Ibn Taymiyya was born in 1263 at Harran into a well-known family of theologians and died in Damascus, Syria, outside of the Muslim cemetery. His grandfather, Abu al-Barkat Majd ad-deen ibn Taymiyyah al-Hanbali (d. 1255) was a reputable teacher of the Hanbali school of law. Likewise, the scholarly achievements of ibn Taymiyyah's father, Shihab al-deen 'Abd al-Haleem ibn Taymiyyah (d. 1284) were well known. Because of the Mongol invasion, ibn Taymiyyah's family moved to Damascus in 1268 , which was then ruled by the Mamluks of Egypt. It was here that his father delivered sermons from the pulpit of the Umayyad Mosque, and ibn Taymiyyah followed in his footsteps by studying with the great scholars of his time, among them a woman scholar by the name Zaynab bint Makki from whom he learned Hadith.
Ibn Taymiyyah was an industrious student and acquainted himself with the secular and religious sciences of his time. He devoted special attention to Arabic literature and gained mastery over grammar and lexicography as well as studying mathematics and calligraphy. His scholarly zeal combined with his intense partisanship and hypergraphia led many contemporaries and later observers, most notably Ibn Battuta to consider him mentally unbalanced.^[5]
As for the religious sciences, he studied jurisprudence from his father and became a representative of the Hanbali school of thought. Though he remained faithful throughout his life to that school, whose doctrines he had decisively mastered, he also acquired an extensive knowledge of the Islamic disciplines of the Qur'an and the Hadith. He also studied theology (kalam), philosophy, and Sufism,^[6]. He also refuted the Shia as well as the Christians. His student Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya authored the famous poem "O Christ-Worshipper" which unapologetically examined the dogma of the Trinity propounded by many Christian sects.
His troubles with government began when he went with a delegation of ulamaa to talk to Ghazan Khan, the Khan of the Mongol Ilkhans in Iran, to stop his attack on the Muslims. It is reported that not one of the ulamaa dared to say anything to the Khan except Ibn Taymiyyah who said: "You claim that you are Muslim and you have with you Mu'adhdhins, Muftis, Imams and Shaykhs but you invaded us and reached our country for what? While your father and your grandfather, Hulagu were non-believers, they did not attack and they kept their promise. But you promised and broke your promise.