Ali Hasan al-Halabi Biography

Shaykh Ali ibn Hasan ibn Ali ibn Abd al-Hamid al-Halabi al-Athari, kunya Abu al-Harith, was a Jordanian Salafi scholar, prolific author and editor of classical texts, and one of the senior students of the hadith master Muhammad Nasir al-Din al-Albani. Born on 29 Jumada al-Thani 1380 AH / December 1960 in the city of Zarqa in Jordan, he was of Palestinian descent — his father and grandfather having migrated from Jaffa to Jordan in 1948 — and his nisba 'al-Halabi' refers to an earlier family connection to Aleppo. He began his pursuit of religious knowledge in his teenage years and studied with leading Jordanian scholars, including the linguist and reciter Abd al-Wadud al-Zirari.

Al-Halabi's most decisive scholarly relationship was with Shaykh al-Albani himself, in whose company he remained for decades and to whom he became one of the principal students entrusted with tahqiq (critical editing and verification) of his teacher's manuscript work. He authored and edited more than 150 books across hadith verification, creed, manhaj, and the foundations of Salafi scholarship; he founded and served as principal editor of the journal al-Asalah; and he co-founded the Imam al-Albani Centre for Academic Researches and Methodological Studies in Jordan after his teacher's death. He was praised in his career by Shaykh al-Albani himself, by Shaykh Ibn Baz, and by Shaykh Muqbil al-Wadi'i.

Al-Halabi lectured extensively in Jordanian universities and mosques and travelled frequently to the United Kingdom, North America, France, the Netherlands, and Indonesia for da'wah work. He died of complications from COVID-19 on 15 November 2020 / 29 Rabi al-Awwal 1442 and was buried in Jordan next to his teacher al-Albani. His translated works in English continue to circulate widely among Salafi-oriented readers worldwide.