Zechariah Dhahiri
Zechariah (Yaḥya) al-Ḍāhirī (, , b. "circa" 1531 – d. 1608), often spelled Zechariah al-Dhahiri () (16th century Yemen), was the son of Saʻīd (Saʻadia) al-Ḍāhirī, from Kawkaban, in the District of al-Mahwit, Yemen, a place north-west of Sana’a. He is recognized as one of the most gifted Yemenite Jewish poets and rabbinic scholars who left Yemen in search of a better livelihood, travelling to Calicut and Cochin in India, Hormuz in Persia, Basra and Irbīl in Babylonia, Bursa and Istanbul in Anatolia, Rome in Italy, Aleppo and Damascus in Syria, Safed and Tiberias, as well as Jerusalem and Hebron in the Land of Israel (then part of Ottoman Syria), Sidon in Ottoman Lebanon and Egypt, and finally unto Abyssinia where he returned to Yemen by crossing the Erythraean Sea and alighting at a port city near Mocha, Yemen. He wrote extensively about his travels and experiences in these places, which he penned in a Hebrew rhymed prose narrative, and eventually publishing them in a book which he called Sefer Ha-Mūsar ("The Book of Moral Instruction"), in circa 1580.
Zakariyya al-Ansari
Zakariyyā al-Ansārī was a leading Islamic scholar of the 15th century. He was born in or around 1420 CE, in Sunaika, located in the Egyptian province of Sharqiyya. During his adolescence, al- Ansārī moved to Cairo to study at al-Azhar University. He lived in such poverty there, that he would venture out into the night in search of water faucets and the rinds of watermelon. However, according to al-Ansārī’s own account, after a few years at al-Azhar, a mill worker came to his aid. He provided the young al-Ansārī with money for his food, clothing and books. al-Ansārī told of a remarkable encounter with his benefactor told him,
Eventually, this foretelling would prove to be accurate. While a student, al- Ansārī studied under al-Qāyāti, Ibn Hajar al-Asqalāni, Jalāl al-Dīn al Mahallī and Sharaf al-Din al Munawi.