The scholar, orator, and historian, Khateeb al-Baghdadi

Compiled By: Syed Ali Shahbaz
On 7th of the Islamic month of Zil-Hijjah in 363 AH, the scholar, orator, and historian, Ahmad ibn Ali ibn Thabet, known popularly as Khateeb al-Baghdadi, passed away in Baghdad at the age of 73.
Born near Baghdad, he was the son of a preacher of Darzidjan and began studying at an early age with his father and other scholars. Although he studied other sciences but his primary interest was hadith. At the age of 20 his father died and he went to Basra to collect hadith.
He then travelled east to Iran and made two trips to Nishapur in Khorasan, collecting in his journey more hadith in Rayy and Isfahan. Back in Baghdad, he acquired fame as a preacher and orator, and it is said that teachers and preachers of hadith would usually submit to him what they had collected before they used them in their lectures or sermons.
Initially a follower of the Hanbali School of jurisprudence, he switched over to the Shafe'i school – a change that made Hanbalis his bitter enemies and heap accusations against him. This sectarian hostility forced him to leave Iraq for Syria and settle in Damascus, where he preached for 8 years, and before returning to Baghdad, spent a year in Tyre, Lebanon.
He was a prolific writer and has authored several books, the most famous of which is the voluminous history titled "Tarikh al-Baghdad". He has quoted many of the hadith on the merits of the Holy Prophet's Ahl al-Bayt, especially Imam Ali (AS) and Hazrat Fatema Zahra (SA).