Zakariyya al-Ansari

Who is Zakariyya al-Ansari?

Zakariyyā al-Ansārī was a leading Islamic scholar of the 15th century. He was born in or around 1420 CE, in Sunaika, located in the Egyptian province of Sharqiyya. During his adolescence, al- Ansārī moved to Cairo to study at al-Azhar University. He lived in such poverty there, that he would venture out into the night in search of water faucets and the rinds of watermelon. However, according to al-Ansārī’s own account, after a few years at al-Azhar, a mill worker came to his aid. He provided the young al-Ansārī with money for his food, clothing and books. al-Ansārī told of a remarkable encounter with his benefactor told him,

Eventually, this foretelling would prove to be accurate. While a student, al- Ansārī studied under al-Qāyāti, Ibn Hajar al-Asqalāni, Jalāl al-Dīn al Mahallī and Sharaf al-Din al Munawi.

Zakariyyā al-Ansārī held the office of Shāfi’ī qādī for a twenty-year period during the reign of Qā’it Bey. Over the course of his lifetime, al-Ansārī spent eighty years engaged as a teacher and muftī. One of al-Ansārī students was al-Sha’rānī, who was responsible for much of the information that survives in regards to the life of al-Ansārī. Of his teacher, al-Sha’rānī wrote that al-Ansārī was, “a pillar of the fiqh and the tasawwuf”.