faqir
20-06-2006, 10:34 AM
From the Reliance of the Traveller pg 1111/2:
x385 (Sheikh al-Islam) Zakariyya Ansari (o16.6) is Zakariyya ibn Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Zakariyya, Abu Yahya Sheikh al-Islam al-Ansari, born in Sanika, Egypt, in 823/1420. Known as the Sheikh of Sheikhs, he was the Shafi’i scholar of his time, a hadith master (hafiz), judge, and Koranic exegete. He was educated in Cairo in circumstances of such poverty that the used to have to leave the mosque by night to look for watermelon rinds, which he would wash and eat. When his knowledge later won him fame and recognition, he was to receive so many gifts that his income before his appointment to the judiciary amounted to nearly three thousand dirhams a day, which he spent to gather books, teach, and give financial help to the students with him. When Sultan Quytubay al-Jurkasi appointed him as head of the judiciary in Cairo, he accepted the post with reluctance after being repeatedly asked, but when the sultan later committed a wrong act and he sent him a letter upbraiding him, the sultan dismissed him and he returned to teaching. He authored works in Sacred Law, the sciences of the Koran and hadith, logic, Arabic, fundamentals of jurisprudence, and Sufism, and was the sheikh of Imam Ibn Hajar Haytami. He died in 926/1520 at one hundred years of age (al-‘Alam y136), 3.46).
x385 (Sheikh al-Islam) Zakariyya Ansari (o16.6) is Zakariyya ibn Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Zakariyya, Abu Yahya Sheikh al-Islam al-Ansari, born in Sanika, Egypt, in 823/1420. Known as the Sheikh of Sheikhs, he was the Shafi’i scholar of his time, a hadith master (hafiz), judge, and Koranic exegete. He was educated in Cairo in circumstances of such poverty that the used to have to leave the mosque by night to look for watermelon rinds, which he would wash and eat. When his knowledge later won him fame and recognition, he was to receive so many gifts that his income before his appointment to the judiciary amounted to nearly three thousand dirhams a day, which he spent to gather books, teach, and give financial help to the students with him. When Sultan Quytubay al-Jurkasi appointed him as head of the judiciary in Cairo, he accepted the post with reluctance after being repeatedly asked, but when the sultan later committed a wrong act and he sent him a letter upbraiding him, the sultan dismissed him and he returned to teaching. He authored works in Sacred Law, the sciences of the Koran and hadith, logic, Arabic, fundamentals of jurisprudence, and Sufism, and was the sheikh of Imam Ibn Hajar Haytami. He died in 926/1520 at one hundred years of age (al-‘Alam y136), 3.46).