Damascus was first in many things, including the founding of schools of the Qur'an, hadith, fiqh, medicine and more. With its fine location and climate, and its people's love of knowledge and scholars, it drew men of learning who came to teach and to learn. Historians and researchers have written much about Damascus, past and present, yet the Arabic library still lacks a work that does it full justice.
In this blessed comprehensive work the author gives biographies of the notables of Damascus from the first to the tenth century AH, describing their lives, works and legacies, with great effort drawn from the famous sources such as Ibn Asakir's Tarikh Dimashq and al-Dhahabi's Tarikh al-Islam. To give a complete picture of the city's history, he devotes biographies to its rulers and judges at the start of each century, a chapter on the virtues of Damascus and its Ghutah and the reports about them, and important additions on its nature, buildings, quarters, inhabitants and its political and historical development over the centuries.
