Second: reading and correction, which applies to the rest of the books.

The overarching goal of both the critical editions and the corrected readings was to produce an accurate, error-free text that approximates as closely as possible what the author himself left behind.

The works prepared as critical editions received particular attention: they were verified against the author’s manuscripts or recorded lessons; every Qur’anic verse, hadith, and poetic line was traced to its source; notable figures were given brief biographies; and doctrinal issues were annotated, along with all the other tasks normally required for a scholarly edition. The introductions to those volumes spare us the need to explain each title here.

With regard to the books that merely needed correction, the procedure was as follows:

• Aḍwāʾ al-Bayān:
Our work on this book proceeded as follows:
– For collation we relied on the edition printed during the Shaykh’s lifetime—may Allah have mercy on him—the Madani printing.
– We inserted the page numbers of that earlier edition into the margins of our own to facilitate cross-reference; this feature is unique to Aḍwāʾ al-Bayān.
– We corrected the multitude of typographical errors scattered throughout the work—especially in the poetic citations—and drew on the emendations that Shaykh ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sudays had noted in his personal copy.
– We reformatted the entire text afresh, dividing it into