al-Mizzi
1256 CE–1341 CE · Damascus
Jamal al-Din Abu al-Hajjaj Yusuf ibn Abd al-Rahman al-Mizzi (654-742 AH / 1256-1341 CE) was one of the most influential specialists in hadith — the reports of the words and deeds of the Prophet Muhammad — in the Mamluk period. His family settled in the village of al-Mizza near Damascus, from which he took his name, and there he was educated in Qur'an and Islamic law (fiqh). Following the Shafi'i school of law, he devoted his career to the science of "knowledge of men" (ilm al-rijal), the critical study of the people who transmitted hadith so that genuine reports could be told from weak or fabricated ones.
His masterwork, Tahdhib al-Kamal fi Asma' al-Rijal, revised and greatly enlarged an earlier dictionary by Abd al-Ghani al-Maqdisi, gathering the life-notices of the narrators found in the Six Books — the canonical Sunni hadith collections. He also compiled Tuhfat al-Ashraf, an index organizing hadith by their narrators. In 718 AH he became head of the Dar al-Hadith al-Ashrafiyya, a leading hadith college in Damascus, holding the post until his death there.
Al-Mizzi was a close companion of the controversial theologian Ibn Taymiyya, and his association with him reportedly led to a brief imprisonment. In law he was unambiguously Shafi'i; his theological leanings were debated in his own lifetime and remain contested between Ash'ari and traditionalist (Athari) writers, so the site does not assert one. His students included the historian al-Dhahabi, the exegete Ibn Kathir, and Taj al-Din al-Subki.
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DamascusדמשקSyria
What they did here
Al-Mizzi was, per the dominant account (EI3), born near Aleppo in 654 AH / 1256 CE; in childhood his family moved to the village of al-Mizza on the outskirts of Damascus, from which he took his nisba (family name) al-Mizzi, and there he was raised and educated in Qur'an and fiqh. Al-Mizza is a suburb of Damascus and is mapped here under Damascus. (His birth near Aleppo is the dominant report; this stop covers his upbringing and lifelong base at al-Mizza/Damascus rather than his birthplace.)
About Damascus
Damascus, the capital of Syria, is among the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. It was the seat of the Aramean kingdom of Aram-Damascus and later a Roman city. According to the Book of Acts, Ananias received the newly converted Saul (Paul) there, and the city remains the seat of several Eastern churches. Damascus was the capital of the Umayyad caliphate from 661 to 750, and under the Seljuks, Ayyubids and Mamluks its many madrasas made it a leading centre of Islamic learning; it was under Ottoman rule from 1516. Jews lived there from at least Roman times, and the kabbalist Hayyim Vital settled in the city in 1594.
Across the traditions, in Damascus at the same time
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Across the traditions
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