Abdul-Qadir Gilani
Ibn Qudamah was born in Palestine in Jammain, a town near Jerusalem ("Bayt al-Maqdīs" in the Arabic vernacular, whence his extended name), in 1147 to the revered Hanbali preacher and mystic Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Qudāmah (d. 1162), "a man known for his asceticism" and in whose honor "a mosque was [later] built in Damascus." Having received the first phase of his education in Damascus, where he studied the Quran and the hadith extensively, Ibn Qudamah made his first trip to Baghdad in 1166, in order to study law and Sufi mysticism under the tutelage of the renowned Hanbali mystic and jurist Abdul-Qadir Gilani (d. ca. 1167), who would go on to become one of the most widely venerated saints in all of Sunni Islam. Although Ibn Qudamah's "discipleship was cut short by the latter’s death ... [the] experience [of studying under Abdul-Qadir Gilani] ... had its influence on the young" scholar, "who was to reserve a special place in his heart for mystics and mysticism" for the rest of his life.