Qadi al-Fadil received his basic education at his home town, before moving to Cairo in , where, at the initiative of his father, he entered the chancery () of the Fatimid Caliphate as a trainee. The long-serving head of the chancery, Ibn Khallal, became his patron during his subsequent career. This training included administrative practice and especially the arts of epistolary and secretarial writing. Despite his own title of , however, it is unclear whether Qadi al-Fadil also received judicial education at any point. The title was common for officials in the Fatimid administration as a honorific, and under the Isma'ili Shi'a Fatimid regime, there were no Sunni schools in Cairo where he, as a Sunni, might have acquired the necessary training.
