He was born in Baghdad in 1162 from an upper class family originating from Mosul and spent his formative years in Baghdad until 1189. In the years of his youth in Baghdad he studied Islamic sciences and medicine with many renowned scholars of his time, including Kamal ad-Din ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Anbari (d.1181), a professor of fiqh (law), adab-literature, hadith (traditions) and Arabic grammar at the Nizamiyya madrasa, Wagih al-Wasiti (d.1215), a professor at the Zafariyya Mosque, Ibn Fadlan (d.1199), an outstanding legal scholar versed in the khilaf (divergence of the law) and dialectic, and leader of the Shafi‘is in Iraq, ‘Abd Allah ibn Ahmad ibn al-Khashshab (d.1171), master of hadith, grammarian, mathematician, expert in fara’id (hereditary law) and nasab (genealogy), Radi al-Dawla Abu Nasr (d.ca.1182), son of the well-known physician Amin al-Dawla Ibn al-Tilmidh, professor of medical subjects.