Muhammad ibn Abu Bakr (more commonly known as Ibn Qayyim or Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah) (1292-1350CE / 691 AH- 751 AH) was a famous Sunni Islamic jurist, commentator on the Qur'an, astronomer, chemist, philosopher, psychologist, scientist and theologian. Although he is commonly referred to as "the scholar of the heart, given his extensive works pertaining to human behavior and ethics, Ibn Qayyim's scholarship was focused on the sciences of Hadith and Fiqh.
Biography
bn Qayyim was born on the 7th of the Islamic month Safar in the year 691 A.H. (circa Feb. 4, 1292) in the village of Izra' in Hauran, near Damascus, Syria. There is little known of his childhood except that he received a comprehensive Islamic education from his father, centered around Islamic jurisprudence, Islamic theology, and Ulum al-Hadith (lit. the science of Hadith) From an early age, he was interested in the field of Islamic sciences, learning from the scholars of his time. He studied under his father who was a principal at of the Madrasah al-Jawziyyah (lit. the Jawziyyah school) in Damascus, and thereafter pursued his quest for knowledge, studying the works and teachings of scholars known in his time.
The Islamic scholar Ibn Kathir described Ibn Qayyim's desire for knowledge in his famous work Al-Bidayah wa al-Nihayah:
He acquired from such books what others could not acquire, and he developed a deep understanding of the books of the Salaf (pious predecessors) and of the khalaf (those who came after the Salaf).
Teachers
Ibn Qayyim's teachers included his father, Abu Bakr, Shihaab al-'Abir, Taqiyyud-Deen Sulaymaan, Safiyyud-Deen al-Hindee, Ismaa'eel Ibn Muhammad al-Harraanee. However, the most notable of his teachers was Shaykhul-lslaam Ibn Taymiyyah, whom he accompanied and studied under for sixteen years.
In eulogizing Ibn Qayyim, Al-Hafidh Ibn Kathir stated:
He attained great proficiency in many branches of knowledge; particularly knowledge of tafsir, hadith, and usool. When Shaykh Taqiyyud-Deen Ibn Taymiyyah returned from Egypt in the year 712H (c. 1312), he stayed with the Shaykh until he died; learning a great deal of knowledge from him, along with the knowledge that he had already occupied himself in attaining. So he became a single Scholar in many branches of knowledge.[8]
