the lofty, royal, Ẓāhirī—its entire contents along with the volumes that follow it up to the end of the book, their number being twelve consecutive volumes, from this volume through the end of the fourteenth….”

Consider his wording: “up to the end of the book,” and again, “through the end of the fourteenth.”

It is perfectly clear that the waqf deed does not state that the fourteenth volume is an appendix to Siyar Aʿlām al-Nubalāʾ, as the distinguished Dr. Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-Munajjid supposed.

4 – It has long been the practice of copyists—or authors, or both—to indicate explicitly when a book comes to an end. Yet when we read the close of the thirteenth volume we find no such sign, either from the author or from the copyist, that the work is finished. I have observed that al-Dhahabī, may Allah have mercy on him, invariably writes a concluding note at the end of his books; why should he depart from that habit in this one? As for the copyist, the phrases he employs at the end of the thirteenth volume give no hint whatsoever that this is the final volume; they are identical to the formulas used at the end of the other volumes (1).

Third – The arrangement of the book:
Al-Dhahabī organized Siyar according to generational strata (ṭabaqāt), producing roughly forty tiers. The material that appears at the end of the thirteenth volume in Ibn Ṭughān’s copy marks the close of that particular stratum.