Biography
Al-Dhahabi was born in Damascus in 1274 CE/673 AH, where his family had lived from the time of his grandfather `Uthman. He sometimes identified himself as Ibn al-Dhahabi (son of the goldsmith) in reference to 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, after which he returned to Damascus, where he taught and authored many works and achieved wide renown as a perspicuous critic and expert examiner of the hadith, encyclopedic historian and biographer, and foremost authority in the canonical readings of the Qur'an. He studied under more than 100 women. His most important teacher at Baalbek included a woman, Zaynab bint ʿUmar b. al-Kindī. He lost his sight two years before he died, leaving three children: his eldest daughter Amat al-`Aziz and his two sons `Abd Allah and Abu Hurayra `Abd al-Rahman. The latter taught the hadith masters Ibn Nasir al-Din al-Dimashqi and Ibn Hajar, to whom he transmitted several works authored or narrated by his father.
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