Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani
- Died
- 852 AH
- Born in
- Fustat
Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani (773–852 AH / 1372–1449 CE) was an Egyptian Shafi'i hadith scholar, jurist, and historian, renowned for his monumental commentary on Sahih al-Bukhari, titled Fath al-Bari .
Lineage and Early Life
His full name was Shihab al-Din Abu al-Fadl Ahmad ibn Ali ibn Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Ali ibn Mahmud ibn Ahmad al-Kinani al-Asqalani al-Misri al-Shafi'i . The lineage al-Kinani refers to his descent from the Arab tribe of Kinanah, while al-Asqalani traces back to his family's origin in Ascalon (Ashkelon), Palestine, whose ancestors had relocated to Egypt . The designation Ibn Hajar was a sobriquet belonging to one of his ancestors .
He was born on the banks of the Nile in Old Cairo in Sha'ban 773 AH; sources record the date as the twelfth, twenty-second, or twenty-third of the month . He was orphaned at an early age: his mother died in his infancy, followed by his father, Nur al-Din Ali, who passed away when Ibn Hajar was four years old . Before his death, his father entrusted his care to the wealthy merchant Zaki al-Din Abu Bakr al-Kharubi, who raised and supported him until his passing in 787 AH .
Education and Travels
Ibn Hajar completed the memorization of the Quran at the age of nine and committed foundational legal and grammatical texts to memory . In 785 AH, he accompanied his guardian al-Kharubi to Mecca, where he led the Tarawih prayers and attended sessions hearing Sahih al-Bukhari from the traditionist 'Afif al-Din al-Nashawari . Although he initially occupied himself with commerce, literature, and poetry, he turned his full attention toward hadith studies around 793–794 AH .
To pursue scholarly training, he traveled extensively across Egypt—visiting Upper Egypt and Alexandria—as well as the Hejaz, Yemen, and the Levant, studying in Gaza, Ramla, Hebron, Jerusalem, Damascus, and Aleppo . He studied under hundreds of teachers; among the most prominent were Zayn al-Din al-Iraqi—whom he accompanied for ten years—Siraj al-Din al-Bulqini, Ibn al-Mulaqqin, Nur al-Din al-Haythami, Izz al-Din ibn Jama'a, the lexicographer Majd al-Din al-Fayruzabadi, the Quranic reader Ibrahim al-Tanukhi, and the female hadith scholar Maryam bint Ahmad al-Adhra'iyya .
Scholarly Career and Public Office
Having received licenses to teach and issue legal verdicts from his teachers, Ibn Hajar was appointed to professorships in several colleges across Cairo . He delivered the Friday sermon at major institutions including the Mosque of 'Amr ibn al-'As and the al-Azhar Mosque, and he conducted more than a thousand hadith dictation sessions (amali) . He served as the Chief Shafi'i Judge (Qadi al-Qudat) of Egypt for over twenty-one years, occupying and relinquishing the post multiple times until he retired from judicial duties .
A vast number of scholars studied under him, including Shams al-Din al-Sakhawi, Zakariyya al-Ansari, Ibn Taghribirdi, Kamal ibn al-Humam, Burhan al-Din al-Biqa'i, and Qasim ibn Qutlubugha . Among his most influential works alongside Fath al-Bari are al-Isaba fi Tamyiz al-Sahaba, a comprehensive biographical dictionary on the Companions, and Bulugh al-Maram min Adillat al-Ahkam, a widely utilized concise compendium of legal hadiths .
Standing
Ibn Hajar was recognized as the foremost hadith authority of his era and was widely referred to by contemporaries and biographers as Hafiz al-Asr (the Preserver of the Age) and Amir al-Mu'minin fi al-Hadith (Commander of the Faithful in Hadith) . When Zayn al-Din al-Iraqi was asked on his deathbed whom he left behind in scholarly leadership, he named Ibn Hajar first . His pupil al-Sakhawi composed a dedicated multi-volume biography of him titled al-Jawahir wa-al-Durar fi Tarjamat Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Hajar .
Death
In late 852 AH, Ibn Hajar fell ill with severe gastrointestinal pain that incapacitated him, causing him to miss the Eid al-Adha prayer . He died in Cairo on the night of Saturday, 28 Dhu al-Hijjah 852 AH (with variant reports giving the 18th or 19th of the month) at seventy-nine years of age . His funeral was attended by the Mamluk Sultan Sayf al-Din Jaqmaq, state dignitaries, and large crowds of scholars and townsfolk, during which an unseasonal light rain fell upon his bier . He was interred in the cemetery of the Banu al-Kharubi in the al-Qarafa necropolis near the mausoleum of Imam al-Shafi'i .
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List of Works
Nazm al-La'ali bil-Mi'a al-'Awali is a hadith compilation containing one hundred ten-link narrations transmitted through elevated chains of transmission.
Nuzhat al-Nazar fi Tawdih Nukhbat al-Fikar is a treatise on hadith terminology composed as an autocommentary on the concise primer Nukhbat al-Fikar fi Mustalah Ahl al-Athar.
Takhrij Hadith al-Asma al-Husna is a specialized hadith treatise dedicated to tracing and critically evaluating the transmission routes of the hadith concerning the ninety-nine names of God.
Inba al-Ghumr bi-Abna al-Umr is an annalistic chronicle and biographical history documenting historical events and notable figures year by year from 773 AH through 850 AH.
Hady al-Sari Muqaddimat Fath al-Bari is a comprehensive introductory volume for the commentary on Sahih al-Bukhari, Fath al-Bari, elucidating its methodologies, critical standards, and terminology.
*Masa'il Ajab 'Anha al-Hafiz Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani* is a collection of legal, theological, and hadith responsa. It gathers answers issued in response to specific inquiries concerning hadith authenticity, theological concepts, and juristic matters.
*Mu'jam al-Shaykha Maryam* is a hadith biographical compilation prepared and extracted to document the transmission networks of the female hadith scholar Sitt al-Qudah Maryam bint Abd al-Rahman al-Nablusiyya. It records the teachers from whom she received hadiths through direct audition and transmission licenses, presenting biographical summaries alongside representative narrations and their chains of transmission.
*al-Matalib al-Aliya bi-Zawaid al-Masanid al-Thamaniya* is a specialized hadith collection compiled to assemble unique narrations (*zawa'id*) from early musnad works that are not recorded in primary reference corpora. It extracts surplus traditions from eight primary musnad compilations alongside additional musnad materials, reorganizing the reports from their original arrangement by Companion into thematic legal and subject chapters.
*al-Qawl al-Musaddad fi al-Dhabb an Musnad Ahmad* is a hadith treatise written to vindicate the *Musnad* of Ahmad ibn Hanbal against charges that it contains fabricated narrations. It critically evaluates twenty-four questioned traditions by examining their transmission chains, identifying supporting paths, and assessing narrator reliability to demonstrate that the reports do not reach the level of fabrication.
*al-Amali al-Safariyya al-Halabiyya* is a collection of hadith dictation sessions delivered during a journey to Aleppo. It records transcripts of hadith assemblies wherein prophetic traditions were dictated with their full chains of transmission, accompanied by critical assessments of narrators, textual variants, and chain authentications.
This biographical and hadith monograph is dedicated to the life, virtues, legal legacy, and transmitted narrations of the early Egyptian jurist and traditionist al-Layth ibn Sa'd.
This hadith work comprises a compilation of dictation sessions spanning diverse subjects, consisting of free-form, unrestricted sessions not confined to a single source text.
This text represents the surviving portion of the hadith extraction and evaluation work (takhrij) on al-Nawawi's supplication manual, Kitab al-Adhkar.
This specialized treatise on hadith criticism classifies transmitters characterized by tadlis—the obfuscation or concealment of defects in chains of transmission—into five distinct ranks.
This biographical dictionary of hadith transmitters functions as an abridged reference manual for the narrators of the Six Books of hadith and their compilers' related works.
al-Ithar bi-Marifat Ruwat al-Athar is a biographical dictionary of hadith narrators focusing on the transmitters and figures appearing in Kitab al-Athar by Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Shaybani from Imam Abu Hanifa. It encompasses every individual mentioned in the work—whether formal transmitters, named references, or unnamed figures—and provides concise biographical evaluations.
al-Isaba fi Tamyiz al-Sahaba is an extensive biographical dictionary dedicated to the Companions of the Prophet Muhammad. It serves as a comprehensive reference for determining who attained companionship, categorizing biographical reports, and identifying figures erroneously included among the Companions in earlier scholarship.
al-Durar al-Kamina fi Ayan al-Mi'a al-Thamina is an Arabic biographical dictionary devoted to prominent figures who lived or died during the eighth Islamic century (701–800 AH). Arranged alphabetically, it covers a wide spectrum of society, including scholars, rulers, military leaders, chancery scribes, and poets.
al-Amali al-Halabiyya is a hadith collection containing traditions and scholarly commentary delivered during dictation sessions in Aleppo. The work presents hadith texts alongside their full chains of transmission, critical evaluations of the narrators, and judgments on the reliability of the narrations.
Mukhtasar Zawaid Musnad al-Bazzar ala al-Kutub al-Sitta wa Musnad Ahmad is a hadith compilation dedicated to isolating the distinct narrations in Musnad al-Bazzar that are absent from both the Six Books and Musnad Ahmad. Organized by thematic legal chapters, it summarizes earlier compilations and incorporates critical evaluations of the transmission chains.
Hidayat al-Ruwat ila Takhrij Ahadith al-Masabih wa-al-Mishkat is a work of hadith verification (takhrij) composed to identify the primary sources, chains of transmission, and authenticity of the traditions collected in al-Baghawi's Masabih al-Sunnah and al-Khatib al-Tabrizi's expansion, Mishkat al-Masabih. In its published form accompanied by Takhrij al-Mishkat al-Thani, it incorporates supplementary takhrij notes and evaluations by Muhammad Nasir al-Din al-Albani.
Lisan al-Mizan (The Tongue of the Balance) is a biographical dictionary of weak, criticized, and disputed hadith narrators. It serves as an adaptation, correction, and expansion of al-Dhahabi's biographical work Mizan al-I'tidal fi Naqd al-Rijal (The Balance of Moderation in Criticizing Men).
al-Diraya fi Takhrij Ahadith al-Hidaya is a hadith verification and extraction work. It serves as an abridgment of al-Zayla'i's foundational work Nasb al-Raya li-Ahadith al-Hidaya, which evaluated the textual proofs in Burhan al-Din al-Marghinani's Hanafi legal manual al-Hidaya.
Tabsir al-Muntabih bi-Tahrir al-Mushtabih (Illumination of the Attentive by the Redaction of the Ambiguous) is an onomastic reference work dedicated to clarifying, vocalizing, and disambiguating similarly written or easily confused names, patronymics, titles, and nisbas of hadith transmitters.
Mujam al-Shaykha Maryam (The Biographical Hadith Dictionary of Shaykha Maryam) is a hadith biographical dictionary compiled to document the teachers and transmissions of the female hadith authority Maryam bint Ahmad al-Adhraiyya.
Juz fi Turuq Hadith La Tasubbu Ashabi is a hadith monograph dedicated to gathering, documenting, and examining the diverse transmission lines (turuq) and textual variations of the prophetic tradition prohibiting the disparagement or reviling of the Prophet's Companions.
al-Kalam ala Hadith Imra'ati la Taruddu Yada Lamis (Discourse on the Hadith: "My Wife Does Not Repel the Hand of One Who Touches") is a specialized hadith treatise examining the authenticity, transmission chains, and legal interpretations of the titular prophetic narration.
Taqriz ala al-Radd al-Wafir is a scholarly endorsement written in 835 AH (1431 CE) praising Ibn Nasir al-Din al-Dimashqi's treatise al-Radd al-wafir ("The Abundant Rebuttal") and defending the scholarly status of Ibn Taymiyyah.
Zahr al-Firdaws, also known as al-Ghara'ib al-Multaqata min Musnad al-Firdaws, is a hadith work compiled to collect rare and supplemental narrations preserved in Musnad al-Firdaws along with their chains of transmission.
Nuzhat al-Albab fi al-Alqab (The Promenade of the Intellects Regarding Sobriquets) is a biographical reference work dedicated to hadith narrator titles and nicknames (al-alqab) to help correctly identify narrators known by unusual designations.
al-Matalib al-Aliya bi-Zawa'id al-Masanid al-Thamaniyya (The Lofty Demands on the Unique Additions of the Eight Musnads) is a hadith compendium dedicated to gathering supplementary hadiths from earlier musnad collections. The work extracts unique additions (zawa'id) preserved in musnad works that are not found in primary collections such as the Six Books (the Kutub al-Sitta) and the Musnad of Ahmad ibn Hanbal.
Awali Muslim (also known as al-Arbaʿun al-ʿaliyah li-Muslim ʿala al-Bukhari) is a specialized hadith work containing forty selected traditions from Sahih Muslim. It focuses on narrations whose chains of transmission (isnad) are elevated and shorter by one narrator compared to those of Muhammad ibn Isma'il al-Bukhari for the same traditions.
Ithaf al-Mahara bil-Fawaid al-Mubtakara min Atraf al-Ashara (The Gift to the Skilled: Novel Insights from the Incipits of the Ten Collections) is an encyclopedic hadith reference work that indexes hadiths by their incipits (atraf) and transmission chains. Designed to complement and expand upon earlier atraf compilations, particularly al-Mizzi's Tuhfat al-Ashraf bi-Ma'rifat al-Atraf, it gathers and cross-references narrations across eleven prominent hadith sourcebooks.
Silsilat al-Dhahab, fully titled Silsilat al-Dhahab fīmā rawāhu al-Imām al-Shāfiʿī ʿan Mālik ʿan Nāfiʿ ʿan Ibn ʿUmar, is a specialized hadith compilation that gathers prophetic traditions and legal reports transmitted through the renowned chain of narration: al-Shafi'i from Malik from Nafi' from Ibn 'Umar. It brings together marfu' narrations and mawquf statements covering a broad range of legal topics.
al-Wuquf ala al-Mawquf (also known as al-Wuquf ala ma fi Sahih Muslim min al-Mawquf) is a hadith treatise dedicated to identifying and compiling non-prophetic companion (mawquf) and Successor (maqtu') narrations contained within Sahih Muslim. It systematically tracks these incidental reports found both in Muslim's introduction and embedded within the text of prophetic traditions.
Nuzhat al-Samiin fi Riwayat al-Sahaba an al-Tabiin (Delight of the Listeners Regarding the Companions' Narration from the Successors) is a specialized hadith monograph devoted to chains of transmission in which Companions transmitted narrations from Successors.
Taghliq al-Taliq (Closing the Suspensions) is a hadith reference work dedicated to documenting continuous chains of transmission for the suspended and corroborative narrations in Sahih al-Bukhari.
al-Talkhis al-Habir is a classical work of hadith extraction (takhrij) assessing the authenticity of the prophetic traditions and legal reports cited in Abd al-Karim al-Rafi'i's Shafi'i jurisprudence commentary al-Sharh al-Kabir.
Fath al-Bari bi Sharh al-Bukhari (The Opening of the Creator in Explaining al-Bukhari) is a multi-volume Arabic commentary on Muhammad ibn Ismail al-Bukhari's hadith collection Sahih al-Bukhari.
Al-Nukat ala Sahih al-Bukhari (Points of Note on Sahih al-Bukhari) is an incomplete commentary and abridged analytical work focusing on the foundational principles and opening sections of Sahih al-Bukhari.
Bulugh al-Maram min Adillat al-Ahkam (Attainment of the Objective from the Evidences of Rulings) is a collection of legal hadiths that gathers foundational prophetic traditions serving as textual proofs for Islamic jurisprudence, evaluated for their authenticity and source attribution. Designed as a concise manual containing core legal evidences, it comprises 1,596 hadiths arranged according to standard legal chapters, followed by a concluding section on ethics and supplications.
Nataij al-Afkar fi Takhrij Ahadith al-Adhkar (The Fruits of Thoughts on the Extraction of the Hadiths of al-Adhkar) is a hadith verification and extraction work. It provides full chains of transmission, critical evaluation, and source identification for the prophetic traditions and reports collected in al-Nawawi's devotional manual al-Adhkar, documenting them back to original compilation sources with detailed gradings of narrators and transmission defects.
al-Ujab fi Bayan al-Asbab (The Marvel in Clarifying Occasions of Revelation) is an extensive specialized work on the occasions of Quranic revelation (asbab al-nuzul). It analyzes transmission chains, evaluates narrator reliability, and draws directly on original hadith collections and classical commentaries to document and clarify the circumstances surrounding the revelation of verses in standard Quranic order.
Raf al-Isr an Qudat Misr (Lifting the Burden: On the Judges of Egypt) is a biographical dictionary of the magistrates who presided over Egypt from the Muslim conquest through the end of the eighth century AH. Organized alphabetically by the judges' names, it details their lineage, legal and theological orientations, terms of office, appointments, dismissals, and dates of death.
al-Mujam al-Mufahras, also titled Tajrid Asanid al-Kutub al-Mashhura wal-Ajza al-Manthura (The Stripping of Chains for Well-Known Books and Scattered Treatises), is a bibliographical catalogue (fahrasa/thabat) that documents verified chains of transmission (asanid) for various Islamic literary works and hadith compilations, organized into thematic subject categories.
Nukhbat al-Fikar (in full: Nukhbat al-Fikar fi Mustalah Ahl al-Athar, "The Elite of Thoughts on the Terminology of the People of Hadith") is a concise primer on hadith terminology (mustalah al-hadith).
al-Zahr al-Nadr fi Hal al-Khidr (The Fresh Blossom on the State of al-Khidr) is a specialized hadith and biographical monograph dedicated to examining the identity, prophethood, and debated mortality of the enigmatic figure al-Khidr.
al-Ahadith al-Ashara al-Ashariya al-Ikhtiyariya (The Ten Selected Hadiths with Ten-Link Chains of Transmission) is a short hadith compilation (juz') focusing on ten elevated narrations transmitted through ten-tiered chains of transmission (asanid ashariya).
Itraf al-Musnad al-Mutali bi-Atraf al-Musnad al-Hanbali is a hadith indexing work (atraf) that compiles and organizes the narrations found in Ahmad ibn Hanbal's al-Musnad.
al-Majma al-Muassis lil-Mujam al-Mufahras (The Founding Collection for the Indexed Dictionary) is a comprehensive biographical dictionary of teachers and transmitted works.
Ta'jil al-Manfa'a bi-Zawa'id Rijal al-A'imma al-Arba'a is a specialized biographical dictionary of hadith transmitters. It compiles the narrators found in the primary hadith collections associated with the founders of the four Sunni schools of jurisprudence who were not already covered in standard biographical dictionaries of the Six Books.
al-Nukat ala Kitab Ibn al-Salah is a critical commentary on hadith methodology. It provides analytical marginalia and critical assessments (nukat) on Ibn al-Salah's foundational handbook Ma'rifat Anwa' Ilm al-Hadith (Muqaddimat Ibn al-Salah) as well as on Zayn al-Din al-Iraqi's related commentary al-Taqyid wa-l-Idah.
Muwafaqat al-Khabar al-Khabar fi Takhrij Ahadith al-Mukhtasar is a hadith work dedicated to authenticating and tracing the sources of narrations used in legal theory (usul al-fiqh). The book provides an extensive takhrij of the prophetic traditions and transmitted reports (athar) cited as legal evidence in Ibn al-Hajib's manual Mukhtasar al-Muntaha.
Tahdhib al-Tahdhib is a biographical dictionary of hadith transmitters dedicated to evaluating the narrators found in the six canonical Sunni hadith collections and their authors' supplemental works. It provides a focused, accessible reference concentrating on the criteria of hadith criticism and narrator evaluation.
Amali al-Adhkar fi Fadl Salat al-Tasbih is a hadith treatise dedicated to the detailed documentation, chains of transmission, and critical evaluation of narrations concerning the prayer of glorification (Salat al-Tasbih). Originating from dictation sessions, it systematically analyzes the transmission routes of the prayer across early compilations.
Also titled al-Imta bil-Arbaeen al-Mutabayinah bi-Shart al-Sama, this hadith collection contains forty traditions transmitted through completely distinct, directly heard chains of narration. Composed in 807 AH (1404–1405 CE), it incorporates commentary clarifying textual defects and resolving transmission weaknesses.
Intiqad al-I'tirad fi al-Radd ala al-Ayni fi Sharh al-Bukhari (Demolishing the Objections in Refutation of al-Ayni on the Commentary of al-Bukhari) is a polemical hadith treatise written to refute the critical objections raised by Badr al-Din al-Ayni against Fath al-Bari, a commentary on Sahih al-Bukhari.
al-Muntakhab min Amali Ibn Hajar min Takhrij Mukhtasar Ibn al-Hajib (Selected Dictations of Ibn Hajar on the Hadith Extraction of Ibn al-Hajib's Abridgment) is a manuscript work containing selections from dictation sessions devoted to evaluating the narrations cited in the legal theory treatise Mukhtasar Ibn al-Hajib.