He is Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Maḥmūd ibn Aḥmad ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī al-Shāfiʿī al-Miṣrī al-Qāhirī.
Kunyah: Abū al-Faḍl. His father gave him this kunyah after a great judge of the time, Abū al-Faḍl al-ʿUqaylī.
Laqab: Shihāb al-Dīn. During this era, those with the name Aḥmad would be called Shihāb al-Dīn and those with the name Muḥammad were called Shams al-Dīn.
More commonly known as: Ibn Ḥajar, Qāḍī al-Quḍāt and Amīr al-Muʾminīn fī al-Ḥadīth.
Born: in Cairo on 12 Shaʿbān 773 AH / 1372 CE.1
Ibn Ḥajar's father, Nūr al-Dīn ʿAlī, was a Shāfiʿī scholar who excelled in fiqh, Arabic, literature and poetry. He was known for his knowledge, piety, trustworthiness and exemplary moral character. He died in 777 AH in the month of Rajab when Ibn Ḥajar was only four years old. His mother died before this, and thus his sister Sitt al-Rakb assumed the responsibility to raise him. He said regarding his sister, "هي امي بعد امي", she was my mother after my mother.
By the age of nine Ibn Ḥajar had completed the memorisation of the Qurʾān. At the age of twelve he was given the honour of leading the tarāwīḥ prayers at the Masjid al-Ḥarām in Makkah.
Ibn Ḥajar had an elder brother, also a scholar, who passed away at a young age before Ibn Ḥajar was born.
At the age of twenty-five, in 798 AH, Ibn Ḥajar married Ānas Khātūn, herself a ḥadīth scholar and a student of Ḥāfiẓ al-ʿIrāqī. The marriage produced four daughters.
Ibn Ḥajar had 573 male teachers, and 55 female teachers. Some of his more prominent teachers are listed below:
Ibn Ḥajar had many students. Some of his more famous students include:
Ibn Ḥajar wrote many books. His more famous works include:
Al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Ḥajar passed away after ʿIshāʾ on Saturday night, 28 Dhū al-Ḥijjah6 852 AH. He was buried in a small cemetery in Cairo, and 50,000 people, including the Sultan and the Caliph, attended his funeral. May Allāh ﷻ have mercy upon him, and reward him with the best of rewards on behalf of Islām and the Muslims.
As mentioned by al-Suyūṭī in Naẓm al-ʿIqyān fī Aʿyān al-Aʿyān pg. 45. Sakhāwī mentions he was born on 22nd of Shaʿbān (al-Jawāhir wa al-Durar, pg. 104). ↩
A prolific author; Ibn Ḥajar studied Shāfiʿī fiqh with him. ↩
Ibn Ḥajar first became his student in 786 AH and studied under his guidance for ten years. His famous works are Dhayl ʿalā al-Mīzān, al-Alfiyyah and its commentary Fatḥ al-Mughīth. ↩
He was one of the leading shaykhs of qirāʾah of his era and the author of Ḥiṣn al-Ḥaṣīn and Ghāyat al-Nihāyah fī Ṭabaqāt al-Qurrāʾ. ↩
A work of ḥadīth on the classic Ḥanafī manual al-Hidāyah. ↩
There are some differences with regard to the exact date of death. Al-Sakhāwī gives the 28th of Dhū al-Ḥijjah (al-Jawāhir wa al-Durar) and al-Suyūṭī the 18th (Naẓm al-ʿIqyān), whilst in Badāʾiʿ al-Zuhūr, Ibn Iyās says that it was on the 19th of Dhū al-Ḥijjah. ↩
A condensed reference for the principal categories of ḥadīth, their conditions of acceptance, and the technical vocabulary used to grade narrators and chains.
A short biography of Imām al-Nawawī (631–676h), the Shāfiʿī jurist and ḥadīth scholar of Damascus, covering his name, birth, life, works, character, and death.
A bibliographical survey of the major classical works in al-jarḥ wa al-taʿdīl, from the earliest rijāl compilations to Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī.
A survey of the foundational works on ḥadīth terminology from al-Rāmahurmuzī to Ibn al-Ḥanbalī's Qafw al-Athar, and the author's reasons for composing al-Mulakhkhaṣ
