The death of al-Hafiz Ibn Hajar al-ʿAsqalani

The Commander of the Faithful in hadith, Ahmad ibn ʿAli ibn Hajar al-ʿAsqalani — author of "Fath al-Bari," the commentary on Sahih al-Bukhari — died in Cairo and was carried in a funeral attended by the sultan, the caliph and tens of thousands under the rain.

Ibn Hajar was born in Egypt in 773 AH and grew up an orphan. He memorized the Qur'an at nine, and travelled for hadith to the Hijaz, Yemen and Syria until he surpassed the people of his age, and held the judgeship of Egypt several times and the dictation of hadith at the Citadel of the Mountain.

He wrote about a hundred and fifty works, foremost among them "Fath al-Bari," on which he spent a quarter of a century until it was said: there is no Hijra after the Fath — as well as "al-Isaba fi Tamyiz al-Sahaba," "Tahdhib al-Tahdhib," "Lisan al-Mizan," "Bulugh al-Maram" and "Nukhbat al-Fikar" — so he became the mainstay of hadith scholars after him.

He died on the night of Saturday 28 Dhu'l-Hijja 852 AH, so Cairo shut its markets, and at his funeral came the caliph, the sultan, the judges and multitudes estimated at fifty thousand while the rain fell, until it was said: the sky sprinkled its tears at the loss of the hafiz.