said: go to al-Furawi and say to him: there has come to your land a dark man of the people of Syria seeking my hadith: let neither annoyance nor weariness take you from him."

He said: "From then on, al-Furawi would not rise until the hafiz had risen first."

Abou al-Mawahib said: "I would revise with him, in his retreats, the hafiz he had met. He said: in Baghdad, Abou Amir al-Abdari; in Isfahan, Abou Nasr al-Younarti; but the hafiz Isma'il was more famous than he."

I said to him: "That is on what our master saw of his like."

He said: "Do not say that. Allah, the Most High, has said: 'Do not praise yourselves' (Surah an-Najm, verse 32)."

I said: "He has also said: 'And proclaim the grace of your Lord' (Surah ad-Douha, verse 11)."

He said: "Yes. If someone said: my eye has not seen my like, he would have spoken truly."

Abou al-Mawahib said: "And I say: I have not seen his like, nor anyone in whom gathered what gathered in him: holding to a single way for forty years, constancy in the congregational prayer at the five prayers in the first row save for excuse, retreat in Ramadan and the ten of Dhou al-Hijja, and not seeking the acquiring of estates and the building of houses, for he cast that off from himself, turning away from the offices of the imamate and the preaching which he refused after they were offered to him, the rarity of his courting of the emirs, and his taking of himself to commanding good and forbidding evil, fearing no one's blame in Allah."

He said to me: "When I resolved on transmitting hadith, and Allah knows what carried me to that, it was not love of leadership and advancement; rather I said: when shall I transmit all that I have heard? And what profit is there in my leaving behind me, after my death, only sheets? I consulted Allah, sought the leave of my eminent masters and the notables of the land, and made the rounds of them. Each said: who has more right to this than you?"

"I began that in the year three and thirty. My father, the hafiz Abou al-Qasim, said to me: my grandfather the judge Abou al-Moufad-dal said to me on my return from travel: sit on the seats of these seats until we sit at your heel. But when I resolved to sit, it happened that he fell ill, and it was not granted him thereafter to go out to the mosque."

Until Abou Muhammad al-Qasim said:

"My father, may Allah have mercy on him, had heard things of which he had not secured reliable copies, relying on the copies of his companion the hafiz Abou Ali ibn al-Wazir. What Ibn al-Wazir obtained, my father did not obtain, and what my father obtained, Ibn al-Wazir did not obtain. One night I heard him converse with one of his companions in the mosque. He said: I travelled yet am not as if I had travelled: I thought Ibn al-Wazir would bring the books such as the 'Two Sahihs', the books of al-Bayhaqi, and the fascicules. It happened that he dwelt in Merv, and I hoped for the arrival of another of his companions called Youssouf ibn Farrouwa al-Jayyani, and the arrival of our companion Abou al-Hasan al-Muradi. I saw none of them come: there was no avoiding a third journey, the acquiring of the books and the necessities."

He said: "Only a few days passed before Abou al-Hasan al-Muradi arrived. My father lodged him in our home. He brought four mats of heard books. My father rejoiced greatly at that, and Allah spared him the burden of travel. He turned to those books: he copied, had copied, and collated. There remained of his auditions some three hundred fascicules. Abou Sa'd as-Sam'ani helped him with them: he transferred to him an amount of them until no more than twenty fascicules remained upon him. Whenever he obtained a fascicule of them, it was as if he had obtained the kingdom of the world."

Ibn an-Naqqar said: "I read in the handwriting of Ma'mar ibn al-Fakhkhar, in his 'Collection': the hafiz Abou al-Qasim dictated to me at Mina, and he was among the greatest memorizers I have seen. Our sheikh Isma'il ibn Muhammad the imam preferred him to all whom we had met. He came to Isfahan and lodged at my house. I have not seen a young man more memorizing, more devout, nor more exact than he. He was a jurist, a man of letters, noble. I asked him about his lateness in travelling to Isfahan. He said: I asked my mother's leave to travel to it, and she did not permit me."

What the scholars said of Ibn Asakir

As-Sam'ani said: "Abou al-Qasim is of abundant knowledge, rich merit, an exact hafiz, scrupulous and excellent, of fine bearing. He combined knowledge of the texts and the chains, soundness of reading, verified caution," until he said:

"He gathered what no one else gathered, and he excelled his peers. He entered Nishapur a month before me. I heard from him and he heard from me. I heard from him his 'Collection', and he secured for me in Damascus a copy of it. He had begun the 'Great Chronicle of Damascus', then his books would reach me, and I would dispatch the reply."

I heard the hafiz Ali ibn Muhammad say: I heard the hafiz Abou Muhammad al-Moundhiri say:

"I asked our sheikh Abou al-Hasan Ali ibn al-Moufad-dal the hafiz about four who disputed precedence. He said: who are they? I said: the hafiz Ibn Asakir and the hafiz Ibn Nasir. He said: Ibn Asakir is the greater memorizer. I said: Ibn Asakir and Abou Moussa al-Madini? He said: Ibn Asakir. I said: Ibn Asakir and Abou Tahir as-Silafi? He said: as-Silafi is our master, as-Silafi is our master. I say: he hinted that Ibn Asakir was the greater memorizer, but he showed respect toward his sheikh, and also uttered a word admitting the preference of Abou Tahir: and Allah knows best."

We received that the hafiz Abd al-Ghani al-Maqdisi, after the death of Ibn Asakir, reprimanded one who had borrowed something for him from the "Chronicle of Damascus". When he read it, he was dazzled by the breadth of Ibn Asakir's memory, and it is said he regretted missing his audition: for there was distance between Ibn Asakir and the people of Jerusalem, may Allah have mercy on all.

Abou Ali al-Husayn ibn Abdallah ibn Rawaha composed for the hafiz Ibn Asakir this elegy:

Give up striving for heights and for virtues:
Gone is he toward whom journeys were knotted.
And say to the lightning's course: I mourn him
With a fire of grief, or tears of thick rain falling.
He was nothing but the sea: he sank, and whoever seeks
His shores meets only rolling floods.
Go on: you inherited his knowledge from his transmitters,
And the chains of his circle are no chance things.
The light of guidance has left you at his death,
With it the honour of piety, and the success of means.
The Sunna of the Chosen is stripped of the aiding defender,
And the nearest of what we fear is the weakening innovation.
He inclined to the imam ash-Shafi'i in every thesis,
And became the healing of the eye of every disputant.
He shut to anthropomorphism the door of error,
And turned back from assimilation the appearance of falsehood.

Its author was slain at 'Akka, in the year five and eighty.

And of the hafiz Abou al-Qasim:

Know that hadith is the noblest of knowledge,
And its most honoured part: the elevated chains.
Of every type of it the most useful to me,
The fairest: the benefits and the sessions,
For you shall see nothing of knowledge that you verify
Like the mouths of men.
Be then, O companion, of ardent desire for it,
And take it from the ancients without weariness,
Take it not from sheets, lest you be cast,
By distortion, into the gnawing disease.

And he has:

O soul, woe to you: old age has come.
What now of adornment, and what now of dalliance?
My youth has departed as if it never was,
And my old age has come as if it never left.
As if I saw myself in the brightness of youth,
And the decree of fates upon it already fallen.
Would that I knew whom I shall be,
And what Allah decreed for me in eternity.

Ibn Asakir has fine poetry that a crowd of his session companions dictated after him. In him there was withdrawal from the people, goodness, and the leaving of testimonies before the governors and these vanities.

The death of Ibn Asakir

He died in Rajab of the year five hundred seventy-one, on Monday night, the eleventh of the month. The pole an-Nisabouri prayed over him, and the sultan Salah ad-Din attended the prayer. He was buried by his father in the cemetery of Bab as-Saghir.

The imam Abou al-Husayn Ali ibn Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Youmini informed us in Baalbek, in the year three and ninety: the judge Abd al-Wahid ibn Ahmad ibn Abi al-Mada' informed us, in the year six hundred twenty-six, by the reading of the hafiz Abou Moussa al-Maqdisi, who said: Ali ibn al-Hasan ach-Chafi'i related to us, by dictation in Baalbek, in the year five hundred fifty-one: al-Husayn ibn Abd al-Malik informed us in Isfahan: Abou Tahir Ahmad ibn Mahmoud ath-Thaqafi informed us: Abou Bakr Muhammad ibn Ibrahim informed us: Muhammad ibn al-Hasan ibn Qoutayba, Muhammad ibn al-Fayd, and al-Husayn ibn Abdallah ar-Raqqi related to us, saying:

Ibrahim ibn Hicham ibn Yahya al-Ghassani related to us: my father related to me, from Ourwa ibn Rouaym al-Lakhmi, from Hicham ibn Ourwa, from his father, from 'Aicha, who said:

The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, said: "Whoever holds toward his Muslim brother the role of mediator before a holder of authority, to convey a goodness or ease a hardship, Allah will help him to cross the Bridge on the day when feet slip."

Abou al-Fadl Ahmad ibn Hibbatallah informed us, by my reading: Zayn al-Oumana' al-Hasan ibn Muhammad informed us: my uncle the hafiz Abou al-Qasim Ali ibn al-Hasan informed us: Abou al-Qasim an-Nasib informed us: Muhammad ibn Abd ar-Rahman at-Tamimi informed us: Youssouf ibn al-Qasim al-Mayanaji informed us: Ahmad ibn Ali at-Tamimi informed us: Ahmad ibn Hatim at-Tawil related to us: Malik related to us, from Ibn Chihab, from Ourwa, from 'Aicha:

That the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, when he was ill, would recite over himself the protecting surahs and blow, or have blown over him.

Agreed upon by the two Sahihs.

As for Ahmad ibn Hatim ibn Makchi, from Malik, he is a Basran master; as for at-Tawil, he is a Baghdadian.