At a glance
- Era
- The Crusades, Ayyubids and Mamluks
- Region
- Levant & Iraq
- Review
- Completeness 1/5 · Help complete it
In time
In space
Map: Natural Earth, public domain · places and route from the graph
Overview
A film settled over al-Dhahabi's eyes: he would recognise it, and the sight weakened little by little until it was wholly gone, and he grew angry when told 'if your eye were needled you would see', for it was not a needlable cataract 1. The Encyclopaedia of Islam, after Abu al-Fida and Umar ibn al-Wardi, dates the blindness to 743, or by others to 741 2; even so he kept at his studies night and day and kept composing.
Connections
- Had participant
- al-Dhahabi
- Occurred at
- Damascus
People and things also explored
Al-Dhahabi begins the study of hadith at Damascus, 690/1291· Al-Dhahabi heads a reading session at the Umayyad Mosque, Muharram 700/1300· Al-Dhahabi composes Tarikh al-Islam and his great compilations, c. 730/1330· Al-Dhahabi, professor of hadith at Umm al-Salih and al-Nafisiyya, c. 710/1310· Al-Dhahabi is born at Damascus, 673/1274· Death of Shams al-Din al-Dhahabi at Damascus, 748/1348· Ghazan's devastation of Syria, 699· Ghazan's Campaign against Syria, 700 AH
Sources
- Al-Durar al-Kamina fi A'yan al-Mi'a al-Thamina — Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani (Dar al-Jil, Beirut) , 3/338
- Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edition (Leiden: Brill, 1954–2008), 13 volumes , vol. 2 p. 215
Cite this page
islam.museum contributors. “Al-Dhahabi gradually loses his sight, 743/1342”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/event/al-dhahabi-blindness-743/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Last updated 2026-11-01.