771/1370) in his Tabaqat al-Shafi`iyya al-Kubra (Comprehensive Biographical dictionary of Shafi'ites) that a condition to teach at the al-Ashrafiyya was to be Ash'ari in ' aqida.

He belonged to the Shafi'i school of Islamic jurisprudence and was a professor of Hadith at the House of Hadith known as ' Dar al-Hadith al-Ashrafiyya' which was exclusively established for those aligned to the Ash'ari school of creed, as mentioned by Taj al-Din al-Subki (d.His creed in modern times has been a subject of disagreement between the Ash'aris and the Salafists.Īsh'aris claim him to be their own citing:

He was buried next to his teacher Ibn Taymiyya. He died in February 1373 ( AH 774) in Damascus. He attributes his blindness to working late at night on the Musnad of Ahmad Ibn Hanbal in an attempt to rearrange it topically rather than by narrator. In 1366, he rose to a professorial position at the Great Mosque of Damascus. In 1345 he was made preacher ( khatib) at a newly built mosque in Mizza, the hometown of his father-in-law. He married the daughter of Al-Mizzi, one of the foremost Syrian scholars of the period, which gave him access to the scholarly elite.

Upon completion of his studies he obtained his first official appointment in 1341, when he joined an inquisitorial commission formed to determine certain questions of heresy. He was taught by Ibn Taymiyya and Al-Dhahabi. He was born in Mijdal, a village on the outskirts of the city of Busra, in the east of Damascus, Syria, around about AH 701 (AD 1300/1). His family trace its lineage back to the tribe of Quraysh.

Surah taha with urdu translation