Ibn Asakir ابن عساكر الدمشقي

Ibn Asakir rahimahullah - Abu al-Qasim Ali ibn al-Hasan ibn Asakir al-Dimashqi (499-571 AH / 1105-1176 CE) - was the supreme hadith scholar and historian of his era in the Levant. Born in Damascus into a distinguished scholarly family, he pursued an extensive scholarly journey across the Islamic world to study under the leading hadith transmitters of his time, amassing an enormous chain of transmission. A Shafi'i in jurisprudence and an Ash'ari in kalam, he returned to Damascus and devoted decades to teaching and composing what became some of the most voluminous works in Islamic historiographical literature. His magnum opus, 'Tarikh Madinat Dimashq,' is a biographical history of Damascus encompassing approximately 80 volumes and recording the lives of tens of thousands of individuals associated with the city - one of the largest single works in the Arabic manuscript tradition. He also composed 'Tabyin Kadhib al-Muftari fima Nusiba ila al-Imam al-Ash'ari,' a rigorous historical and hadith-based defense of the Ash'ari school against allegations leveled in his century, and 'al-Arba'in fi al-Hathth ala al-Jihad,' a hadith collection of forty narrations. He was recognized in his lifetime as the Hafiz - master hadith scholar - of Syria.