Who is Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah, and when were his birth and death, and what was his upbringing like?

Sheikh al-Islam is Taqī ad-Dīn Abu al-ʿAbbās Ahmad ibn ʿAbd al-Halīm ibn ʿAbd as-Salām ibn Taymiyyah al-Harrānī. He was born in Harran in the year 661 AH and moved with his father to Damascus, settling there in 667 AH. He acquired knowledge from his father and other scholars of his era. He was distinguished by his strong memory, quick perception, punctuality, powerful influence and argumentation, profound knowledge in both transmitted and rational sciences, his jihad with the sword and through argument, and his enjoining of good and forbidding of evil. He held unique scholarly and practical positions which caused him several trials and imprisonments, among them his prohibition of undertaking journeys specifically to visit the grave of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), and his view that a triple divorce pronounced in a single utterance does not count as three. He passed away, may Allah have mercy on him, in prison at the Damascus Citadel on Monday, the ninth of Jumada al-Akhira, in the year 728 AH.