Ibn 'Asakir returns to Damascus and begins public dictation, 533-535/1139-1141

عودة ابن عساكر إلى دمشق وبدؤه الإملاء والتحديث، ٥٣٣-٥٣٥هـ/١١٣٩-١١٤١م

1139 CE · 533 AH – 1141 CE · 535 AH

Baghdad → Damascus

Ibn 'Asakir passed through Baghdad in 533/1139 and reached Damascus two years later 1. Of his resolve to teach hadith he said: he sought the permission of his senior shaykhs and the notables of the town, and every one answered 'who has a better right to this than you?' — so he began dictating in 533 2. From the days of Mu'in al-Din Anar onward he never again left his native city, devoting forty years to learning 1.

Depth

At a glance

Era
The Crusades, Ayyubids and Mamluks
Region
Levant & Iraq

In time

113011401150
The Buyid, Fatimid and Seljuk Era · The Crusades, Ayyubids and Mamluks

In space

BaghdadDamascus

Map: Natural Earth, public domain · places and route from the graph

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Had participant
Ibn 'Asakir
Occurred at
Baghdad· Damascus

People and things also explored

Death of Nur al-Din Mahmud· Ibn 'Asakir travels to Baghdad with his brother and stays five years, 520/1126· Ibn 'Asakir is born in Damascus at the opening of 499/1105· Nur al-Din takes Damascus and builds the first Dar al-Hadith for Ibn 'Asakir, 549/1154· Ibn 'Asakir dies and is buried at Bab al-Saghir, 11 Rajab 571/25 January 1176· Ibn 'Asakir writes Fadl 'Asqalan and the Arba'in on jihad after the fall of Ascalon, 548/1153· Ibn 'Asakir's first hadith hearings under his brother al-Sa'in at the Umayyad Mosque, c. 505/1111· Ibn 'Asakir returns to Damascus in the year of Taj al-Mulk Buri's assassination, 525/1131

Sources

  1. Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edition (Leiden: Brill, 1954–2008), 13 volumes , vol. 3 p. 746
  2. Tarikh al-Islam wa-Wafayat al-Mashahir wa-l-A'lam — al-Dhahabi , p. 79
Cite this page

islam.museum contributors. “Ibn 'Asakir returns to Damascus and begins public dictation, 533-535/1139-1141”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/event/ibn-asakir-return-damascus-533/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Last updated 2026-11-02.

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People

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Related

Death of Nur al-Din Mahmud

Death of Nur al-Din Mahmud ibn Zangi, lord of Syria, the Jazira and Egypt's overlord — Wednesday 11 Shawwal 569, of quinsy, in the small prayer-cell he kept in Damascus citadel; refusing cupping ('a man of sixty is not bled'), buried in the citadel then translated to his madrasa by Suq al-Khawwassin. He had been mustering armies from Mosul and the Jazira to take Egypt from Saladin when death overtook him. Ibn al-Athir's verdict: after the Rashidun and Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz he read of no king's conduct finer or more scrupulous in justice.